The pun went unnoticed in my case. “Urban legend” is such a common meme that it is hard to read the two words as they are.
Now, to the subject matter. Perhaps it is obvious to you, but to me it is not. Where do you see the patristic Catholic Christian reading of the Creation depart from the rabbinical?
I understand that there are modernizers in modern Catholicism, and I understand that a Christian will see in the Old Testament numerous prefigurements of Christ, that a Jew would say are not there. But where do you see a philosophical difference between someone like St. Paul, Irenaeus or Origen, and the rabbis contemporary to them, on the character and place of nature?
I understand one distinction. If one reads the Old Testament alone, he will see the nature at rest, because God rests. But a Christian knows that God is not resting: he gave us His daily presence in order to “make all things new”. That seems to be the point of Hebrews 4:1-11. But St. Paul is quoting Psalm 94/95:11, “I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest”. So it would be difficult for me to derive a philosophical difference from a passage in New Testament that quotes the Old over the matter of which day is more properly the Sabbath. Could you point to more distinctives like that?
In main, I don't. That is part of the irony insofar as the philosophes (as Gay called them) are concerned.
I understand that there are modernizers in modern Catholicism, and I understand that a Christian will see in the Old Testament numerous prefigurements of Christ, that a Jew would say are not there.
I just wish more Christians would see Judaism in what Christ taught, but I digress... The best source on that insofar as Paul is concerned is Marc Nanos' book, The Mystery of Romans.
But where do you see a philosophical difference between someone like St. Paul, Irenaeus or Origen, and the rabbis contemporary to them, on the character and place of nature?
I am not familiar with either Irenaeus or Origen.
If you want my frank opinion, I see the bulk of Christ's ecclesia as stuck in a mistaken paradigm going back to Ezra. I just completed a section for the rewrite of my second book on the Sabbath Year discussing the fact that one can take a more literal interpretation of the Hebrew in Genesis and find it all over the place in the archaeological and geophysical record, but only if one recognizes it as the product of a pastoral nomad (you know, those guys the Lord was the first to inform upon the birth of Messiah). I ended up reading about 80 papers on the topics of climatology, geophysics, and anthropology as applies to the desertification in the Sahara per the Cain and Abel story as I've translated it. It's a shocker: measurable reality and recorded history confirm the Torah as written by Moses, although the aleph-bet at the time may have read from left to right!
So it would be difficult for me to derive a philosophical difference from a passage in New Testament that quotes the Old over the matter of which day is more properly the Sabbath.
First of all, almost NOBODY keeps the Sabbath rigorously as instructed in Ex. 16:29, and almost every rabbi in Judaism would have a fit if they did. I don't hold that the Sabbath could be any other day than the seventh. If however one wishes to celebrate the Lord's resurrection on Sunday, go for it. One reasonably takes into consideration Paul's discussions about food suggesting not creating offense over matters less important than "the weightier matters of the Law," justice, mercy, and faith. I hope that addresses at least that part of your question upon which I might be qualified to comment.