Posted on 07/21/2009 10:09:01 AM PDT by NYer
A good Baptist.
I agree with both of these two statements. FWIW, they're not automatically contradictory.
I defended genuine Sacred Tradition by pointing out that that Tradition is that Cain married his twin sister (and that this was a cause of friction between Cain and Abel).
Is that universally held? In my Midrash studies (which I admit I know a lot more of than Talmud, though -- from what I've read -- Talmud works the same way), there are normally several comments on each verse, which may agree or disagree (sometimes wildly), and all are allowed to stand and are held in respect.
It is true that the Rabbis of the Talmud argued all the time in matters of both Halakhah and 'Agadah (and Halakhah is the more important). However, there is also a very important principal: 'Ellu va'ellu divrei-'Eloqim Chayyim ("both these and these are the words of the Living G-d"). In other words, in some mysterious way that we cannot understand, all the words of the Talmudic Rabbis are true, even when they seem to disagree with one another. In fact, Rav Nachman of Breslov taught that they do not really disagree at all but only appear to for the sake of the student.
NYer, I apologize for my extremely harsh words to you, but you simply make no sense to me. You are supposedly this "ultra-conservative" who posts all this pre-modern, hyper-traditional stuff--shoot, you're a Maronite!--yet when I point out Catholic inconsistencies on a thread supposedly about the validity of Tradition you respond not with Tradition but with the words of "modern scholarship" about "the intention of the author" and "literary genres" (or whatever they're called). Where in your Catholic traditional literature do the church fathers or saints mention "literary forms" or "the intention of the author?" Did Jerome think of this stuff while translating the TaNa"KH from the original Hebrew in Bat-Lechem while on his knees? The attitude of your reply to my initial post merely serves to illustrate the enormous changes that have taken place in the "unchanging" Catholic Church.
Allow me to illustrate. It just so happens that I own a Douay-Rheims bible (TAN). In the commentary on Lemekh's declaration to his wives in Genesis 4 the commentator (Challoner?) mentions the Jewish Tradition about Lamekh's killing of these two men--Cain (whom he shot) and the young lad who led him around in his old age (by accidentally crushing his skull when he clapped his hands together in grief on learning he had accidentally shot his ancestor). Now THAT is Tradition. No "literary forms." No "what was in the mind of the 'sacred author.'" No "the scriptures teach only 'spiritual truth.'" Do you see the difference now? ONE is Tradition. The OTHER is "modern scholarship." The fact that a supposedly ultra-conservative Maronite Catholic confuses the two and mixes them up in order to attack the facticity of the Biblical narrative is emblematic of the Catholic Church, the Walter Cronkite of chr*stian churches: old as the hills and yet liberal as blazes.
She was referring to the beliefs of Nestorius who raised the same objections you did in the 3rd century...
So to prove what a "good Catholic" he now is he ridicules the story of Cain and Abel.
There is something very wrong with a religion that creates situation where ridicule of the Word of G-d is felt to be necessary as a sign of loyalty.
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Yes, I know. However, I deny the accusation. I believe Christ was wholly man and wholly God. It’s the “Mary, Mother of God” thing that I am choking on.
I’ve read some about the ancient (and still modern) heresies, although I do not pretend to be an expert. But a lot of it is just semantics to me, however it might appear to those trained in the field.
So, let me put it in simple terms. The parent is always superior to the child in that the parent could exist without the child ever having been conceived, but the reverse is not true. There is no “Mother of God”.
Didn’t theCatholic Church have to purge its list of saints recently because some of them had either never existed, or were merely old pagan gods that had been included as an incentive for pagans to convert?? And who was the biggest divinity of ancient times? Wasn’t it the mother goddess, Cybele, Isis, etc.
Not saying that’s what happend, but couldn’t it have?
Let me approach my answer from this point: Do you believe Scripture when it said Christ told Peter whatever he held on Earth would be held in heaven and whatever he loosed on Earth would be loosed in heaven? I believe Christ said that to Peter. In turn, Peter “held” on Earth that that same power to bind or loose was to be passed on to the next head of the Church and so on. If Peter held that, then Christ kept His promise and held it in Heaven too. In a nutshell, Catholics believe that Christ made Peter the authority here on Earth, promised Peter’s spiritual pronouncements would be upheld in Heaven, and that Christ and Peter wanted that authority to pass in succession to the head of the Church until the end of time. All the members of the early Christian Church believed this. St. Paul believed this.
“The fundamental proof, therefore, of the Church’s right to excommunicate is based on her status as a spiritual society, whose members, governed by legitimate authority, seek one and the same end through suitable means. Members who, by their obstinate disobedience, reject the means of attaining this common end deserve to be removed from such a society. This rational argument is confirmed by texts of the New Testament, the example of the Apostles, and the practice of the Church from the first ages down to the present. Among the Jews, exclusion from the synagogue was a real excommunication (Ezra 10:8). This was the exclusion feared by the parents of the man born blind (John 9:21 sq.; cf. 12:42; 16:2); the same likewise that Christ foretold to His disciples (Luke 6:22). It is also the exclusion which in due time the Christian Church should exercise: “And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican” (Matthew 18:17). In the celebrated text: “Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matthew 18:18; cf. 16:19), it is not only the remission of sins that is referred to, but likewise all spiritual jurisdiction, including judicial and penal sanctions. Such, moreover, was the jurisdiction conferred on St. Peter by the words: “Feed my lambs”; “feed my sheep” (John 21:15, 16, 17).
St. Paul excommunicated regularly the incestuous Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:5) and the incorrigible blasphemers whom he delivered over to Satan (1 Timothy 1:20). Faithful to the Apostolic teaching and example, the Church, from the very earliest ages, was wont to excommunicate heretics and contumacious persons; since the fourth century numerous canons pronounce excommunication against those who are guilty of certain offenses.
It’s my understanding as a Catholic than we excommunicate someone when his actions are openly contrary to Church teaching and are causing scandal and jeopardizing others’ faith. With excommunication, we are saying the person is committing acts which put him in jeopardy of eternal damnation. We are not damning him, we are telling him his actions may cause God to damn him to hell. It is hoped the pain of separation will help the person understand the pain of separation from God in hell. It is a reminder that his actions are deadly serious and a warning of what he risks: eternal separation from God.
Christ is the path to salvation. The sacraments He instituted strengthen us on the journey. Only God, not the Pope, sends someone to hell. But the Pope can determine which sins are mortal sins, and can publicly state someone is not following Church teaching and is in the state of mortal sin. Popes don’t do it very often— look at all the “Catholic” politicians who work to promote abortion. The Pope has not publicly excommunicated them, though they deserve it.
I hope this clarified Catholic thinking on this subject and I thank you for your questions. My answer is not perfect, but it’s a beginning.
This is scriptural:
People protest about the phrase theotokos “mother of God.” They should see it’s got a Biblical precedent when Elizabeth sees pregnant Mary and says, “the mother of my Lord. For behold when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
If you accept this scripture alone, Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, says Mary is the mother of her Lord, the fulfillment of Messianic prophesy.
What about the many Old Testament references to the Queen Mother, the gebirah. There are so many. Don’t you think they are a foreshadowing of the role of Mary, just as so many other things about Christ were foreshadowed?
Old Testament references to the gebirah, the Queen Mother, a foretelling of Mary’s role in the Church (written by Scott Hahn):
“Let’s turn now to 1st Kings, chapter 1. This, I believe, is the missing link. I really am convinced that this is the most important exegetical Biblical piece of evidence that we have to go on. It was one of the best-known institutions in ancient Israel’s monarchy or after the Civil War ancient Juda’s monarchy and in fact, the idea of the Queen Mother was ubiquitous. You don’t find ancient monarchies in the Near East or the Middle East that don’t have Queen Mothers. I’ll refer you to a key article written by N.A. Andrieson in Catholic Biblical Quarterly in 1983, pages 179 through 194. It’s entitled, “The Role of the Queen Mother in Israelite Society.”
When I read this article, it was like a thunderclap striking me. I knew I had to really pay close attention to the evidence. What evidence? Well, this is known as the gebirah. The gebirah is the Hebrew term for the Queen Mother. I found in another book, The Graphic History of the Jewish Heritage, that the gebirah, the Queen Mother “occupied a unique and powerful position” throughout the history of ancient Israel’s monarchy. He gives as an example Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, who was enthroned.
Also, another example, Maacah, in 1st Kings 15:13; Jezebel, who is the only Queen Mother in the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel. In fact, the northern kingdom of Israel is conspicuous because it lacked the Queen Mother. Father DeVoe, one of the greatest Old Testament scholars of the century said, “This was due to a lack of dynastic stability.” They kept getting overthrown up north. They didn’t have the Davidic covenant to anchor the claims of these potential kings. That’s in 2nd Kings 10:13. And then Athaliah, the very cruel and wicked queen who ruled for six years, trying to suppress the cult of Yahweh in the Temple. Mehushta over Johoachin in Jeremiah 13:18. Another scholar in Scandinavia, Ostrum says, “The Queen Mother’s position was essentially cultic in nature,” that is she actually had a position or a role to play in worship. It wasn’t priestly but it was important and it was cultic. It’s still left undefined.
In the ancient Near East it goes on talking about how, “The Queen Mother throughout all these ancient Near Eastern monarchies sat beside the king on a throne, survived the death without being deposed. If the king died, the Queen Mother continued to reign without being deposed. There was a cultic role for her in leading the songs and so on in worship but also she had an essential role in political, military and economic affairs of court. In fact there are records of where the Queen Mother could oppose the king on issues of state. This is found in the Eplah tablets and Uhr Hittite records, Egypt Marri tablets, Assyria and other Arabian documents, as well. And the Queen Mother usually began her reign, just as an interesting incidental detail, after menopause.
What’s really interesting from Andreason’s perspective is that even after the prophets are sent by God to purify the Jerusalem cult and the kingdom of all of these pagan encrustations, the institution of the gebirah continues with reforms by Hezekiah and Josiah. The fertility cults are suppressed and these ashora poles and so on are torn down, including sacred snakes, you know the nahushta and so on, but never the Queen Mother, that’s allowed to remain. The central role for Andreason’s research is that she was to be the king’s wisdom counselor. Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is sort of like a personification of the Queen Mother, or visa versa.
It goes on listing several other examples. I won’t bother you with all these examples but of the sixteen Queen Mothers named, seven explicitly seem to be Jerusalemites. It just runs throughout the whole gamut, the whole historical span of the monarchy and actually, the only chapter of the Bible that we know was written by a woman, Proverbs 31, was written by a Queen Mother as instruction for her son before he accedes to the throne and finds himself a wife, she says, “This is the kind you’ve got to find.” Andreason concludes that “This is the theological paradigm for Mary’s Queenship. Jesus is the Son of David and the genealogy in Matthew links Mary to the Davidic line. Being the Son of David makes her the Queen Mother.” There are some other works too, The Nature of the Queenship of Mary, published in 1973, The Royal Son of God, published in 1979 and so on.”
***So Jesus was His Own Granpa?? I don’t like to be facetitious, but basically this is what it seems like to me.
I will agree that Mary is the Mother of the human aspect of Jesus, not of the God aspect. I don’t have the proper theological vocabulary at hand.***
The 5th century heresy of Nestorianism is about the nature of Jesus. Catholic.com says that: This heresy about the person of Christ was initiated by Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who denied Mary the title of Theotokos (Greek: “God-bearer” or, less literally, “Mother of God”). Nestorius claimed that she only bore Christ’s human nature in her womb, and proposed the alternative title Christotokos (”Christ-bearer” or “Mother of Christ”).
Orthodox Catholic theologians recognized that Nestorius’s theory would fracture Christ into two separate persons (one human and one divine, joined in a sort of loose unity), only one of whom was in her womb. The Church reacted in 431 with the Council of Ephesus, defining that Mary can be properly referred to as the Mother of God, not in the sense that she is older than God or the source of God, but in the sense that the person she carried in her womb was, in fact, God incarnate (”in the flesh”).
*** As for prayer, I ask living friends and family to pray for me, nor do I pray (much) for those who are dead. Their eternal fate is already sealed.
Asking Mary and the saints to do so looks like worship, feels like worship, and I think I hear a quack.***
However, we also have Scripture telling us about praying for the dead. 2 Maccabees 12:44-45:
For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.
2 Timothy 1:16-18:
May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me; he was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me eagerly and found me – may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day – and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.
The point here is that Onesiphorus was already dead. And St. Paul clearly prays, “may the Lord grant him to find mercy.” St. Paul was praying that a dead man receive mercy.
1 Corinthians 3:11-15:
For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble – each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
When we pray for the dead, we pray for those who are suffering loss, who are saved, but only through fire. Pray for your loved ones as well, that they may see the face of God. As they say, “May God rest their souls.
But as for Mariology, well, it is not a core belief. Many of the more famous Protestant converts who become apologists for the Church delayed their conversion because of opposition to Mariology. After they had made the journey, though, they discovered that it is truly not Mary worship; but it is appreciation for her life and her sacrifices throughout her life. She was the only person present at the birth of Christ, the death of Christ and Pentecost. Mary is not a must do.
*** Besides, regardless of official Church doctrine, I lived in a 3rd world country. Many Catholics there DO pray to, and DO worship, Mary.***
Have you some examples you can point to?
What did this topic have to do with what I was discussing on this thread anyway?
Obviously, either his previous church was doctrinally weak, or he did not pay attention.
Well, I don’t know that you’ve convinced me. But to me it’s irrelevant anyway. As a saved Christian, Christ is the mediator between God and me. Mary is just another sinner who has been redeemed as far as any relationship between me and God is concerned, although you have to admire her faith, far greater than I think that I can claim.
However, enlighten my ignorance here. As I have said, I know little about the Catholic Church, other than what I have read, including their own literature. What is all this “Hail, Mary” stuff if not worship? What is the point?
I still deny the accusation of Nestorianism. As God the Son pre-existed Mary, she COULD NOT BE His Mother in the sense that she pre-existed Him, as do most mothers.
He was just passing through, so to speak. She bore the body of Jesus, no doubt, but the Person was the pre-existing Son.
Besides, even assuming that you are correct so far, she was not the mother of the Father or the Holy Spirit. So at most she could be only the mother of 1/3 of God.
Which gets us into the doctrine of the Trinity. There is one Godhead, but 3 Persons?? Now this one I can't explain; I can only accept on faith. As, in fact, we must all accept Christ. There is no other way.
I won't argue about praying for the dead. As I believe I said, I also do it sometimes, although I think their eternal fate is sealed. However, just a point, Maccabees is not scripture for Protestants.
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