Indeed, this pluralism of which you speak -- reshaping the Gospel and the Magesterium to conform to our desires -- is not limited to insisting on women's ordination and gay marriage. It permits cohabitation, contraception, abortion, euthanasia and a host of other self centered behaviors. What is the point of having a faith of any kind if it does not inform your conscience?
I agree with the stand you're taking against the pluralistic view of early Christianity and the church. I might just add that I'm not sure what a moderately-well educated person is, but the modern NT scholars I've read heavily promote this pluralistic idea of Scripture. Why, you have Mark's Jesus, Matthew's Jesus, John's Jesus and Luke-Acts' Jesus. Instead of reading the sacred writings as a whole, the historical-critical school likes to carve the OT and NT up into fragmented parts. Plantinga has some words of wisdom concerning this "Tendenz" in _Warranted Christian Belief_.
This instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, "Historicity of the Gospels" (1964), is well worth a read. It does not carry the same weight as, say, an Encyclical from the Pope, but it has been seen by scholars and hierarchs alike as normative in Catholic New Testament Scholarship for quite some time, and is very nuanced.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURI...IA/
PBCGOSPL.HTM
Also available online is this writing by Cardinal Ratzinger from 1988, "Biblical Interpretation in Crisis." Here again modern methods of "Biblical Criticism" are not rejected out of hand, but are certainly criticized.
http://
www.crossroadsinitiative....55943f7c5c7e5d6
Fos, I like Plantinga too, for the most part (except for his rejection of "divine simplicity" in Does God Have a Nature?). Anyway, the phrase "moderately-well educated person" is one I got from C.S. Lewis somewhere, where he was using it as a slur against the purvasive anti-traditional and anti-supernaturalist prejudices of western "moderately well-educated" people. (Perhaps it was in The Abolition of Man.)
Grateful C., thanks for the links. Great!
Of course there is a great pluralism of New Testament theologies, and this is a rich resource for our efforts to connect the apostolic witness with contemporary questions. Do these theologies contradict one another? Certainly great tensions can be found between the traditions and especially between earlier and later stages of the same tradition (e.g. the Johannine and Pauline trajectories). I pointed out earlier that Luke rewrites the words in Mark referring to Jesus's appearances to the apostles in Galilee (compare 1 Cor 15) so as to make Galilee disappear from the picture so that the appearances take place in Jerusalem instead. What lies behind this?
"I pointed out earlier that Luke rewrites the words in Mark referring to Jesus's appearances to the apostles in Galilee (compare 1 Cor 15) so as to make Galilee disappear from the picture so that the appearances take place in Jerusalem instead. What lies behind this?"
Actually if you read Mark 16, the only reference to Galilee is in verse 7, where the angel says the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee. But in the remainder of the chapter -- the Longer Ending -- there are no placenames or geographical references. So it appears that the Longer Ending of St. Mark's Gospel "makes Galilee disappear from the picture" too. But then you have no proof that the resurrected Jesus appeared in Galilee but not Jerusalem, whereas we have several references in Holy Scripture to His appearances in Jerusalem. You also have no proof that St. Luke's words in ch. 24:6 are a rewrite of St. Mark's words in ch. 16:7 -- just as there is no proof that the disciples of the Apostles were wrong when they said that St. Matthew's Gospel was written before St. Mark's Gospel.
Father O'Leary, you reference "a great pluralism of New Testament theologies." If you mean differences of authorship, emphasis, focus of concern, etc., I agree--though I would hesitate to speak of "tensions" between these, which strikes me as all-too-problematically Hegelian.
If you mean differences of the sort we find between, say, (a) Pope Benedict XVI as former Prefect of the CDF and (b) Charlie Curran, then I would not merely welcome the term "tension," but embrace "contradiction" as well--not in the Hegelian, but in an absolute, ineluctable sense.
The "pluralism" of irreconcilable conflicting beliefs is not the pluralism of the New Testament Church.
Curran vs Ratzinger --- are the differences so terrific? St James (the Epistle of James) vs St Paul looks and sounds like direct contradiction. St Polycarp, above, seems to claim that Jesus appeared in Jerusalem but not in Galilee --but that evidently contradicts not only the angel's words in Mk but also the scenes in Mt and Jn. If Jesus appeared to the apostles in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday, there is a prima facie contradiction with Mk and Mt. The longer ending of Mk is irrelevant here, as it is a much later text than Mk. The priority of Mk to Mt and Lk is also irrelevant in this context; if Lk is not rewriting Mk (as the vast majority of scholars believe) he is still contradicting him.
Clarification, the scenes in Mt and Jn, I mean Jn 21 -- considered by many exegetes to be from a different hand from the Jerusalem-centred Jn 20. Why should these disparities be so threatening to you guys? As a student of theology I have lived with this stuff since 1969.
Xavier Leon-Dufour, writing back in the 60s or so, said that the earliest resurrection kerygma took two distinct forms -- "God has raised him from the dead" and "God has exalted him to his right hand" -- the resurrection narratives would then be pictorializations of these. The only eye witness account we have is Paul's who speaks of himself as "the one born out of time" since the "official" appearances to Peter, the 12, the 500, James, James and the 12 seemed to be closed. His account of his experience is very modest, "I have seen the Lord" (I Cor 9.1), "when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me" (Gal 1.15), "he appeared also unto me" (I Cor 15). The glamorous accounts of the road to Damascus experience in Acts are a later orchestration. The empty tomb is quite plausibly a later elaboration. Paul says that "what is sown as a physical body is raised as a spiritual body" and talks of the Risen one as "a life-giving spirit". This is quite far from the scene in Luke where Jesus eats a fish to prove that he is not a ghost. There is certainly a tension if not a contradiction between Luke's materialism and Paul's spiritualism.
"St Polycarp, above, seems to claim that Jesus appeared in Jerusalem but not in Galilee -- but that evidently contradicts not only the angel's words in Mk but also the scenes in Mt and Jn."
No, that's not what I claimed. The Scriptures obviously say that He appeared to them in Jerusalem on Easter as well as afterwards in Galilee.
"If Jesus appeared to the apostles in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday, there is a prima facie contradiction with Mk and Mt."
I don't see it.
"if Lk is not rewriting Mk (as the vast majority of scholars believe) he is still contradicting him."
You say contradicting, I say complementing.
The angel in Mk says that the apostles will see Jesus in Galilee (no mention of Jerusalem); Luke rewrites this to read "as he said to you in Galilee" and has the appearances in Jerusalem; none in Galilee -- on Easter Sunday followed immediately by the Ascension -- as the most natural reading of the text suggests(in Acts there is a 40 day interval, during which "he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem"),
In Mt Jesus himself repeats to the women the message of the angel, saying "go and tell my brethern to go to Galilee and there they will see me". Next we hear is "Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted". Just as Luke leaves no place for Galilee appearances, Matthew leaves none for Jerusalem appearances.
I don't believe one should read the Bible is such a hyperliteral manner. I got my fill of hyperliteralism during my fundamentalistic Protestant days.
Fr. O'Leary,
I can't help thinking that there's a fundamentalist wannabe inside of you just itching to break out. Are you sure you wouldn't like to join the order of the Sons of Torquemada? I'll be happy to send you the forms.
Ego assentior quod lectio bibliae non debet litteralis esse. Amicus venerabilissimus Bruno Forte idem sentit. Sed pro hoc a catholicis conservativis ut Modernistam denunciatus est. Gratulor tibi quod hermeneuticam biblicam sanam et intelligentem finaliter accepis.
Why must you sully Cardinal Forte's reputation by attaching it to your silly ideas about biblical interpretations?
The Bible is literally true, which is not to say that modern English translations made by protestants are infallible. God is most definitely a lover of language. Why else would he take Simon's name, make it Peter and establish a Church on a word play unless it were so much more than a word play? St. Jerome understood that "brothers" may mean a more extended family. Understanding Jesus as the Son of Man, if "man" is understood one dimensionally, denies the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, the chastity of Joseph, and probably more besides. "Man" is a rich term in English, but narrow one-dimensional literalists (an accurate description, not an ad hominem or empty attack) fail to see this and so insist that we change the words!
Chris
Fr. O'Leary,
And how do your comments jive with what Vatican II taught about the Bible, specifically Dei Verbum, 19? (you know, all that stuff about inerrancy, etc.)
Non ego, sed illi quibus responsus sum, Forte ut Modernistam denunciant. Forte adhuc non est Cardinalis sed Archiepiscopus soltanter. Forte, secundum supracitatos criticos, dicit quod narratio evangelico de sepulchro vacuo est genus litterarium reflectans liturgiam commemoritivam celebratam anti sepulchrum Domini.
Quod Biblia sit litteraliter vera est thesis fundamenalistorum. Lege Numeri 31 -- an hoc veritas litteralis sit? Lege narrationes apparitionum Christi in Luca 24 et Matthaeo 28 -- datis contradictionibus manifestis inter duas narrationes, non possunt litteraliter accuratae esse. Ut bene agnoscant "St Polycarp" et Dr Blosser et Bruno Forte et maior pars exegetorum insistere supra factualitatem litteralem istium narrationum crudum et falsum est.
De inerratione et inspiratione Sanctae Scripturae bene scripsit Karl Rahner.
correctio: de inerrantia
correctio -- de inerrantia
Inerrantia in fide et moribus, in doctrina formali auctorum sacrorum (non in argumentis incidentalibus) fortiter sufficeret ad defendendam doctrinam inerrantiae? Inspiratio communalis populi Dei est fons inspirationis secundum Rahner. Non significat interventio magica Spiritus Sancti.
Karl Rahner is your authority? Then the fact that I inadvertently promoted Archbishop Forte is relatively small potatoes.
Chris
I'm very saddened to see a priest display so uncharitable and arrogant an attitude as Fr. O'Leary has been displaying for us. Since very few of us here can read or write Latin, his Latin word games are nothing more than intellectual masturbation.
If he had anything important or true to say, he'd say it in a language his interlocutors could understand. As it is, he's welcome to go on titillating himself. I got bored of his antics long ago.
If Rahner is a contemptible source, what Catholic theologian do you treat with respect? Do you not know that the present Pope co-wrote important books with Rahner and quoted him admiringly in book after book? I fear you may like the new Pope less than you think when you discover how steeped he is in critical methods of scriptural study and how conversant he is with the questions of the modern world.
Polycarp, no uncharity in urging you to learn ecclesiastical Latin -- two months intensive study is all that is required. A good Papist would not balk at that.
Whatever. You chose to end this exchange when you switched to Latin. Don't act like you're interesting in continuing it now.
I'm well aware of Benedict XVI's conversance in critical methods of scripture study. I don't always agree with the way he uses those methods, but I note he never takes them as far as, well, folks like you do. As for his beig conversant with the questions of the modern world, well, that's just the kind of man we need as Pope.
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Quam barbare dicitur! Quid est `assentior quod`? Nempe in lingua culta pro oratione obliqua infintivo et accusativo uti debet
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