Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children
By John-Henry Westen
NEW YORK, December 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A review of New Line Cinema's The Nativity story by Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger of the Franciscans of the Immaculate in the United States, points out that the film, which opened December 1, misinterprets scripture from a Catholic perspective.
While Fr. Geiger admits that he found the film is "in general, to be a pious and reverential presentation of the Christmas mystery." He adds however, that "not only does the movie get the Virgin Birth wrong, it thoroughly Protestantizes its portrayal of Our Lady."
In Isaiah 7:14 the Bible predicts the coming of the Messiah saying: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." Fr. Geiger, in an video blog post, explains that the Catholic Church has taught for over 2000 years that the referenced Scripture showed that Mary would not only conceive the child miraculously, but would give birth to the child miraculously - keeping her physical virginity intact during the birth.
The film, he suggests, in portraying a natural, painful birth of Christ, thus denies the truth of the virginal and miraculous birth of Christ, which, he notes, the Fathers of the Church compared to light passing through glass without breaking it. Fr. Geiger quoted the fourth century St. Augustine on the matter saying. "That same power which brought the body of the young man through closed doors, brought the body of the infant forth from the inviolate womb of the mother."
Fr. Geiger contrasts The Nativity Story with The Passion of the Christ, noting that with the latter, Catholics and Protestants could agree to support it. He suggests, however, that the latter is "a virtual coup against Catholic Mariology".
The characterization of Mary further debases her as Fr. Geiger relates in his review. "Mary in The Nativity lacks depth and stature, and becomes the subject of a treatment on teenage psychology."
Beyond the non-miraculous birth, the biggest let-down for Catholics comes from Director Catherine Hardwicke's own words. Hardwicke explains her rationale in an interview: "We wanted her [Mary] to feel accessible to a young teenager, so she wouldn't seem so far away from their life that it had no meaning for them. I wanted them to see Mary as a girl, as a teenager at first, not perfectly pious from the very first moment. So you see Mary going through stuff with her parents where they say, 'You're going to marry this guy, and these are the rules you have to follow.' Her father is telling her that she's not to have sex with Joseph for a year-and Joseph is standing right there."
Comments Fr. Geiger, "it is rather disconcerting to see Our Blessed Mother portrayed with 'attitude;' asserting herself in a rather anachronistic rebellion against an arranged marriage, choosing her words carefully with her parents, and posing meaningful silences toward those who do not understand her."
Fr. Geiger adds that the film also contains "an overly graphic scene of St. Elizabeth giving birth," which is "just not suitable, in my opinion, for young children to view."
Despite its flaws Fr. Geiger, after viewing the film, also has some good things to say about it. "Today, one must commend any sincere attempt to put Christ back into Christmas, and this film is certainly one of them," he says. "The Nativity Story in no way compares to the masterpiece which is The Passion of the Christ, but it is at least sincere, untainted by cynicism, and a worthy effort by Hollywood to end the prejudice against Christianity in the public square."
And, in addition to a good portrait of St. Joseph, the film offers "at least one cinematic and spiritual triumph" in portraying the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. "Although the Magnificat is relegated to a kind of epilogue at the movie's end, the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth is otherwise faithful to the scriptures and quite poignant. In a separate scene, the two women experience the concurrent movement of their children in utero and share deeply in each other's joy. I can't think of another piece of celluloid that illustrates the dignity of the unborn child better than this."
See Fr. Geiger's full review here:
http://airmaria.com/
That's not what the other Church Fathers said. In an earlier post, I quoted Origen who said that the ENTIRE Church included the Greek version of Daniel in their Scriptures. Jerome is not the Church - and I would like to point out that he did not rebel over the matter once the Church set the canon during his lifetime... And while a few of the Church Fathers had some questions about some of the OT writings in the Septaugint, they ultimately accepted the Jewish bible that was written in Greek as their Sacred Scriptures. This is evident even in the New Testament, where we find the writers quoting the GREEK rather than the Hebrew version of a passage over and over again.
Regards
Great quotes, jo.
Protestants, for the vast majority, believe their preachers and teachers, and are homogenous regarding the core doctrines of Christianity (i.e. as they are found in the Apostles, Nicean creeds, etc.).
You know that is not true. You ultimately subject yourself to your current understanding of Scriptures. Thus, if a pastor begins to teach something that doesn't sound right to a Protestant - they disagree for whatever reason - then they can and do opt to leave the congregation and go elsewhere until they find someone that fits THEIR particular paradigm and understanding of the Gospel. Thus, in the end, you follow only as long as you agree with the shepherd. Who then are you obeying?
Of course I know that what I say is true.
I have belonged to the same Protestant church for 40+ years now. Very few congregants change churches because of disagreements on doctrine.
What is more likely than the imaginary scenario you propose ... is that the questioning congregant will approach the pastor ... and the pastor will reason with the congregant from the scriptures ... with the goal being resolution of the issue.
In some cases the congregant will see his/her error, ... in some cases the church leadership will see it's error, ... and in some cases the point will not be immediately resolved.
If the congregant and the church remain in disagreement, ... then the congregant is free to leave (with the blessing of the church) ... or stay (with the blessing of the church).
In most cases the congregant chooses to stay, being hopeful that continued spiritual growth on his/her part and the part of the church leadership ... will ultimately resolve the situation.
It is likely that if such an approach had been taken with Luther, the Protestant Reformation might not have taken place.
Jesus did use the formulation you speak of quite often ... "you have heard, ... but I say unto you ..."
He, typically, would use this formulation to correct some point of misinterpretation (or shallow interpretation) ... of God's word to men.
Misinterpretation? Jesus is setting the bar higher with His RE-interpretation of the Torah. He is going beyond the letter of the Law, which was all that was required previously. Those in the Spirit have a higher standard.
Jesus did use this formulation to "set the bar higher" in some cases.
But in other cases, it is clear that the Jews had mis-interpereted, as in the following ...Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.Blessings ...
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
I do not know if he ever considered them NOT part of Scripture. He was from Alexandria, where the Septuagint was written. Which answers your second question. The Septaugint of the New Testament era contained the Deuterocannonicals, since earlier Church Fathers quote from them as if they were Scriptures.
But I am also sure that we all realize that citing Origen as authoritative on anything is fraught with errors as he was a well known heretic and corruptor of the texts of the scriptures.
Origen obviously had a high respect for Scripture, just by the fact that he wrote the Hexapla. While he had some heretical views about the pre-existence of the soul and whether hell was populated with men or not, that doesn't have a bearing on his opinion of what the Church considered as Scripture. He was probably one of the greatest exegisist on the Scriptures the Church had known for the first 1000 years.
Regards
"We have now to speak of the labours of ORIGEN in connection with the text of the Septuagint. This learned and enterprising scholar, having acquired a knowledge of Hebrew, found that in many respects the copies of the Septuagint differed from the Hebrew text. It seems to be uncertain whether he regarded such differences as having arisen from mistakes on the part of the copyists, or from errors of the original translators themselves.
"The object which he proposed to himself was not to restore the Septuagint to its original condition, nor yet to correct mere errors of translation simply as such, but to cause that the Church should possess a text of the Septuagint in which all additions to the Hebrew should be marked with an obelus, and in which all that the Septuagint omitted should be added from one of the other versions marked with an asterisk. He also indicated readings in the Septuagint which were so incorrect that the passage ought to be changed for the corresponding one in another version.
"With the object of thus amending the Septuagint, he formed his great works, the Hexapla and Tetrapla; these were (as the names imply) works in which the page was divided respectively into six columns and into four columns.
The Hexapla contained, 1st, the Hebrew text; 2nd, the Hebrew text expressed in Greek characters; 3rd, the version of Aquila; 4th, that of Symmachus; 5th, the Septuagint; 6th, Theodotion. The Tetrapla contained merely the four last columns.
"Besides these four versions of the entire Old Testament, Origen employed three anonymous Greek versions of particular books; these are commonly called the fifth, sixth, and seventh versions. Hence in the parts in which two of these versions are added, the work was designated Octapla, and where all the three appeared, it was called Enneapla.
"References were then made from the column of the Septuagint to other versions, so as to complete and correct it: for this purpose Theodotion was principally used. This recension by Origen has generally been called the Hexaplar text. The Hexapla itself is said never to have been copied: what remains of the versions which it contained (mere fragments) were edited by Montfaucon in 1714, and in an abridged edition by Bahrdt in 1769-70.
"The Hexaplar text of the Septuagint was copied about half a century after Origen's death by Pamphilus and Eusebius; it thus obtained a circulation; but the errors of copyists soon confounded the marks of addition and omission which Origen placed, and hence the text of the Septuagint became almost hopelessly mixed up with that of other versions."
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I find it interesting that Origen was not trying to correct the Hebrew text in the 1st column of his Hexapla in order to make it read more like the Septuagint in the fifth column, but vice versa. He clearly believed the Hebrew text that he had in his first column was accurate and authoritative, but that all the other Greek translations in his hand, including his LXX, to be flawed and in need of revision to be brought more in line with the Hebrew of column one.
I wonder if the Hebrew text in Origen's first column was the same as the later Masoretic text.
Or, rather if they are, they weren't really elect after all, right?
Accordingly, someone could say the sinners prayer and get lost, but then they weren't really saved, right?
So I see the POTS as really hindsight. Those that persevere are the elect, never lost; those that don't, get lost, but they were really reprobate. You don't have insurance until your claim comes due.
Claiming X is one who won't get lost is known by God's omniscience, but by man in hindsight.
Is the Hebrew text believed to be the copies from the original (written by the authors) passed down through the ages?
LOL. God at the mercy of coincidence.
The only people who had "free will" were Adam and Eve
Yep. And look where that got them, which is precisely what their actions are supposed to teach us. Scripture is God's history book, informing us of who we are, how we got to where we are, how we should proceed from here, and what lies ahead for us.
"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you." -- John 15:16
"Known to God from eternity are all His works." -- Acts 15:18
"But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth" -- 2 Thessalonians 2:13
If I understand your question: I hope so.
My question with regard to Origen's Hexapla is his Hebrew text in his first column. Where did he get it. The fact that there is only one Hebrew text and five Greek texts would indicate that Origen had what he believed to be the accurate Hebrew text in his possession and was trying to create an accurate Greek text to match it --- which means that he saw the Hebrew text in his possession as authoritative, and all the Greek texts in his possession as inferior.
Origen had available to him several different versions of the Septaugint, while having a pre-Massoretic Hebrew text to allow the reader of the Hexapla to see the variants of the Greek versions.
Taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia on "Hexapla":
"The principles which guided Origen in his work as textual critic are partly explained by Origen himself. He began by assuming the correctness of the current Hebrew textus receptus, and considered the Septuagint as more or less pure according to the degree in which it approximated to the Hebrew. He frequently changed the spelling of proper names to conform with the Hebrew. The symbols were intended not only to indicate a difference between the two texts, but to mark a departure from the Hebrew verity or genuine text. These principles are rightly discredited by modern scholars, who recognize that the Septuagint often bears plain witness to a Hebrew original different from the textus receptus and older than it in some parts. Moreover, of two readings, one a free, the other a literal, translation of the Hebrew, the free is more likely to be the original rendering of the Septuagint translator, while the literal is more apt to represent the effort of correctors, who very frequently endeavoured to bring the Greek into greater conformity with the Hebrew. Origen's critical principles were at fault, then, but his use of symbols ought to have guarded others from being led by his work into error. Unfortunately, the symbols were not reproduced in many copies which were taken of the fifth column — the Septuagint together with the readings from Theodotion and Aquila."
According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, it appears that the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls are more in common than the Masoretic text which came much later. Considering that the Septaugint is a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, we can suppose that the copyists writing 200-300 years before Christ would have been fairly accurate - however, with the growth of various versions, some variances had crept into the Scriptures - as it has in the many different translations we have even today.
Here is a site that compares, verse for verse, the Masoretic against the Septuagint.
http://www.ecmarsh.com/lxx-kjv/
Here are an example of a few contradictions posed by the Masoretic text, none of which exist when the Greek Septuagint is used:
1. II Samuel 6:23 vs. II Samuel 21:8
2. Matthew 15:8-9 vs. Isaiah 29:13
3. Romans 3:11-18 vs. Psalms 14:2-3
4. II Kings 24:8 vs. II Chronicles 36:9
Regards
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/masorete.htm
Regards
UC, this has already been presented on this thread. Brenton bases his otherwise educated essay on the knowledge of the middle of the 19th century. Since then, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947) demonstrated that there was more than one "Jewish canon" and that the Septuagint is actually a lot more genuine that it used to be believed in the 1850's, when brenton wrote that piece.
No, the DSS have reinforced the Masoretic text underlying the KJV. Nothing discovered in the DSS has proven as convincing as the Book of Isaiah written in Hebrew circa 100 BC, buried 70 AD, rediscovered 50 AD, and yet a near perfect match for the Masoretic text from circa 1000 AD.
I think your dates are off on Isaiah. Also, check the discrepancies of the Masoretic text of Matthew 15:8-9 vs. Isaiah 29:13.
Regards
Jo has already pointed to the fact that this is not so. The book of isaih is the only complete book that has been recovered. You can't base the veracity of a whole canon on one book's integrity.
Besides, it's not am matter if the Masoretic Text is 'correct' or not but the fact that DSS do differ form it and do agree with the Septuagint, thereby shattering the fairytale that there was 'one Jewish canon.'
The fact that it agrees with LXX in some parts shows that the so-called "Hebrew" Bible (the canon of the Palestinian Pharisee sect, which everyone assumed to be the one and only correct version of the Old Testament is not what it was made to be.
The fact that the Apostles overwhelmingly use the Septuagint (over 90% of the time) shows that they considered it Scripture. Yet, it is not good enough for Protestants! Rather they use the canon of the Christ-denying Jewish sect.
The KJV "agrees" with the Paletisnian canon because that's the basis for its OT. No surprise there. The rest is based on the Textus Receptus, a "Greek" source retrotranslated into Greek from a Latin translation!
Add alittle Protestant flavoring that reeks in the KJV and you have a great source, indeed! Even the authors admit it was not inspired and list there are known lists of hundreds of errors in the KJV.
The DSS revealed that, yes, the Masoretic Text's Isaiah is faithfully preserved, and no, the Palestinian (Pharisaical) canon is not the OT bible; there were others, equally Jewish and equally valid: Judaism did not have a single canon. Bingo!
Also, the canon of the DSS contains numerous apocalypses not found in the Palestinian or Septuagint canon. The only thing we know for sure is (a) there was no single Jewish canon; the canon proclaimed at Jamnia and the OT used by the Protestants is not the only Jewish canon (in fact they picked the one that was the least distasteful to the Christ-denying Jamnia rabbis, and therefore the least "Christian"), and (b) the MT p[reserved faithfully the Qumran version of Isaiah, and (c) DSS agree in some parts with the Septuagint, in some parts with the Palestinian (Masoretic) text, and in some it disagrees with both, and finally (d) we do know that the Sadducees' canon consisted only of Torah (but we don't know which version), and that they controlled the Temple.
Here are an example of a few contradictions posed by the Masoretic text, none of which exist when the Greek Septuagint is used:
1. II Samuel 6:23 vs. II Samuel 21:8
2. Matthew 15:8-9 vs. Isaiah 29:13
3. Romans 3:11-18 vs. Psalms 14:2-3
4. II Kings 24:8 vs. II Chronicles 36:9
= = =
GOODNESS! I found NO essential contradictions in any of the above. The essence of the meaning was consistent.
Language is rarely precise. Paraphrasing with personal emphases or tendencies lessens the already weak precision. It's human and linguistic NORMAL.
Interesting that anyone would construe the above pairs of Scriptures contradictory at all.
Mystifying.
Good pts, imho.
What details are you talking about? Did I ever doubt any details? I simply stated that God foreknows our decisions (because God exists outside of time), without forcing us to make them.
Somehow you feel that our decisions affect, or even "diminish" His plan! Our free will affects us, and not God.
Otherwise, you have "open theism" where God just sits there amazed at how things are turning out and "wow" it is similar to what He planned,/I>
Open theism? I am Eastern Orthodox. Orthodoxy and 'open theism" or Armenianism have nothing in common; just as we have nothing in common with the Reformed variety. There is no "open theism" in Orthodoxy.
"I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life." [Isa 38:5] Seems pretty clear to me that God switched to Plan B.
The only people who had "free will" were Adam and Eve; every one else's decisions were based on the negative influences of sin, from their parents to the fallen and cursed creation
And they picked evil although they were not 'slaves' to it. There are two possibliities: God made them pick evil, or God knew and allowed it. But how was God affected by this? Did God lack something because His creation decided to shoot itself in the foot? No! Adam and Eve and all subsequent generations lost something.
Our free will affects us, BD, not God. We have choices.
Where is love lacking?,/i>
Robots don't love, BD, I hate to break it to do. Love is not the same as blind obedience.
He chose those He wanted to spend eternity with and brings things about to make sure they are with Him. (Rom. 8:28-33)
That is almost exlcusively +Paul's idea. In fact, I don't think anyone but +Paul (assuming Acts are also his distation, or closely influenced by him) uses the term "predestinated" or "predestination."
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren
Um, it is not the image but the likeness of God that we lost. We are created in His image; it's just that after the fall we are not like Him any more.
They get what they want, separation from God
That makes no sense, BD, if they don't have free will. How can you want anything if that which you want is God working through you?
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