Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
Job 19:25
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
Wat's your point? That we can't pray for someone? Is not praying for someone an intercession on behalf of someone? Is someone asking us to pray for them not a supplication for our intercession?
I don't know about the Protestants, but the Apostolic Church has believed and believes that Christ gave us life, He unshackled us from death, that those who are in heaven are alive and that they fervently and unceasingly pray for our souls.
Where is the wrong in asking the living on earth on in heaven to pray for us?
We should be interested in the plain meaning per men of 1st century. I have little interest in the plain meaning per men of 16-21 centuries as such, Catholic or Protestant. But the plain meaning of the 1st century is known through tradition. It is a lense, not a filter.
You DECLARE that the plain meaning was kinsfolk, but there is no way you can prove that definitively. The Church says that is what it means, so you declare it as fact. I remember when we were talking about this a long time ago.
This is what I posted or referred to on this thread about the "brethren". Please point out where the "brethren" are interpreted by kinsfolk by DECLARATION. All I see are references to the scripture itself or lingustical facts. Now, if I were teaching a catechumen about the perpetual virginity of Our Lady I would indeed simply declare that the Church tells us so and move on; however you imagined that would be a case of Scripture contradicting Tradition, so all the reasoning was done without a reference to Tradition.
As to the "brothers", Jesus Himself loved calling people brothers and they were not blood relatives; he in fact taught us all to do the same. In large families there is a mixture of cousins, second cousins, half brothers, milk brothers, and of course bolld brothers. It is natural to refer to all of them collectively as "brothers". In Greek to this day "adelphoi" (the word used in the Gospel) is used to indicate all kinds of kinsfolk. Likewise, in the Old Testament Lot is called "brother" of Abraham even though the Bible is explicit about his genealogy and he is his nephew. There is no warrant to assume that "adelphoi" in Matthew 12 referred to physical children of Mary (we are all her spiritual children).In 2982 I referred you to this post by InterestedQuestioner:
*** But this is consistent with the fact that a man has one father and one mother, but many relatives of the same generation. "Brother" can be used expansively; "mother" cannot. Besides, "son of carpenter" is indeed used imprecisely here, just like "brothers" is used imprecisely.
***
I can certainly see that your belief that Jesus had brothers is entirely reasonable. After all, that's what the Word of God literally says, at least in my translation! One thing, however, is that none of us in this discussion believe that verse to be precisely true. We are all reading into that Scripture something else beside brother.Some are reading it to mean half-brothers. That is, they had Mary as a mother, but not God as a father. To interpret it to mean full brother, the plain meaning of the text in translation, would mean there are multiple messiahs. None of us believe that. Now to believe that the term brother actually means "half-brother," children not born of God and Mary, but rather of Joesph and Mary is entirely reasonable, but it's good to recognize that we are reading something into Scripture that it does not actually say. To support this argument, we would have to argue pretty much in the same way that many have done on this thread, and say that the Greeks or Jews simply didn't have a word for half-brothers, although with a distant history of polygamy and concubinage among the Israelites and the Roman practice of serial monogamy, they may have had an intuitive understanding of the concept. The problem with this interpretation is that, according to Scripture, some of the people listed as his brothers appear to not have had the same Mother as Jesus.
There are of course other possible speculations besides interpreting this to mean that there were literally multiple Christs born of God and Mary. For example, we might believe that Joseph was a widower who had children from a previous marriage, and that these were the brothers spoken of in the text. A fine theory, but it's entirely speculative, as Scripture never says this is the case. Another problem with this theory is that the Mother of two of these brothers is still alive at the time of the Crucifixion, which would mean that Joseph either divorced Mary later on, was actually a divorcee at the time of his espousal to Mary, or that Joesph was married to more than one woman. Those are all problematic contingencies if we attempt to force them upon Scripture.
Another interpretation is that these "brothers" were cousins of some sort or other. (First cousin, second cousin, third cousin two times removed....) It's not an unreasonable argument, in that Scripture often mentions brothers and sisters when it is in fact seems to be talking about some other relationship. There are manyf examples of this, but one is the following:
"So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. (John 19:25)
Now, we can see that there were a lot of Marys at the foot of the Cross with Jesus when he was dying. The Scripture I would like to call your attention to, however, is "standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary...." Now, if we take this translation in an entirely literal sense, Mary has a sister named Mary. That would be sort of like George Foreman's family, everybody gets named "George," So you have a George 1 and George 2, and George 3, and however many other sons named George that big George actually has. (I'm not making this up.) Perhaps a more plausible reading of this verse is to say that the language used in this Scripture did not distinguish between sister and cousin or other relative, even though our language forces us to translate in such a way as use a word that either conveys one class of relationship or the other. It's sort of like my Thai friends who's language specifies maternal vs paternal relations. As I understand it, if all I say to them is "my aunt," they are left in a pickle when they translate it, because they have to translate it into a word that means either "maternal aunt" or "paternal aunt," and they don't have enough information to do that.
Another problem that we Catholics have with the Scriptural reference to the brothers and sisters of Jesus is that Scripture else were tells us that at least two of them were not his actual brothers, so we have to assume that at least two of his presumptive (half) brothers are in fact cousins or other relatives. Scripture says His brothers' names were "James and Joseph and Simon and Judas." (Mark 6:3) Elsewhere, however, we learn that Joses and James actually had a different mother. (Mr 15:40, Mr 15:47.)
Paul describes James as the brother of our Lord. (Gal 1: 19) Jude describes himself as the brother of James. (Jude 1: 1) Luke describes Jude as the son of James (Luke 6:16, Acts 1:13) Clearly, Scripture is not using the same degree of precision in describing relations that we typically use in English. And Scripture was not written in English.
When it gets right down to it, Full Court, we simply don't have any Scripture which says that Mary had any children besides Jesus. The broader context of Scripture insists that we believe that at least some of the people who are listed as brothers of our Lord in fact had a different Mother. Any claim that Mary had other children is in fact an inference, and not something that is actually stated in Scripture. Although you may reasonably believe the assertion that Mary did not have other biological children is unwarranted in Scripture, the Scripture never tells us that Mary had other children, and to believe that Mary had no other biological children is not a contradiction of Scripture.
I asked someone (or several) that if your interpretation was correct, then how did people refer to their actual blood siblings
I don't know factually, they probably used the same word "adelphos" as they do today, and if greater precision were necessary they would say "direct brother" or something. Likewise, in modern English we do not distinguish between paternal and maternal aunts, uncles or grandparents; we do not distinguish between cousins once and twice removed, and do fine. And the eskimos have five words for "snow", and the Greeks have four words for "love", and probably wonder how we manage with one. Words of different languages do not map 1:1 generally.
I have no Biblical reason to trust [the Church fathers] over and above the Bible.
This is funny. Actually, you do have a biblical reason, 2 Thessalonians 2:14, in particular, and you do not have a biblical reason to believe in the Bible as self-interpreted. But the point made to you repeatedly is, the fathers illumine the Bible, so even if you only trust the Bible you still have to know the fathers.
In that case God failed to author a book that would stand the test of time, and Christianity is not a revealed faith.
The Revelation is the Word made flesh, Lord Jesus Christ, who is alive and incorrupt today. If for some reason all the Bibles physically vanished or became linguistically incomprehensible through the passage of time and semantic drifts, the Word would still be the same and Christianity would still be the same. The Scripture is a product of the Revelation, produced in a specific linguistic historical and cultural context; the Revelation in its fullness abides in the Church.
The Tradition produced the NT? That would make Tradition greater than the Bible. This is the simple idea I have been getting hammered on for suggesting it is your view, and yet I am still getting multiple admissions.
Tradition came before the Bible.
More evidence of your view of the relationship between the two, and which is superior.
You have just defined Protestant Reformation.
It is clear we have radically different ideas of what "plain meaning" means. For example, I look to the text of the words first. I think that puts a lot of distance between our views.
God did not write the Scripture. Inspired by and writing them are two completely different things. Only Muslims and some Protestants believe God "dictated" the Bible to the scribes.
I don't know what you mean by "inspired by". I believe that all of scripture is God-breathed, inerrant, and the true word of God. I think that the Gospels were mainly targeted to different audiences, although still applicable to all. I also think that the personalities of the scribes did come through in the writings.
That said, I firmly believe that the actual words of the scripture are from God. I do not at all believe that each scribe of the Bible simply got a formless "inspiration" and then ran with it. I am definitely in the "every jot and tittle" camp. :) I just don't think God would gamble on something as important as His written word, by letting it be written by fallible men with a light bulb over their heads. However, if the Bible really is as flawed as you seem to portray it, in totality, then it would make sense that regular people wrote it with some of it being true, and some of it not.
No one believes perfectly, and no one understands the Bible perfectly. Other than Job, the Bible does not name any other mortal to be a perfect man. The only semblance of truth can come from an unbroken Tradition started at the Pentecost and the Apostles, and the only way it can be maintained is by consensus patrum --
"The only semblance of truth can come from an unbroken Tradition". (Jo Kus, you remember how you were just asking me for examples?) "...the only way it can be maintained is by consensus patrum."
For your side, truth comes from Tradition, and is maintained by agreement in the hierarchy. For my side, truth comes from God, and is maintained by God. Does anyone still want to argue that the Apostolics don't put men above scripture?
And, no I don't believe there was a major earthquake when Jesus died on the Cross. No one recorded it. I find that strange. I don't believe Jonah lived in an oxygen-deprived acid-filled belly of a fish for three days, without suffocating and being dissolved by digestive juices into delicious food for the fish. I don't believe the Flood either.
I genuinely appreciate your honesty here. If you haven't already answered on another post, may I ask on what basis you decide whether a Biblical story is literal? It could be common sense in 2006, or it could be scientific knowledge in 2006, or it could be something else entirely.
The point is for us to pray without ceasing.
Yes. To approach the Father, one must be holy, and no one is in their own right. Christ, as our intercessor and great high priest, fulfills that need for us. Do you not believe that?
We also humbly pray that our prayers be answered only if God wills it. We don't control God or His plans, nor do we presume to.
So in other words, there is more than one intercessor to God as was said before?
As to the two pillars holding up the Hebrew concept of the cosmos, I believe you are referring to Jacinth and Boaz, who's true meaning is doubtless symbolic, and not masonary structures.
I am not buying that one.
Regards
This is a perfect example for all to see how the MT leads one to understand the faith differently.
The Septuagint (LXX) says:
"For I know that he is eternal ( aenaoV ) who is about to deliver me, and to raise up upon the earth my skin that endures these sufferings: for these things have been accomplished to me of the Lord; which I am conscious of in myself, which mine eye has seen, and not another, but all have been fulfilled to me in my bosom."
No mention of the "latter day" either my friend. The Eternal one is about to lift his sufferings now. We are not using the same Bible. I have said that many times before.
Perhaps you misunderstood me. The Bible is not a systematic theology book. It does not start with "Chapter One - Salvation", then, as a theology book, precisely defines it and gives examples and so forth. We receive our ideas on theology from the Holy Teachings given from the Apostles, which include the Scriptures, but are not limited to them. The letters of Paul, for example, were not written in the manner of a catechism. This has nothing to do with dismissing our Judeo-Christian heritage!
Regards
So, in your theology, Jesus goes to God the Father and pleads with Him on our behalf? Is that Protestant Christology?
Yes, and who does that?
The Hebrew word used definitely means a redeemer.
Well it's the theology in the book of Hebrews, attributed to Paul.
Jesus is the one MEDIATOR between God and man, not the one intercessor. When someone is praying in Jesus' name, they are still asking God for aid, making them an intercessor.
Regards
No, by praying, we are merely being obedient servants. We are not interceeding on anyone's behalf. We have no power, only Christ has earned that office.
"Yes, and who does that?"
Let's start with you and me and maybe it will become infectious.
Yes.
More evidence of your view of the relationship between the two, and which is superior
No, it's a hstorical fact.
I think that the Gospels were mainly targeted to different audiences, although still applicable to all. I also think that the personalities of the scribes did come through in the writings
I think you think too much. If God "wrote" the Bible, how could their personalities come through unless they added a little of their own "zest" to the text?
That said, I firmly believe that the actual words of the scripture are from God...
And the scribes' personalities somehow "snuck" in?
For your side, truth comes from Tradition, and is maintained by agreement in the hierarchy
No, luckily, the Church had to deal with heretics from the get-go until the present-day and in their wisdom the Apostles and the fathers after them wrote everything the Church did and believed. These writings tell us what the church did and believed from the beginning. Comparing what we know and what we believe today we can see if we have maintained the Holy Tradition handed down by the Apostles in person. If what St. Ignatius, a disciple of Apostle Peter, we are confident that his writings reflect the knowledge of the Church and St. Peter himself, for otherwise I doubt he would have made him a bishop and patriarch of Antioch and his spiritual successor.
For my side, truth comes from God, and is maintained by God
Hey, the Muslims say their Koran comes from God directly, word by word. We are offering the writings of the people who were in the Church when the Church was born, when the Apostles still walked around; and you are telling me that your knowledge comes from how you interpret the word of God. So, you put yourself in the position of being the correct interpreter of the word of God!? And there are 33,000 zillion Protestants out there each claiming the same authoritative "authority." Please be real. You are denying historical facts and placing your own interpretations as coming from God, while diminishing the beliefs of the people who were the disciples of the Apostles that we use as our measuring stick.
may I ask on what basis you decide whether a Biblical story is literal?
Truly, I don't even concern myself with the historicity of scientific accuracy of the Bible. I will bring it up as a means of challenging those who claim that the Bible is historically and scientifically accurate, but to me biblical veracity is in its message.
May God bless you blue-duncan. What a wonderful idea! :) PS You will have to send me some money to pay for my bills though.
I have tried to explain this in the past, but since it is a bit confusing, I will try again.
The word tradition has different meanings. In the earliest Church, "Tradition" referred to Apostolic Teachings, whether orally or presented in form of letter. Tradition = teachings of the Apostles. It was only much later in Christian history where "Tradition" took on a meaning that referred to "oral teachings" of the Apostles that are not in Scriptures explicitly. Thus, today, we have "Apostolic Tradition" refering to oral teachings, and "Scripture" referring to written teachings. And to make matters more confusing, we also have "traditions", which are changeable disciplines, such as whether priests in the Latin rite can marry
Naturally, Apostolic oral and written teachings would share the same "weight", once identified, correct? In either case, once we have God's Word, given orally or written, we give it equal obedience, correct? They have the same source, do they not?
With all of this said, hopefully, you can understand that the Tradition given the Apostles has the same "weight" as the Scripture since God gave them both - first, fully the oral version. But the oral version didn't go away, now, did it? The Bible doesn't say it consumed or abrogated oral traditions. It actually holds that we continue to treat them as God's Word!
In no case, however, do we say that the oral Apostolic Tradition is "above" the Bible. By relating Apostolic Tradition as preceding Scripture does NOT imply that oral teachings are above Scriptures. We are talking apples and oranges. The historical chronology of God's revelation is His choice. If this was a problem that He didn't desire, then He certainly could have done a "Moses" for us, correct?
For example, I look to the text of the words first
LOL!!! Such as "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you shall not have eternal life". Or, "Whatever sins you (apostles) forgive are forgiven, and whatever sins you retain are retained". Or, "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?"
You look to the words of the text, and if they don't fit your own eigesis, you change the meaning.
I am definitely in the "every jot and tittle" camp. :) I just don't think God would gamble on something as important as His written word, by letting it be written by fallible men with a light bulb over their heads.
That is refering to the Law, not the individual words of the dozens of books in the Bible. As to God gambling, have you forgotten God's foresight??? You don't think that He has control of man's writing without taking the pen out of his hand?
"The only semblance of truth can come from an unbroken Tradition". (Jo Kus, you remember how you were just asking me for examples?) "...the only way it can be maintained is by consensus patrum."
This doesn't say that the Church is superior to Scriptures. The truth of INTERPRETATION is found within the Traditions of the Apostles and the consensus patrum - but the Bible itself is the Word of God, inspired and inerrant. The Spirit works through the consensus patrum to bring out the meaning of these Scriptures for the Church in time. Each age will see a different message in parts of Scripture because God has a different message for different cultures. That is what makes the Bible timeless. Without the Spirit's guidance, the bible is another book, is it not? Consider atheists. They read it - and get nothing from it. Thus, the BOOK does not convert people, it is the Spirit that leads the faithful, the Church, to garner the meaning and proper sense of the Scriptures.
For your side, truth comes from Tradition, and is maintained by agreement in the hierarchy. For my side, truth comes from God, and is maintained by God. Does anyone still want to argue that the Apostolics don't put men above scripture?
You present a false dichotomy with which I disagree with. The main reason why I am Catholic is because I believe that God works THROUGH this Church. You try to separate God from the Church, you try to decapitate the Body. We believe that the Body and the Head are united. Thus, your false dichotomy.
Regards
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