Off-topic message to Spirit: perhaps you might offer some pastoral counseling to "lovehandles", who has just deposited a little pile of hate at the bottom of the comment box to the Dale Vree article.
Ah, well. Let it not darken this brightest of days. He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Correction: it's in the comment box for the Ronald G. Lee article posted 8 March.
The empty tomb is indeed pre-Markan, and may be alluded to in Paul's "etaphe". But even if historical (which most NT scholars doubt) it is a SIGN of the resurrection, to be interpreted by faith. The sign is best interpreted in negative terms, "he is NOT here, why seek ye the living among the dead" as the (fictional) interpreting angel(s) in the synoptics declare. The New Testament has no description of the resurrection as a Mel Gibson style reanimation of a corpse. On the contrary, Paul writes: "what is sown a physical body is raised a spiritual body". Only the Gnostic gospels give eye-witness accounts of a moment of resurrection.
Does the body of the risen Christ exist in space and time? Is this a meaningful question? Is heaven a place in space? Is heaven in time?
The resurrection is MANIFEST in space and time, in the encounter of the apostolic witness with the Risen One. What form that encounter took cannot be discerned with entire clarity behind the multiplicity of the largely symbolic narrations, from the "ophthe" of I Cor. 15 onwards.
The presence of the risen Christ to and in the Church, especially in the Eucharist, is a spatio-temporal reality in a sense.
But spiritual realities are never "in" space and time. Even the human mind or a work of art are not "in" space. The categories of space and even time apply best to merely physical objects such as tables and chairs.
An essential feature of the resurrection encounter is joy, chara. The joy of the resurrection is what Jean-Luc Marion calls a saturated phenomenon, exceeding the grasp of our categorial apparatus (including such categories as "space" and "time"), simply because its reality is too rich to be summarized in categories made for everyday phenomena.
The resurrection is a temporal event in the sense that it comes AFTER the death of Christ, as does the outpouring of the Spirit. Yet there is a curious elusiveness about its timing -- after three days and three nights in some texts, on the third day in others, etc. The "third day" is perhaps a kind of symbolic timing. Probably the only thing that lends itself to objective timing would be the resurrection "appearances" -- which are testimonies to the reality that "Christ is risen". The NT does not actually encourage attention to the timing of the resurrection.
from Abp Rowan Williams' Easter sermon:
Second, the New Testament was written by people who were still trying to find a language that would catch up with a reality bigger than they had expected. The stories of the resurrection especially have all the characteristics of stories told by people who are struggling to find the right words for an unfamiliar experience – like the paradoxes and strained language of some of the mystics. The disciples really meet Jesus, as he always was, flesh and blood – yet at first they don’t recognise him, and he’s something more than just flesh and blood. At the moment of recognition, when bread is broken, when the wounds of crucifixion are displayed, he withdraws again, leaving us floundering for words.
You'll probably like this: http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/
But his argument about the unlikelihood of the witness of the women having been invented (in a patriarchal culture) leave me a little uneasy. In Paul the women are not mentioned at all. Their role in Mark is to behold the empty tomb, not the Risen One. Matthew adds an encounter of the women with Christ (redactional), not found in Luke. John has the famous Magdalene encounter, but this is at a very late stage where the resurrection witness is already long established. So I don't see what weight can really be given to the claim that Christianity based its resurrection witness on a most unlikely source -- an ex-possessed peasant woman. The Magdalene appearance story is for intra-Christian consumption.
If the women are cited as the primary witnesses for the empty tomb only (treating the Johannine account of Peter and John's race to the tomb, and its echo in the interpolated verse in Luke, 24:12, as a later elaboration), this hardly lends tremendous credibility to the story. The primary kerygma, "Christ rose from the dead" is warranted by a list of male witnesses, along with a group of 500 (I Cor). The empty tomb tradition, first attested in Mark 16, was perhaps not put forward as a primary evidence or argument for the resurrection -- this may be more a modern apologetic use of it. If the early tomb were something that was thought to need witnesses, perhaps the evangelists would have supplied male witnesses (as in John), but its context might have been more devotional than apostolic, in continuity with the role of the women by the Cross.
Actually, Matthew does supply male witnesses to the empty tomb, namely the soldiers keeping guard. Apologetic warrants begin to surround the story with Matthew and Luke, no doubt a sign of chronological distance from the apostolic generation. One might speak of a Johannine apologetic as well, but it is rooted in contemplation as in the rest of the gospel. When Luke's risen Jesus eats or shows his wounds it is apologetic demonstration, but this note is absent in John 20 or even John 21 (usually attributed to the final editor of the gospel).
That which was dead is now alive. He is truly risen.
Deal with it, Father.
If I understand correctly, Fr. O'Leary affirms that Jesus Christ is truly risen, and that the New Testament community was formed precisely on the basis of a true, flesh and blood encounter with the risen Jesus. Fr. O'Leary does not deny that there were witnesses to the Resurrection. He agrees, I think, that the New Testament would never have been written in the absence of such actual witnesses.
I am intrigued by Fr. O'Leary's proposal that the gospel accounts of the Resurrection were not written so much to prove that the Resurrection happened, as to express faith in, and devotion towards, the Risen One. That idea is perhaps controversial from the standpoint of scriptural exegesis, but is it heretical?
Would a sensible man express belief in and devotion toward someone who wasn't real or hadn't really risen from the dead?
Dave,
Keep watch. On the one hand, indeed, you see (and will see) a great deal of effort expended in avoiding any appearance of overt heresy. On the other hand, you will see no less effort expended in avoiding the admission that the historical and empirical dimension could admit of a supernatural miracle. There are reasons for this, which, in the midst of Form 1040, I haven't the time to go into; but, as I say, just keep watching.
In fact, the rules of the historical-critical game for disqualifying historical evidence as historical are far more convoluted than U.S. tax laws; which should give one pause.
Thus, Dave, when Fr. O'Leary attests to the resurrection of Christ or to the NT's witness to Christ's resurrection, one must step back and ask what epistemic status this witness has. For when we see him alluding to the role of the 'women' and of 'apologetics' and of 'faith' in the foregoing, we must not presume that this means anything like the justified true belief that constitutes 'knowledge' in the ordinary sense of the word. Ask him, why don't you, whether you could have actually seen Jesus physically emerge from the tomb if you were there at His resurrection, or whether biblical accounts of such sightings must be reinterpreted in some other nonliteral way.
Very nice, PP. Fr. O'Leary, with all his denial about "space and time" is indeed denying that the body itself has been raised into new order.
A note on an earlier discussion. Despite Fr. O'Leary's incessant posting, his display of academic theological dissent is useful for others. Convergent Former Realist often simply mucks up the conversation with nonsense. If you were to ban anybody from this site, it would be him.
Dr. Blosser, thanks for the perspective. I will indeed keep watch.
Fr. O'Leary -- PP raises a good question. Now, I've been assuming here that you believe that there were in fact human witnesses who saw Jesus physically emerge (in a glorified physicality) from the tomb, and reported the fact.
Do you believe that if a human being was watching the tomb, they would have seen Someone emerge? I'll grant that whether or not they recognized that Someone as Jesus was conditioned by faith and grace, yet the question is simply, did Jesus emerge so as to be seen?
'The New Testament has no description of the resurrection as a Mel Gibson style reanimation of a corpse.'
Spirit, you're not being fair to Mel. 
You can be sure that he was not attempting to depict the resurrection as the "reanimation of a corpse". Personally, I think that Mel did a pretty good job -- given the limitations of his medium -- of giving us a sense that Jesus was rising in a glorified state. I suppose that it would be beyond Mel's creative ability and the bounds of special effects technology to present the resurrection scene in such a way that only believers see Jim Caviezel and nonbelievers see another actor.
I'll have to look at this again before wholeheartedly recommending it. But I seem to remember being very impressed by Walter (now Cardinal) Kasper's treatment of the resurrection in Jesus the Christ.
His launching point was (seemed true to me then and still seems so) that the evidence of the empty tomb is not conclusive--it could be empty for another reason. And the eyewitness accounts are not accounts of the rising itself. So what do we do theologically?
The answer (if I remember right) is to use the theology of Dei Verbum: the unity of word and deed under the category of sign. The Word of God witnesses to the truth of the deeds of God.
There's a lot more involved, and it's an interesting read, that's for sure. He ends up by saying something like, "It is to this extent--and only to this extent--that we can agree with Bultmann's statement that "Christ rose in the kerygma.'"
No matter what you say, Fr. O'Leary.
Spirit writes:
'Only the Gnostic gospels give eye-witness accounts of a moment of resurrection.'
This is an interesting point. Perhaps God did not intend for the rising itself to be seen, which would account for why it is not described in the canonical gospels.
In view of this, the question that I asked above (... 'did Jesus emerge so as to be seen?') is perhaps a bit facile.
The important thing is that JESUS was seen to be alive, eating food, building campfires at the seashore (well, perhaps no one saw him build the campfire, but it was there, and who else would have built it?), allowing his disciples to probe his wounds, and making Peter cry by asking him three times: "Do you love me?"
Kasper sounds somewhat to the left of me -- I heard that he is to be "sent down" from Rome in the forthcoming curia reshuffle.
I believe that the apostles had a privileged encounter with the risen Christ, in which the initiative came from the risen Christ.
I believe that the presence of the risen Christ to them was a physical presence in the sense of a glorified body, such as we will all have at the resurrection of the dead, and such as Christ has in the Eucharist.
The resurrection stories in the Gospels are full of symbolic and apologetical details that cannot be taken as literal historical report. Nonetheless, witness to the encounter and to the overwhelming joy it brought shimmers through quite convincingly.
Paul's transmission of early accounts along with his own direct witness in I Cor 15 seems to me the base line for a perspicuous reading of the NT resurrection traditions (along with Galatians 1.15-16 and I Cor 9.1).
After that I would study the dynamics of resurrection/exaltation language in the other authentic Pauline epistles.
Next the Synoptic resurrection predictions and appearance narratives in this order: Mark, Matthew, Luke.
Next the resurrection-references in Acts.
Next the whole Gospel of John, which refers to the resurrection several times as well as to the glorification or the Hour of Jesus, and then the two final chapters (plus the late ending of Mark 16.9-20).
The Book of Revelation also offers interesting sidelights on the resurrection appearances and the dynamics of the resurrection/exaltation of Jesus.
Perhaps Gnostic or other extra-canonical texts could have value as well by showing how NOT to think of the resurrection (ans also as indicating tendencies that Matthew, Luke and John might be seen as countering in their apologetical-sounding passages).
As St Paul points out, Christianity stands or falls on the reality of the resurrection. But not, happily, on literalistic or materialistic conceptions of the the resurrection.
Dave on the "rising" itself. There is NO account of Jesus being passively seen from the outside. He always takes the initiative in manifesting himself. The whole language of the stories presents the resurrection appearances in this key, and also as summoning and requiring a perception of faith from the recipients.
Jesus did not get out of the grave and walk around for forty days. The "forty days" refers to a span of time in which Christ sometimes manifested himself in his glorious body to the apostles (to Paul later, as to one born out of time --- out of that time).
" In fact, the rules of the historical-critical game for disqualifying historical evidence as historical are far more convoluted than U.S. tax laws; which should give one pause. " I don't think that is true at all. Exegesis is a very democratic thing, because any reasonable interpretation of the text that both teacher and student have in front of them will be discussed on its merits. One of the "rules" stressed by Vatican II and the Pontifical Biblical Commission is awareness of matters of literary genre and of the way the Gospel writers reshape their message in view of the needs of the churches of their times. This will often relieve the reader of scripture of the needless burden of trying to defend every detail as historical and to square the resulting inconsistencies. In reality it is the rubrics of a stubborn fundamentalistic literalism that become as tortured as a tax-code.
"Thus, Dave, when Fr. O'Leary attests to the resurrection of Christ or to the NT's witness to Christ's resurrection, one must step back and ask what epistemic status this witness has." Good question -- we are told that people directly witnessing the presence of the risen Christ disbelieved in it (Matt 28.17). Nonetheless, those who open their hearts in faith to the resurrection and are filled with spiritual joy experience the encounter with the risen one in a way that overrides doubt. "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me" is how Paul put it -- the epistemic status of this cannot be measured by Carnapian logical positivists, any more than the epistemic status of one's perception of the beauty of the music of Mozart (to give a lowly example). Clutching at sure-fire epistemic proofs seems out of place here.
" For when we see him alluding to the role of the 'women' and of 'apologetics' and of 'faith' in the foregoing, we must not presume that this means anything like the justified true belief that constitutes 'knowledge' in the ordinary sense of the word." I would say that Paul's belief that he had seen the risen Lord was justified true belief. But was it the kind of knowledge I have when I see an ordinary empirical object -- the book on the table in front of me right now? There are many kinds of knowledge. Positivists try to reduce all knowledge to irrefutable logic or undeniable empirical observation, but that is too narrow.
" Ask him, why don't you, whether you could have actually seen Jesus physically emerge from the tomb if you were there at His resurrection, or whether biblical accounts of such sightings must be reinterpreted in some other nonliteral way." There are no accounts of "sightings" but only of Jesus manifesting himself, on a series of occasions.
The NT never says that Jesus walked out of the tomb. The closest it comes to that is telling us that the tomb is empty. He is not here.
If one is convinced of the historicity of the tomb and of the fact that it was discovered empty, and that the only explanation of this is a suprenatural miracle, then I suggest that what one would have seen were one inside the tomb is the sudden disappearance of the crucified body.
On the other hand when the bodies of the just are raised on the last day, this does not necessarily mean that their bones physically disappear whevever they happen to be at the time (the material components of our bodies are changing all the time even during our lifetimes in any case). The resurrection of the body is clearly a very mysterious thing.
The raising of Christ from the dead is not itself a miracle in the sense that the raising of Lazarus (if historical) would be. It is much more than that -- a new creation. To reduce it to a local miracle misses the point.
That it may have been attended by supernatural miracles -- such as the miraculous emptying of a tomb -- is another question -- but these, like the Virgin Birth, would merely be signs of a mystery far exceeding them.
Dave touches on an interesting point -- what is the motivation of the resurrection narratives? I suspect that there are a variety of motivations for the different narratives, and that the ones where the motivation seems most obvious (as in Matthew's story of the guard at the tomb) are the less important ones.
The resurrection narratives in the Gospels should be connected with the entire work in which they are found -- they continue its themes -- completing its theological portrait of Jesus -- John 20, for example, makes full sense only against the elaborate design of the Fourth Gospel as a whole.
"A report was released recently by the Gnostic Reevaluators of Incarnate Phenomena Everywhere (GRIPE) and endorsed by the Society for Nascent Egregious Epistemological Research (SNEER). The findings were conclusive. The little flag that appears in the photograph above the opening of the ‘tomb’ proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the so-called ‘Christ’ was actually the animatronic gopher from the film ‘Caddyshack,’ and that the alleged ‘St. Peter’ was actually Rodney Dangerfield. The alleged ‘St. John the Evangelist’ is actually an impersonation by Bob Saget. The Olsen Twins in multiple roles impersonated the rest of the reputed ‘Apostles.’"
I probably didn't represent Kasper properly. It's worth reading.
One of the best assessments of the historicity of the Resurrection comes from Anglican scholar N. T. Wright (see here a synopsis of the main ideas he puts forward in his substantial book "The Resurrection of the Son of God" (2003)).
One of his most important assertions is that for belief in the Resurrection to emerge, both the empty tomb and the apparitions of the Risen Christ (with His repeated insistance on the materiality of His glorified Body) were necessary. The one just wouldn't do without the other.
I quote some of the relevant passages from the book in my blog (you have to scroll down a bit).
One aspect of Fr. O'Leary's exegesis of the resurrection witness disturbs me, and that is his denial of the historicity of the empty tomb. To quote N.T. Wright:
'[The empty tomb stories and the appearance stories] are like the two parts of a road sign, the arm which indicates the road and the vertical post which supports it. Without the post, the arm cannot be seen; without the arm, the post cannot say anything. Join them together and they point to the truth.'
To deny the historicity of the empty tomb is to leave open the possiblity that Jesus' corpse lay mouldering in the tomb while his "spiritual body" appeared to the disciples. To accept that possibility is not only heretical, it is blasphemous.
'On the other hand when the bodies of the just are raised on the last day, this does not necessarily mean that their bones physically disappear whevever they happen to be at the time (the material components of our bodies are changing all the time even during our lifetimes in any case). The resurrection of the body is clearly a very mysterious thing.'
We cannot compare the resurrection of the Lord to our own resurrection on the last day. I do not know what will become of my bones in the earth. I do know that my Lord's bones were gone from sight. The tomb was EMPTY, save the burial cloths and the witnessing (historical) angels.
I cannot take seriously Fr. O'Leary's claim to be to the "right" of Cardinal Kasper, when he accepts the possiblity that Jesus' body was left to rot in the earth. God forgive me for giving shape to such a blasphemous thought, even as a rhetorical statement.
While pertaining to a different topic, the following passage from an article in The Latin Mass magazine seems germane to this discussion:
'After Vatican II, the [liturgical] revolution was not led by those priests who were actually exercising the tasks of spiritual fatherhood on the parish level (in fact, many initially resisted it). The priests whose natural habitat is the world of academia, who have indicated a propensity to value their professorships at least as highly as their priesthood, have been the agents promoting the dismantling of the traditional structures that had protected the celibate priesthood.'
With just a couple of word-substitutions, that passage speaks volumes about the debate over the historicity of the empty tomb:
'... have been the agents promoting the dismantling of the traditional [methods of scriptural exegesis] that had protected the [dogmatic truths of the Catholic Faith].'
The "rule" that biblical scholars should maintain 'awareness of matters of literary genre and of the way the Gospel writers reshape their message in view of the needs of the churches of their times' is reasonable. The hermeneutics of doubt that casts suspicion on the eternal truths of the Faith is not reasonable.
Speaking of The Latin Mass magazine, there is a good article in the latest issue by Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. providing a perfectly reasonable harmonization of the various resurrection accounts in the Gospels. One would *expect* a certain amount of apparent discrepancies among multiple witnesses but, as is proven in courtrooms every day, reasonable harmonizations eliminating the discrepancies are quite possible. Any right thinking (and believing) Catholic exegete would prefer a reasonable harmonization to a flat-out denial of historicity.
The admission of genre and author's intent was never meant by the Church to be the camel's nose under the tent by which ostensibly Catholic exegetes end up doubting or denying the historicity of virtually every part of the Gospels. For example, what possible reason besides a defective faith could a Catholic have for doubting the historicity of the resurrection of Lazarus?
In light of the entire Tradition upholding the historicity of the Gospels, reaffirmed by Vatican II, the burden of proof is squarely on any Catholic exegete who denies the historicity of any passage. As I think we have seen here, there is no proof forthcoming, just assertions that the very exercise of harmonization is a symptom of the dreaded fundamentalism.
'The raising of Christ from the dead is not itself a miracle in the sense that the raising of Lazarus (if historical) would be. It is much more than that -- a new creation. To reduce it to a local miracle misses the point.'
That is a slippery distinction indeed.
The resurrection of Jesus is the most stupendous and prodigious miracle that God has ever worked. It is the miracle of miracles and the sign of signs. Quite to the point, the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the sign that guarantees that those who believe in the risen Jesus are in fact "a new creation" in Christ.
"The raising of Christ from the dead is not itself a miracle in the sense that the raising of Lazarus (if historical) would be. It is much more than that -- a new creation."
I think I agree with you on this point. The miracle of Jesus that restored earthly life to the dead Lazarus is qualitatively and spiritually different from the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ; the latter is inexpressibly superior, especially in its effects. The Resurrection is 'a new creation' in more ways than one. Eternal Life. "He rose in space and time", yes, but clearly, our Lord was no longer bound or conditioned by these in the way Lazarus continued to be, who remained subject to human temporal needs and realities, injury, decay and death. I suspect the completely divinized humanity and body of our Lord is completely beyond anything the physical sciences can ever understand and know.
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Continued...
Ooops. I noticed a comment (qualification) of yours got past me: "[...] Lazarus (if historical) [...]". I overlooked this, sorry.
I believe the raising of Lazarus was historical, i.e. this miracle *happened*.
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I wrote:
"I suspect the completely divinized humanity and body of our Lord is completely beyond anything the physical sciences can ever understand and know."
Hmm. Too weak. Make that: 'The completely divinized or deified humanity and body of our Risen Lord is completely beyond anything the physical sciences can ever understand and know.'
God bless you all. Christ is Risen!
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Paul,
All faithful Catholics (and other Christians) will agree that the resurrection of Jesus is qualitatively different from the "resurrection" of Lazarus. The problem with Fr. O'Leary's line of argument is that it casts doubt on the historicity of most if not all of the miracles recorded in the New Testament, including the raising of Lazarus and -- to the point of this thread -- the prodigious-beyond-words miracle of Christ's bodily resurrection.
Questions: Would it not be difficult, nay, impossible, through the natural sciences, to analyze and explain an immortal (resurrected) body (?) – which surely is not a 'simple' or 'commonplace' physical and temporal occurrence/reality!
Regarding the Resurrection of Jesus, I have never expected most modern secular historians to do much more than say: ‘this is what the early Christian witnesses (sources) said occurred, and this is what it meant to them’.
Are the miracles of our Lord so different?
Should we expect more?
Signs and wonders honestly beyond my comprehension, these sacred Christian mysteries, meanings and realities. I leave them to the philosophers, theologians, scientists, historians and others of the Faith, to prayerfully study them on their knees.
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Perhaps if I make it to Heaven, the Son of God will grant me to see and truly understand his glorified human body (flesh).
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Indeed, the appropriate response to the resurrection of Jesus is that given by doubting Thomas, who, doubting no more, simply said: "My Lord and my God."
A bit of a stretch for many of our modern, secularized exegetes, to be sure. 
The resurrection narrative are like a gallery of great paintings. The light is different in each of them, the situation lit up from a new revealing angle. The Emmaus story is the most beautiful of them. Cleopas and his friend don't know recognized Jesus until he breaks bread with them. Perhaps the message is that the most real encounters with Jesus are ones that happen without our being aware that we are meeting him -- encounters with our neighbor, with suffering, with justice. The Emmaus story is a theological summary of the eucharistic and scriptural experience of the early Church -- the discovery that Scripture itself lit up in a new way in light of Christ. A different (later) version of the tale occurs in Mark 16.12-13. Here the two walkers meet disbelief on their return.
I agree that Thomas's reaction to the resurrection is the basic one. Ho Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou. But that does not cover fundamentalistic or literalistic readings of the resurrection narratives -- the very readings which when they crumble under analysis have caused many people to lose their faith. It is a serious pastoral issue. Train people in immature literalism and you train them for unbelief in the end.
"completely divinized humanity" -- this might be a problematic expression.
Christ's humanity remains full and true humanity even in its glorified state.
Christ can't be seen as becoming more fully divine; better say "the complete revelation of his divinity in his glorified humanity", perhaps.
That some of the miracles in the New Testament are unhistorical is quite clear and universally admitted by non-fundamentalist exegetes. I did not say that "most or all" of them are unhistorical.
Fr. O'Leary,
A semantic question: Is "unhistorical" logically equivalent to "did not happen"? It seems to me that it would be quite difficult to prove that something did not happen without access to unbiased testimony, or at least testimony from multiple witnesses.
I may have been wrong to say that most NT scholars doubt the historicity of the empty tomb; better to say that they are not sure that the empty tomb is historical. Wright makes a good case, though probably representing a minority view among scholars. Theologians may glean from the narratives that there was a real objective encounter with the risen Christ, in which the initiative was Christ's, and in which he manifested a glorious body. That seems to me quite enough to be going on with. Wright, as a scriptural scholar, does not stand over the literal historicity of the resurrection narratives, but is concerned with their theological upshot. Whether the empty tomb is a necessary condition of the emergence and the content of the resurrection faith is a rather speculative issue in face.
"We cannot compare the resurrection of the Lord to our own resurrection on the last day." But Paul does that, doesn't he? I Cor 15.12-17, 20-23. Christ's resurrection is the firstfruits of ours.
"I do not know what will become of my bones in the earth. I do know that my Lord's bones were gone from sight. The tomb was EMPTY, save the burial cloths and the witnessing (historical) angels." The empty tomb may be historical, but the angels are another matter. In any case the four gospels give quite different accounts of these angels and of what they say. Mark has a young man that the women find sitting in the tomb; he tells them Jesus will see the apostles in Galilee. Matthew has "the angel of the Lord" spectacularly opening the tomb in the sight of the women and the dazzled soldiers; his face shines like lightning. He gives the same message to the women as in Mark, but now Jesus himself also appears and repeats the same message (a redactional addition, clearly). Luke has TWO men in dazzling garments who suddenly appear by the womens' side and who refer to Galilee in the past (since Luke will place the appearances not in Galilee but in Jerusalem and Emmaus). In John THERE IS NO ANGEL AT ALL: one woman (Mary of Magdala) finds the tomb empty; then Peter and John come and contemplate the empty tomb.
Oops, I forgot that after this scene in John, Mary remains behind at the tomb weeping, and now sees two angels in white, followed by the apparition of Jesus.
The four accounts agree on two points: the tomb was empty; there was an angelic presence somewhere in the vicinity. However the freedom with which the angelic element is varied suggests that the authors do not take it very seriously as a historical event, whereas they clearly do believe that the empty tomb was a historical reality.
What is the status of the apparition of Jesus near the empty tomb? It is in Matthew and John but not in Mark and Luke.
" It seems to me that it would be quite difficult to prove that something did not happen without access to unbiased testimony, or at least testimony from multiple witnesses."
Perhaps, but if two witnesses contradict one another on a given fact, only one of their stories at most can be historical.
The inclusion of different details - for instance over seeing Jesus at the tomb - is not equivalent to a contradiction, especially when those details were not personally witnessed by the writers. I think the sight of Jesus at the tomb is plausible given that he was seen many times thereafter before his ascension. I think a higher standard of disproof is required before we can rule out the orthodox understanding of Christ's resurrection.
John's gospel has six miracles, increasing in power, culminating in the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11. Did all six really happen in historical fact? It is easier to believe that the three healing miracles did, or that they are dramatizations of the healing activity of Jesus well attested in the other gospels. Multiplication of loaves and fishes is also attested in four other gospel texts, and raising of the dead in Luke's story of the widow's son at Naim. Cana seems a purely symbolic story about the changing of the old covenant into the new.
"the orthodox understanding", to repeat, is not biblical literalism.
Did the angel say "you will see him in Galilee" -- as Mark and Matthew have it, or "as he said to you in Galilee, you will see him" (in Jerusalem, as Luke 24 has it)?
Matthew has the Eleven see Jesus on a mountain in Galilee ("And when they saw him they worshipped him, though some doubted") -- as the angel (and Jesus) promised the women.
Luke has him see them in Jerusalem; there is nothing about anyone going to Galilee (which is a long way off).
John also has him appear to them in Jerusalem, on easter sunday and low sunday, and the added 21st chapter has a Galilee appearance (not the one in Matthew -- it is by a lake), which the redactor lists as the third appearance.
Fantastic harmonizations will always be possible, but the natural and sensible reading is to suppose that a lot of symbolic narration is involved (and probably that the resurrection testimonies -- as we find them in Paul -- were not very detailed and had to be filled out by the theological imagination that formed the later more pictorial traditions).
Fr. O'Leary,
You are making idle speculation. A statement that the writers probably made up this or that is useless if you believe that the bible is divinely inspired, as no probability can be inferred. I would venture that statements about the inventions of the gospel writers are "unhistorical".
But present Roman Catholic teaching does not support this fundamentalism. See http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURI...IA/
PBCINTER.HTM
Fr. O'Leary,
I believe Wright does believe that the empty tomb is a necessary condition for the first Christians' belief in the resurrection. He says that in his book and in many other dialogues and debates. Dale Allison has a new book on the resurrection criticizing Wright's arguments, but he does believe that Wright is right that it is unlikely that the apostles made up the empty tomb.
The divine inspiration of Scripture (mediated through the election of the people of Israel, if I recall Karl Rahner's refreshing thoughts on this) does not abolish the humanity of the writers, people of their time and culture, or the normal literary conventions they followed -- not only in clearly fictional works (Tobit, Job, Jonah) but also in historical works which commonly integrated fictional elements at that time.
I haven't studied Wright's voluminous arguments, and they may be very persuasive.
In my uninstructed state, I don't think it is impossible that the tomb traditions were created after the resurrection faith had arisen, on the basis of the appearances (that is, the appearances recorded by Paul, not the elaborate developments of them in the last chapters of the Gospels).
One of the problems concerns people's ideas of "resurrection of the dead" at that time. They may have been such that the appearances alone sufficed to galvanize that schema and to set going the language of resurrection (in tandem with the language of exaltation).
The idea of the exaltation of Jesus is pictorialized in the Ascension narrative of Luke 24 and Acts 1, and something similar may have happened with the resurrection idea.
There is a wellknown theory that the angel's words "see the place where he lay" originate in a commemmoration ceremony held at the site (or supposed site) of Christ's grave. (Archbishop Bruno Forte was attacked for touting this "modernist" theory on some blogs.)
Matthew reports a Jewish "stolen body" riposte to the empty grave -- but this is half a century after the events and decades after the empty grave tradition would first have arisen.
It is of rather academic interest whether the empty tomb was a necessary condition of the resurrection faith or not. Also I do not think one can insist that it is a necessary component of the resurrection faith today.
http://forum.fidelitas.pl/viewto...topic.php?
t=171
Worse still, Zangrando, a respected journalist not given to reckless claims, relates that Forte’s 1994 essay Gesu di Nazaret, storia di Dio, Dio della storia (Jesus of Nazareth, history of God, God of history) reveals Forte as nothing less than “the standard-bearer of theories so radical as to the point of putting in doubt even the historicity of the resurrection of Christ. The empty tomb, he argues, is a legend tied into the Jewish-Christian ritual performed at the place of Jesus’ burial. It is a myth inherited by the Christians from Jesus’ early disciples. Therefore, the empty tomb, along with other details surrounding the resurrection, is nothing but a ‘proof’ made up by the community. In other words, Forte is trying to change the resurrection of Christ into a myth, into a kind of fairy tale that cannot be proven.”
This is interesting, given the closeness of Forte to John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Kasper possibly says the same thing as I do -- that the resurrection event is not accessible independently of the kerygma in which it is conveyed. It is an interpretation of certain overwhelming experiences (also interpreted in a language of exaltation or glorification). Obsessing about the empty tomb cannot take us beyond this horizon. Even if its historicity could be established without doubt, it would remain a sign to be interpreted. It is the appearances that provide the interpretation. We do not have direct experiences, but we have a whole set of traditions springing up from them (as well as Paul's direct witness to his own encounter with the risen Christ). We also have the entire experience of the early church -- with its mystical (Joy), ethical (Love) and theological (the renewed vision of scripture) dimensions, all of which testifies to the new reality of the resurrection.
"It is of rather academic interest whether the empty tomb was a necessary condition of the resurrection faith or not."
In other words, if Jesus' corpse had been found in the tomb on Easter Sunday, there could still have arisen the Catholic faith in His bodily resurrection from the dead.
Such drivel, and coming from a priest!
"Also I do not think one can insist that it is a necessary component of the resurrection faith today."
Sure one can. All orthodox Christians insist on it. Failure to insist on it is a mark of heresy, not to mention defective, wires-crossed thinking. If Jesus' remains are still in His grave, then our faith is in vain, and Catholicism and every form of Christianity is false and worthless.
If Jesus' mortal remains were found in His tomb on Easter Sunday -- that is, if there was no resurrection -- what exactly were those appearances? A Manichaean disembodied spirit? Or does Fr. O'Leary merely mean to suggest that Jesus' body, contrary to the declaration of the Holy Spirit, was never entombed at all, and therefore there would have been no tomb to be found empty?
"Speaking of The Latin Mass magazine, there is a good article in the latest issue by Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. providing a perfectly reasonable harmonization of the various resurrection accounts in the Gospels."
I haven't seen the issue of Latin Mass of which you speak, but I suppose the article from Fr. Harrison is this one:
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt107.html
Note that it is followed by another article on the same subject from John McCarthy, who interacts with Fr. Harrison's article.
"That some of the miracles in the New Testament are unhistorical is quite clear and universally admitted by non-fundamentalist exegetes."
Obviously, then, Dei Verbum was not written by non-fundamentalist exegetes, since Dei Verbum says the Gospels have a historical character and tell us truthfully the things that Jesus really said and really did.
So, besides the reports of the empty tomb, what things that the Gospels say happened do you believe did not, or probably did not, really happen? And is that unbelief of yours the result of having been trained in immature literalism?
What a waste of ingenuity the harmonizations of fundamentalism are:
6. At this point we need to consider another apparent contradiction. John's account (20: 12-13) makes it almost certain1 that Mary Magdalene’s first encounter with the angels occurs at this moment, when she is alone; for it is clear that she still, as yet, has no suspicion of the Lord's resurrection – a fact which, as we know from the other Gospels, has already been announced by the angels to the other women. But it might seem from Matthew (28: 1, 5-6) and Mark (16: 1, 5-6) that Mary Magdalene was in fact with those other women when they saw the angel(s) and, that she heard together with her companions the stupendous news that the Lord had risen. But once again, we have here instances of impressions left by the biblical texts, which might indeed reflect what was in their human authors’ minds, but which are by no means affirmed or strictly implied by what they wrote. Let us keep in mind two points here: (a) We have noted in #1 above that Matthew nowhere affirms that Mary Magdalene and ‘the other Mary’ were the only women who went to the sepulchre early that morning; and (b) after mentioning those two in v. 1, and in referring to the angel's appearance and words a few verses later, Matthew simply says that this angelic message was addressed to "the women" (vs. 5). Now, we would certainly have a problem on our hands if he had said "the aforesaid women", or "the women already named", or "those two women". For these expressions, or other possible ones to the same effect, would affirm or rigorously imply that Mary Magdalene was indeed one of those women who saw and heard the angel in that first moment. But in view of (a) and (b), it cannot be said that Matthew’s Gospel text – whatever may or may not have been in his own mind – teaches that Mary Magdalene was among "the women" who saw the angel(s) immediately on their first arrival at the empty tomb. The inerrancy of Matthew's affirmations about "the women" remains intact provided that the other women who had by that time arrived at the tomb (i.e., at least "the other Mary", Joanna and Salome) did in fact see and hear the angelic manifestation (v. 5), make a hasty exit from the tomb (v.
, and then (a little later on in the morning), run to tell the Apostles what had happened (v. 9).
Bush should study these harmonizers -- he could then gloriously defend all his statements about WMDs and other follies.
It all reminds me of the other guy, "it all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is".
I agree that the question whether Christ's bones decayed (whether in a mass grave or a special tomb) is of more than academic interest, and would be seen by many Christians as concerning the essence of the resurrection faith.
What I wanted to say was of academic interest is whether the resurrection faith was born from a message of an empty grave or from the experiences denoted by the resurrection appearances. Paul seems to suggest the latter.
Of course the Gospels have a historical character etc. as Dei Verbum says. But as it also says the Gospels were written with kerygmatic purpose, taking into account the needs of the church at their times. And the Church also points to the literary conventions of theological history-writing which are not those of a police-report sticking to bare empirical facts.
Again, I ask what did Paul and co. understand by "resurrection of the dead"? Is it patently clear that it demanded a knowledge of the condition of Jesus' mortal remains?
For later Christians such knowledge may have seems an essential component of belief in resurrection, and so they may have elaborated the empty tomb narration for that reason.
That would not reduce the spiritual body of the risen one to a manichean wraith.
However, looking at Paul's idea of our resurrection, he does think in terms of empty graves -- or does he?
"the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed, for htis corruptible must put on incorruption" (the we, here, are the Christians whom Paul expected to be still alive when Christ returned). "shall be raised" on its own says nothing about tombs.
I Thess has "the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them" etc.
Actually, the phrase "the life, death, and ongoing life" of Jesus Christ probably captures the paschal dynamic better than "resurrection", for most people think of the reanimation of a dead body in the latter case.
The harmonizers unwittingly show up the difficulties of harmonization more than natural readers of Scripture to. I had never noticed that reading John and Paul together necessitates two visits of the apostles to inspect the tomb:
8. By the time Mary Magdalene and the other women have reached Peter and the apostles with the news of the angelic appearances and the apparitions of the Risen Lord, Peter has already been to the tomb and seen for himself its emptiness (except for the linen cloths). However, Luke mentions Peter’s visit to the tomb in 24: 12, after he has related the arrival of the women with their amazing – and as yet more or less incredible – report to the apostles (24: 9-11). To solve this difficulty, we simply need to recall the principles we have already appealed to in explaining other problem passages in these resurrection accounts. It may or may not be the case that Luke thought or presumed that Peter's visit took place only after he had heard the reports of miraculous events from the group of women who came to him and the other apostles. But what the Evangelist says in writing does not affirm nor strictly imply that sequence of events, even though, undeniably, it leaves the reader with an impression to that effect. Verse 12 does not include any unambiguous expressions placing Peter's visit to the tomb within a time-sequence that would place it clearly either before or after he hears the report of the women. Luke simply says here, after telling us of the women's report and the apostles’ incredulity at it, that "Peter, however, arising, ran to the sepulchre, . . . etc." Note the absence here of any word indicating the time when Peter did so, relative to the events mentioned in previous verses. So the integral truth (or inerrancy) of Luke's text (not necessarily of Luke's private thoughts or assumptions) remains intact provided that Peter did indeed arise and run to inspect the sepulchre at some moment during the series of astonishing events that took place on the first Easter Sunday. And we know from John's Gospel that Peter's visit (together with that of the "Beloved Disciple"), in fact took place at an earlier hour, very soon after the group of women first arrived at the tomb around dawn.
ALL THESE HEADACHES are false problems based on totally unnatural reading practices.
But before signing off, let me restate my resurrection faith:
Christ was raised to new life by God the Father, life not of his soul only but of his glorified body. ALL the resurrection stories bear this home on us in their different styles and lightings.
This reality was manifested to the infant Church first of all in manifestations of privileged witnesses listed by Paul (he does not list any women, however), and secondly in the pentecostal and eucharistic experience of Christ moving among them as a life-giving spirit. That experience of the resurrection can be had by Christians today -- for which we grope for words, "peace, love, joy."
The story of the empty tomb may serve as a powerful sign of the paschal mystery. But the reality of the resurrection is probably independently attested and makes itself present without it.
There. So there you have it, straight from the "Spirit of Vatican II" itself, or himself. Now tell me this. Since "Spirit," a priest educated in the post-Vatican II tradition of biblical theology saturated with protestant liberalism has told you repeatedly, and then conclusively restated, what his "resurrection faith" means to him, here's your assignment: in 25 words or less, could any of the rest of you translate into common simple English what you think "Spirit" understands the "resurrection of Jesus Christ" to mean? Moreover, is this understanding of the resurrection something for which you think common fishermen and tax collectors of the first century would have joyfully faced martyrdom, the kind of thing that could have led, not only to Pentecost, but to the rising of the Church, phoenix-like, out of the ashes of the Roman Empire, and to missionaries like Francis Xavier and others fanning out across the world to immolate their lives in the service of spreading the Good News of Christ's Salvation in India, China, Japan, Argentina, and Africa?
Albert Camus once said: "The world expects of Christians that they will raise their voices so loudly and clearly ... that not even the simplest man can have the slightest doubt about what they are saying. Further, the world expects of Christians that they will eschew all fuzzy abstractions .... We stand in need of folk who have determined to speak directly and unmistakably and come what may, to stand by what they have said." Joe Six Pack awaits your answer.
"Spirit" writes: "But present Roman Catholic teaching does not support this fundamentalism," citing a reference to the Pontifical Biblical Commission's report, "THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH" (March 18, 1994), which does indeed offer passing criticism of certain egregious forms of literalist exegesis found in fundamentalist circles, just as it approves, with certain caveats, certain historical critical methods of biblical interpretation, yet all-the-while insisting on the primacy of the "spiritual" meaning of Scripture, which is to be found only in the bosom of the Church. Yet when "Spirit" cites the Pontifical Commission's condemnation of such literalism, this is but a straw man. Who in his right mind thinks that when the Psalmist writes that the "trees of the field shall clap their hands" that trees actually have literal hands? Not even any fundamentalists I know would interpret the Psalmist's metaphors in such a literalist way.
But the issue here is whether a man who had been dead for three days was no longer dead, but alive. What kind of jiggery-pokery does it take to dance around the meaning of that? That it's just not the sort of thing that happens every day is beside the point. It's on this claim that Paul and the Gospels and the Church rest the meaning of our entire Easter Faith.
"Spirit" may want to insist, as he has several places, that the bones of Jesus could still be moldering someplace in a Palestinian grave, but that in some other sense Christ's glorified body is resurrected so that the empty tomb is a "powerful sign" -- whatever any of this means in such a case (beats me). I doubt it could be made clear to Joe Six Pack. But unless it's baby clear, it's certainly not the stuff that martyrs die for, and I'm afraid it's not clear enough for me to live for -- oh, me of little faith!
**Perhaps, but if two witnesses contradict one another on a given fact, only one of their stories at most can be historical.**
Only if a true contradiction is involved and not merely an apparent contradiction that admits of another explanation.
It is hardly a "natural" reading to take a document, like St. Luke's Gospel, which the author says is an accurate presentation of his own careful investigation, and run through it saying, "That didn't happen, Jesus didn't say that, he didn't really do that, the author made that up......"
**But present Roman Catholic teaching does not support this fundamentalism.**
Once again, the PBC is NOT A MAGISTERIAL BODY, therefore, THIS DOCUMENT DOES NOT REPRESENT THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH! Sorry to shout, but some people just don't get it. I'm not necessarily even objecting to that document. But I am very much objecting to the adoption of exegetical positions clearly at odds even with the letter of Dei Verbum--let alone the Church's exegetical tradition as a whole--and then trying to insist that this is all officially sanctioned by a document from a non-magisterial advisory body.
The ecclesial standing of PBC was downgraded by Cardinal Ratzinger sometime before this document came out as well, likely with an eye to what has been happening in the Catholic biblical theology guild in the last thirty years in terms of its contamination by nefarious teutonic (neokantian and heideggerian) presuppositional viruses.
For all of Fr. O'Leary's circumlocutions about kerygmatic purposes and fantastic harmonizations, something doesn't smell right. It smells like a rotting corpse:
'... I do not think one can insist that [the empty tomb] is a necessary component of the resurrection faith today.'
Yet it was obviously a necessary component of the resurrection faith of the early Church. Why not today?
Fr. O'Leary would prefer that we not "obsess" about the empty tomb. He concedes:
'I agree that the question whether Christ's bones decayed (whether in a mass grave or a special tomb) is of more than academic interest, and would be seen by many Christians as concerning the essence of the resurrection faith.'
Would be seen by "many Christians"??? What about you, Fr. O'Leary? From what you have said, it appears that you can do without this article of faith. Yet it was -- to reiterate -- a pillar of the resurrection faith of the early Church. What has changed?
In response to what I (Paul Borealis) wrote yesterday, Spirit of Vatican II wrote :
""completely divinized humanity" -- this might be a problematic expression.
Christ's humanity remains full and true humanity even in its glorified state.
Christ can't be seen as becoming more fully divine; better say "the complete revelation of his divinity in his glorified humanity", perhaps."
My comment: Thanks! I have thought about it, and see your point and the dangers for misunderstandings, and agree that it is perhaps misleading and problematic. Therefore, in reference to our Lord's humanity, and his glorified and immortal bodily state following the Resurrection, I will avoid using terminology normally relating to the 'theosis' of Christian believers - like when I wrote: "[...] completely divinized or deified humanity and body of our Risen Lord".
To help explain my original intention, I understand that St. Athanasius in one instance made mention, concerning the Resurrected One: "For now the flesh had risen and put off its mortality and been deified; and no longer did it become Him to answer after the flesh when He was going into the heavens [...]"*. Whatever the case, I will leave it at that, and go think about this issue some more.
You wrote: "Christ's humanity remains full and true humanity even in its glorified state." I think this is correct.
Thanks!
==
*
http://www.newmanreader.org/
work....html#chapter29
==
"The story of the empty tomb may serve as a powerful sign of the paschal mystery. But the reality of the resurrection is probably independently attested and makes itself present without it."
Independently attested? Made present without it? Where? When? How? Where did the early Christians ever talk about His resurrection while suggesting that the account of the empty tomb may be nothing more than a just so story?
"Did the angel say 'you will see him in Galilee' -- as Mark and Matthew have it, or 'as he said to you in Galilee, you will see him' (in Jerusalem, as Luke 24 has it)?"
There no reason whatsoever why the angel couldn't have said both.
Fr. O'Leary warns against 'fundamentalistic or literalistic readings of the resurrection narratives -- the very readings which when they crumble under analysis have caused many people to lose their faith. It is a serious pastoral issue. Train people in immature literalism and you train them for unbelief in the end.'
That is a straw man. A more apt example (and closer to home) is the sad case of "Realist Former Convergent", in whom the toxic effects of the "new biblical scholarship" were tragically evident.
It seems reasonable that the witnesses, after seeing the Risen Lord, might have forgotten about the empty tomb, which they had also witnessed but which seemed of lesser importance at the time. Only later, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did they determine to also tell the (true) story of the empty tomb, recognizing its importance for future generations.
>>in 25 words or less, could any of the rest of you translate into common simple English what you think "Spirit" understands the "resurrection of Jesus Christ" to mean? >>
That is so funny! I just read down the entire thread (largely comprised of posts by Father O' Leary) and still couldn't figure out what the heck he believes about the resurrection. I keep reading him and can't quite get at what he's trying to communicate.
James
The idea that the resurrection can be summed up adequately in a few simple words is entirely untrue to the NT witness, where they are manifestly struggling for words.
The ecclesial standing of PBC was downgraded by Cardinal Ratzinger [I think it occurred in the 1960s, long before Ratzinger became a cardinal]\ sometime before this document came out as well, likely with an eye to what has been happening in the Catholic biblical theology guild in the last thirty years in terms of its contamination by nefarious teutonic (neokantian and heideggerian) presuppositional viruses. [It is the Pope's own commission, always spoken of with the highest respect by Ratzinger]
"missionaries like Francis Xavier and others fanning out across the world to immolate their lives in the service of spreading the Good News of Christ's Salvation in India, China, Japan, Argentina, and Africa?" and to immmolate the lives of many Indians (along with Filipinos, Peruvians and Chileans) on the pyres of the Inquisition (for whom Xavier worked from his youth) for such crimes as Judaizing, Protestantizing, Hinduizing, sodomy, criticizing the Inquisition etc. Indians today are asking questions about this dark side of the Christian missions.
And the reason for this dark side? Fundamentalism.
To clarity, I do not think that to uphold the historicity of the empty tomb savors of fundamentalist literalism. It has very respectable claims to historicity.
However, since we do not today automatically take everything in scripture as a matter of plain historical fact -- for reasons which have imposed themselves on the Church, kicking and screaming all the way, over three centuries of scholarship -- it is difficult to avoid a certain agnosticism here and unfair to brand those who have this agnosticism as heretics. What has changed is the presupposition that all gospel narratives are literally true, a change that has nothing to do with Kant and Heidegger and everything to do with a more attentive reading of the Scriptural texts themselves.
Of course it is also true that the post-Enlightenment world is infinitely more sceptical toward tales of preternatural or supernatural happenings than the ancient or medieval worlds were. This is a "presupposition" that presses on all of us and to pretend it carries no weight is to discredit oneself as a convincing Christian apologist.
References for St Francis Xavier 'working for the Inquisition from his youth', please? If you mean that he supported the Inquisition, that's certainly true, as did most devout Catholics of the time - but that's hardly 'working for it': if you mean that he was responsible in any way for the excesses of the Inquisition in Goa, that's simply wrong, as the Inquisition didn't arrive in Goa till 8 years after St Francis's death.
I'll try the 25 word test.
The "resurrection" is true as a faith event, but not as a historically verifiable reality. The resurrection means something different to each person. "Fundamentalists" suck.
[Did I count 25 words properly?]
Twenty-five exactly. What a riot!
If I can summarize O'Leary, why can't he accept the resurrection as the Church has always understood it?
"the resurrection as the church has always understood it"? But now we see Benedict XVI connection the resurrection with "evolution" -- not something that the church always understood. In fact the church has always believed the resurrection and struggled to understand it. As a theologian I try to pursue that task of faith seeking understanding -- credo, ut intelligam -- rather than merely reassert uninterpreted statements.
Francis Xavier worked for the Inquisition in Portugal before going to study in Paris and becoming a Jesuit -- it is in Schurhammer's biography volume I.
I am happy to hear he was not directly responsible for setting up the inquisition in Goa.
Oops, Xavier was responsible -- he called for the setting up of the Inquisition in Goa:
"The horrible Inquisition ( Inquisicao or Inquiry ) in Goa is the source of some criticism against him. The reasons for HIS CALL FOR AN INQUISITION IN GOA are quite clear, in his letters to King Joao III. He was totally frustrated by the state of immorality among many of the elite in Goa and the inabilty or unwillingness of the King of Portugal, to do anything about it. The Inquisition itself was very cruel and turned into a proper witch-hunt. It caused significant sections of the population to migrate - many to the South Indian region of Mangalore. But it came to Goa eight years after the death of Francisco Xavier. It is ludicrous to assign to him any of the responsibility for the crimes and cruelty of the Inquisition in Goa. Portugal, yes; some among the clergy and politicians in Goa at the time, yes; Rome, yes; but Francisco Xavier, no!. He was absent from Goa at the time - by virtue of his death, eight years before the Inquisition came to Goa!!. A death which made him the centre of unparalleled veneration by peoples from all over the world. His unpreserved and as-yet undisintegrated body has assured that."
This if from a Xavier fansite:
http://planet.time.net.my/Centra...01/
stxavier.htm
"But now we see Benedict XVI connection the resurrection with 'evolution' -- not something that the church always understood."
I would liken that to St. Clement I connected the resurrection with the Phoenix. Of course, even C.S. Lewis made an "evolution" analogy in "Mere Christianity."
"[It is the Pope's own commission, always spoken of with the highest respect by Ratzinger]"
And yet it is nevertheless true that it is no longer an organ of the magisterium as it once was, merely an advisory board of theologians and exegetes that provides often useful information for the CDF to consider.
He borrowed the language of evolution. He does not claim that the case is that Christ "evolved".
Well here is my completed essay : http://
josephsoleary.typepad.com...esurrectio.html
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