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To: annalex
Where do you see the patristic Catholic Christian reading of the Creation depart from the rabbinical?

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.

11 posted on 02/04/2014 6:17:47 PM PST by Carry_Okie (0-Care IS Medicaid; they'll pull a sheet over your head and take everything you own to pay for it.)
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To: Carry_Okie
OK. I was doing some research, just a few days ago, around the first paragraph of Hebrews 4 and I wanted if perhaps you can reinforce or destroy the meaning as I see it.

Ah, and now that I have your attention. Psalm 94 (I use Douay numbering) does not really have "not" as in "not enter". Do you understand "אם־יבאון" grammatically? The Greeks translated that as "if" and St. Paul also says "if" even though most English translations "correct" it back to "not", often without consistency between the psalm and Hebrews 4.

I am not aware of anything significant in the philosophy of nature among the patristic writings. I simply mentioned a few of the fathers of the Church at random, in order to place the conversation in the early undivided Church brackets, because surely during the so-called enlightenment a lot of stuff was written of questionable probity, stuff that drove the wedge between science and religion.

Are you familiar with Raymond of Sabunde? That would be enlightenment-period Catholic that stood against the tide.

It is a fascinating topic.

13 posted on 02/04/2014 6:50:58 PM PST by annalex (fear them not)
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