Posted on 04/03/2013 3:43:07 PM PDT by NYer
Q: Okay, so what is the Christian account of how revelation occurred?
As Elmer Fudd might say, “Vewy, vewy swowly.” Divine revelation didn’t happen in a blinding flash—such as God dropping the Summa Theologiae on top of a mountain and waiting for people to invent the Latin language so they could read it. (Though He could have given them magical spectacles that would translate it for them….) It seems that God preferred to slowly unfold His personality and His will for us through the course of tangled, messy human history. We might wonder why, and call up the divine customer service line to ask why in heck human nature arrived in the mail without the instructions. I don’t pretend to know what He was thinking here, but I find it aesthetically fitting that our knowledge of God evolved in much the way that animal species did, over a long time and by fits and starts, with sudden leaps whenever God saw fit, until finally the world was ready to receive the final product: in creation, man, in revelation, the Son of Man. God seems to prefer planting seeds to winding up robots.
So we start with traces of a primitive monotheism among some scattered peoples of the world—which might have been long-faded memories of what Adam told his children about the whole “apple incident,” combined with crude deductions that boil down to “Nothing comes from nothing.” But mankind pretty much wandered around with no more than that for quite some time, and this was when he employed the inductive method to discover the hemorrhoid god.
The first incident in Jewish-Christian scriptures that suggests God revealed Himself to us after that is the rather discouraging narrative of Noah. According to the story, the human race went so wrong so fast that God decided to backspace over most of it, leaving only a single righteous family, trapped on a stinky boat with way too many pets. When they landed, they had no more idea of what to do with themselves than the cast of Gilligan’s Island, so God gave them instructions: We call this the Covenant of Noah. The Jews believe that these are the only commandments God gave to the Gentiles—7 of them, instead of 613—and that the rest of us can please God just by keeping them. That’s the reason that Jews don’t generally try to make converts. (Who are we to run around making things harder for people? Feh!) The Jewish Talmud enumerates the 7 laws of Noah as follows:
Most of this sounds fairly obvious and commonsensical—though we might wonder why it was necessary to tell people to stop pulling off pieces of live animals and eating them. They must have gotten into some pretty bad habits while they were still stuck on that ark.
Q: That ark must have been the size of Alabama…
I know, I know.
Q. …to fit all those elephants, hippos, rhinos, tree sloths, polar bears, gorillas, lions and moose…
Okay, smart guy.
Q. …not to mention breeding pairs of more than 1,000,000 species of insects. Sure they’re mostly small, but those creepy-crawlies add up.
Spoken like a true-believing member of Campus Crusade for Cthulu, complete with a bad case of acne and involuntary celibacy. Maybe you should focus on Onan instead of Noah.
Look, there’s a reason why Catholics don’t read the bible in an exclusively literal sense, and haven’t since the time of Origen (+253). The Church looks at the books of scripture according to the genres in which they were written (history, allegory, wisdom, prophecy, and so on). And this story, clearly, was intended as allegory—which means that on top of some historical content (and there’s flotsam from flood-narratives in the basement of most ancient cultures) the writer piled up details to make a point. Unlike liberal Protestants, we don’t use this principle to explain away Jesus’ miracles and the moral law. Nor are we fundamentalists who take everything in the bible literally—except for “This is my body,” (Luke 22: 19) “Thou art Peter,” (Matthew 16: 18) and “No, your pastor can’t get divorced.” (Cleopatra 7: 14) The Church responded to biblical criticism with appropriate skepticism at first, and accepted the useful parts (like reading original languages and looking for ancient manuscripts), without throwing out the traditional mode of reading the bible in light of how the Church Fathers traditionally understood it.
Q. Why should the Church be the interpreter of the bible?
In the case of the New Testament, the Church had transcribed the books; shouldn’t we own the copyright to our own memoirs? When the list of accepted gospels and epistles was drawn up, there were more surplus candidates milling around than in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, before a primary—some of them inspirational but probably inauthentic, like the Protoevangelium that tells the story of Mary’s childhood; others creepily gnostic, like the “Gospel of Thomas,” which has Jesus using His “superpowers” to wreak revenge on His schoolmates. (That gospel is always popular, since it shows Jesus doing exactly what each of us would really do in His place.) The decision on which books were divinely inspired was based largely on the evidence of the liturgy: which books had been used in churches for services in the most places for the longest. As I like to tell Jehovah’s Witnesses who come to my door: that bible you’re waving at me was codified by a council of Catholic bishops who prayed to Mary and the saints, baptized infants, and venerated the Eucharist. So you could say that as the original, earthly author and editor, the Church has a better claim of knowing how to read it than the reporters at National Geographic—who every Christmas or Easter discover some new and tantalizing scrap of papyrus containing gnostic sex magic tips or Judas’ “To-do” list.
In the case of the Old Testament, the Church draws heavily on how Jews traditionally read their own scriptures—but with one important and obvious difference. We are the descendants of the faction of Jews who accepted Christ as the Messiah and evangelized the gentiles, all the while considering themselves the “faithful remnant” who’d remained true to the faith of Abraham. So we see throughout the Old Testament foreshadowings of Christ, for instance in Abraham’s sacrifice, and Isaiah’s references to the “suffering servant.” The Jews who were skeptical of Jesus believed that they were heroically resisting a blasphemous false prophet who’d tempted them to idolatry. As the Church spread and gained political clout, and Christians began to shamefully mistreat the people from whom they’d gotten monotheism in the first place, there surely was genuine heroism entailed in standing firm. I often wonder how many Jews would be drawn to Jesus if they could separate Him from the sins committed against their great-grandparents in His name….
The version of the Old Testament that Catholics and Orthodox use is different from what Jews use today. Our version, based on the Septuagint translation into Greek, is somewhat longer, and includes some later documents that Jews accepted right up to the time Saint Paul converted—books that illustrate a lot of the mature developments in Judaism which led up to the coming of Christ. The very fact that Christian apostles were using these books may have led the rabbis to eventually reject them. (Since the biblical references to Purgatory can be found in these books, Martin Luther and the Anglicans also excluded them.) Ironically, the Book of Maccabees exists in Catholic bibles but not Jewish ones, and right up until Vatican II we had a Feast of the Maccabees—which means that you could call Chanukah a Catholic holiday. But don’t tell the judges in New York City, or they’ll pull all the menorahs out of the schools.
If by consensus you mean the belief of the majority of Jews, in the several centuries preceding the birth of Christ and the subsequent two centuries the vast majority of Jews were Greek speakers living outside of Israel. Alexandria alone had a larger Jewish population that all of the territory that comprises modern Israel comprised almost exclusively of Greek speakers. For the consensus of the Jews Hebrew was then as it is now, largely a ceremonial language.
Peace be with you.
“I can’t judge these people. I don’t know their hearts. How is it that you seem to know there hearts?”
I am not speaking of any individual, I’ve named no person in particular, so their are no hearts to know. However, there are cases, and I believe the hypothetical one that I have laid out fits, where we most certainly can make judgements based on outward evidences as to the state of grace they are in. If they are not only producing bad fruit, but doing so continuously, then the tree can’t be good. Don’t priests judge sometimes, by these outward signs, that some are not repentant, and can’t be absolved?
Catechism 1430:
“Jesus’ call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes,” fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.”
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm
So, I would say, if someone is a serial abuser, for years on end, there are no visible signs of interior conversion. Their penance is false.
Yes, but if the argument is that the prior compilers have special authority over the compiled work, then you can’t simply rest with what the Jews of one period held to. You must acknowledge what they hold to today, or the argument is hypocritical.
Yes, it seems evident that it’s an argument of convenience, and not principle. They might as well just say that they hold to the canon they do on church authority, and leave it at that, but that is not a convincing argument to use if you want to level a charge against Protestants.
I heed Paul’s warning to the Corinthians regarding those who preach “another Jesus”.
So now our argument over who speaks for the Christians we now must first argue who speaks for the Jews? Who does speak for the Jews?
Peace be to you
Protestants canonize scripture that is beyond dispute as scripture. Catholics take a broader approach and include some scripture that has been disputed historically, by Jews in some instances, and by some early Christians of note in others.
I can accept that without rancor. The disputed books were after all deemed good for edification even if not scripture by Protestants. Still are. What I have difficulty allowing to pass without comment is the frequent partisan claim that Protestants somehow just up and decided to cut out certain books of scripture, when in fact these had always been disputed as such in some quarters.
Where’s the documentary evidence for this thesis?
“So now our argument over who speaks for the Christians we now must first argue who speaks for the Jews? Who does speak for the Jews?”
Well, that’s a whole new knot to untangle for sure. It doesn’t matter much to me, since I don’t hold that Jews have some special authority to determine Scripture. Yet, if you want to claim the Catholics “own” the Bible, then by the same reasoning the Jews “own” the OT, so it seems you should find out what their opinion is on the matter. Can you cite even one modern Jewish group that holds to the apocrypha as support for your inclusion? That would be a start.
That’s not a thesis, it’s an observation on the inconsistency of the argument being made. You don’t need to cite evidence to point out basic failures of logic.
“What I have difficulty allowing to pass without comment is the frequent partisan claim that Protestants somehow just up and decided to cut out certain books of scripture, when in fact these had always been disputed as such in some quarters.”
Yeah, that was really my original point. The false accusation serves no constructive purpose, especially if we ever hope to reconcile on any of these matters in the future.
Here’s the problem. The actual document evidence argues against this thesis. Since documents trump the rest of it, what does that leave you?
“I can accept that without rancor.”
Of course you can since it’s your own position.
“pass without comment is the frequent partisan claim that Protestants somehow just up and decided to cut out certain books”
And from something that wasn’t theirs in the first place! What do we call people who do that? Mutilators.
“The actual document evidence argues against this thesis.”
As I pointed out it wasn’t a thesis, you’re not making any sense.
The argument, “we should use the official Jewish Canon” is a thesis.
My argument is, “we should use what the documentary evidence supports as the canon, as the documentary evidence is the highest evidentiary standard.”
The Church does not claim to own the revealed Word of God, only that God made the Church its steward.
Peace be with you
Perhaps the church doesn’t claim it, but that was the claim made on this thread that I was answering.
“The argument, “we should use the official Jewish Canon” is a thesis.”
That’s not my argument, it’s a logical extension of your argument. You say that Protestants should use the RC canon, because you “made” the Bible. Well, by extension, that argument means that RC’s should use the Jewish canon, because they “made” the OT. It’s your argument, not mine. I simply am pointing out where your logic leads.
“You would have me abandon a church founded in the first century for one founded in the fifteenth?”
Isn’t it already proven that you have abandoned the church founded by Jesus Christ for one founded by heretics and Pelagians?
I’ll ask you again: Is God sovereign in saving whom He will, according to His own purposes, regardless of merits or demerits in the man He has decided to call, justify and glorify? Is Paul correct for arguing that God foreknows and predestinates the Saints, calling them and irresistibly preserving them with His free and unmerited grace? Not that He foreknew that they would be holy, but rather that they should be holy? Did Augustine rightly condemn your Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian views which deny the sovereignty and sufficiency of God’s grace? Or am I mistaken?
Give a straight answer. Don’t dodge and run away from such a fundamental issue.
“Looking over what you said - bishops have authority in their own areas - it is customary to have the Bishop of Jerusalem open things up.”
James did not open it up. He closed it. He declared the decision at the end of the debate, to which Peter only contributed. And his opinion was not the opinion put forward by Peter.
Can you please tell me where in the catechism it says that in a council, it is the Bishop of the city wherein the council is held who presides over it and makes the judgment?
“You seem to believe that a Pope can never be wrong, and that a Pope can never be corrected.”
When have I ever said that Popes can never be wrong? Didn’t I mention the Pope who was killed when he was caught in bed with another man’s wife? But the question is, would the Holy Spirit through the Cardinals elect a man who is Damned and ruled by Satan?
“Infalliability comes from the Magisterium, and the Pope’s infalliability stems from this.”
So, the Pope is most infallible when he does not make decisions. For it was James who presided and made the judgment, and Peter only gave an opinion.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.