"This year we've seen the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, call the Christmas story a 'legend'"
Are you sure you trust the Telegraph? It has already been widely reported how this article has misrepresented what Williams really said. Even Catholics can admit that.
Misrepresented Rowan Williams: "Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, ..."
He's the archbishop of Canterbury, so he can be relied upon to say certain things, one of which is that the Christian Gospel is only literarily true.
Nevermind. A Merry Christmas to all.
Archbishop's interview with Simon Mayo
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...20/
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Merry Christmas everyone!
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This interview is one of the weakest I have ever read from one who usually has lots of good things to say. The only thing he says is "legend" is current interpretations of the magi story. Otherwise he reads the infancy narratives almost as a fundamentalist. Surely the gospel writers give clear indications that they are using legendary conventions by having ANGELS appear at so many points in their respective stories. Angels announcing miraculous births are a stock in trade of oriental religious literature.
Dr. Williams is like Prof. Tillich: you can count on him to sound like a born-again Evangelical when he's writing or speaking pastorally to a literalist audience, and to sound like a higher-critical skeptic when addressing an academic audience. Speaking to the press seems to incline him towards schizophrenia.
Whatever you do, do not -- I repreat: do not -- accept as 'assured' the "assured results of modern scholarship" on this subject, even if they happen to be echoed by many contemporary Catholic biblical theologians. You are bound to be in for a rude awakening if you do.
Surely the gospel writers give clear indications that they are using legendary conventions by having ANGELS appear at so many points in their respective stories. Angels announcing miraculous births are a stock in trade of oriental religious literature.
No, there's nothing "sure" or "clear" about those indications, John. There's absolutely no reason why angels could not have appeared to Joseph, Mary, and Zacharias just as the Holy Spirit says. The overwhelming weight of Catholic doctrine and tradition for the past 2,000 years is that the events recorded by Saints Matthew and Luke really did happen and are not merely legendary. The Church also explicitly affirms the inerrancy of Scripture, such that we can and should trust the historicity of events related in Scripture unless it is clear that the genre is not historical -- and with the Birth and Infancy narratives, it is not clear at all that the genre is not historical. Indeed, if we toss out Matt. 1-2 and Luke 1-2, where is the grounds for belief in the virginal conception and birth of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, apart from bare assent to Catholic teaching (which is all Fr. Raymond Brown was left with after his questioning and undermining the historical basis for the Incarnation)? But that really amounts to fideism, which is a proscribed heresy.
So, you say angels announcing miraculous births are a stock in trade of oriental religious literature, and thereby suggest that the events of Matt. 1-2 and Luke 1-2 never happened. Or maybe some of the events happened, just not that "stock in trade" stuff about angels and the births of John the Baptist and Jesus being miraculous? And surely Herod never really slaughtered the Holy Innocents. And that Star of Bethlehem thing -- come on, stars don't move through the sky and settle on rooftops! Since we know that God does not have the ability to perform miracles, we can be sure that Matthew and Luke (assuming there were ever really any disciples named Matthew and Luke) were just making it all up.
But what we're left with at the end of all that doubting and denying of what the Scripture says, is a naked assertion of religious doctrine -- "conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin May" -- without any connection to reality. What happened in history and what we say in the Creed have nothing to do with each other. Or as I said above, fideism. No, John, when we Christians say Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, we mean that it happened just as the divinely-inspired authors related -- and since God inspired it, He is the true author, and He cannot lie or make errors of historical fact. Call that "fundamentalism" if you want, but in that case you'll have to classify the entire stretch of time from Jesus and the Apostles' day down to modern times as the Era of Fundamentalism.
John,
How come so many want to deny the reality of angels in the Gospels but often believe that they have their own personal one? Seems to me that if your are going to believe in the latter you better believe in the former as well since they are both taught in the Scriptures. If God the Son can take human form in the person of Jesus is it so far fetched to believe that angels could appear to human beings? In addition, how does one interpret that "the gospel writers give clear indications that they are using legendary conventions by having ANGELS appear at so many points in their respective stories." Please explain that statement to me via Form Criticism.
I confess to some amusement. Just days ago Judy and I were watching a 48-hours presentation called The Mystery of Christmas -- with guests
Michael White (a former professor of mine from Oberlin),John Dominic Crossan and Elaine Pagels. It made for interesting, amusing watching.
Old religious literature is full of supernatural beings flying hither and thither. There may be some supernatural reality that these stories emblematize but I see not reason to take them as literal events. They are literary conventions. Same goes for indian goddesses, bodhisattvas, genies or whatever. But I want to recommend a much better piece by R Williams now, his Christmas Sermon. See www.thinkinganglicans.org for the text. It is about the Incarnation and not about folktales.
"Old religious literature is full of supernatural beings flying hither and thither. There may be some supernatural reality that these stories emblematize but I see not reason to take them as literal events. They are literary conventions."
Spoken like a true narrow-minded modernist (reductionist?), imposing your own limited thought constructions and bias on events you neither experienced nor understand.
You have no evidence that they (the supernatural beings and realities narrated/reported in the Gospels/NT) are merely, as you call them, "literary conventions" and emblems/symbols - no evidence that they were intended only as such (as unreal or nonexistent) by their authors/communicators, or were accepted (or thought) as such by audiences/readers/listeners.
Can you AT LEAST imagine and accept that "supernatural beings", i.e. angels and demons, were sometimes encountered by ancient Christians and others - were real for the Gospel writers, and for religious people of that era, religion and culture? Even when not personally encountered, they were believed to exist, thus accepted as being true or real.
No need to 'reinterpret' what the early Christians wrote. They knew what they were saying, for one - That the Angels are as real as humans and other creatures.
BTW, don't we use 'literary conventions' when writing either/both about real ("literal events") or unreal things?
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Sorry this is off topic, but I think I am gonnna be sick....
http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/...807/
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Ooops! Remove 'only'. Should be:
"...no evidence that they were intended as such (as unreal or nonexistent) by their authors/communicators, or were accepted (or thought) as such by audiences/readers/listeners".
Thanks!
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An angel appearing to people can be a 'symbol' of God's love and providence, and be a real entity at the same time. Wonderful. Thanks be to God.
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I would go on to say (as a condition): regarding the appearing angel, being a real entity (and not a literary fiction or unreal) *is the reason* he can be a effective 'symbol' (sign, communication) of God's guidance, love and providence, for us. No wonder the NT authors reported what they heard from others, or saw themselves, regarding the holy Angels.
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...*is the reason* he can be an effective 'symbol'...
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Old religious literature is full of supernatural beings flying hither and thither.
Yes, and?
There may be some supernatural reality that these stories emblematize but I see no reason to take them as literal events.
And I see no reason not to take the events narrated by Saints Matthew and Luke as literal events.
They are literary conventions.
I see no reason to believe the angelic visitations in Matt. 1-2 and Luke 1-2 are merely literary conventions, and I know I'm in pretty august company in this matter, as all the greatest saints and theologians hold the same point of view.
"Can you AT LEAST imagine and accept that "supernatural beings", i.e. angels and demons, were sometimes encountered by ancient Christians and others."
I suppose people do experience the presence of benign and malign spiritual forces. But that is a long way from the story about Gabriel striking Zachariah dumb. Gabriel is a literary figure like Raphael in the book of Tobiah. As to the angels singing to the shepherds, again it makes a lot more sense to take it as a beautiful story than to imagine it is literal fact. I wonder if anyone met Gabriel or Raphael lately? It is a little bit suspicious that they only put in an appearance in biblical times.
John Mullins is a Raymond Brown clone in terms of thought models. Their sort of thinking has hurt the Church far more than helped it.
Gabriel is a literary figure like Raphael in the book of Tobiah.
That's your opinion, but you can't prove it. The Church, however, insists that Gabriel and Raphael are real persons, and we Christians honor them and pray to them regularly, especially on their feast day.
As to the angels singing to the shepherds, again it makes a lot more sense to take it as a beautiful story than to imagine it is literal fact.
Why does it make more sense to think it is fiction than fact? And what makes a deliberate falsehood beautiful?
I wonder if anyone met Gabriel or Raphael lately? It is a little bit suspicious that they only put in an appearance in biblical times.
I haven't met them yet, but many saints down through the ages from Jesus' day to our own testify to having met them and other angels.
We're still living in "biblical times," John. Miracles happen all the time -- I'm living proof, having been instantaneously healed of mortal skull fractures when I was 4 years old after people (including some nuns) prayed for my healing. On 1 Oct. 1972, my skull and jaw were broken in a car crash, as the x-rays showed, but the very next morning I was awake and to all appearances perfectly fine -- and a second set of x-rays showed a perfect skull, with no fractures. Baffled and amazed, the hospital (a Catholic hospital, though I and my family weren't Catholic) kept me overnight for observation and then released me the second day after the crash.
Now, if God can make a skull heal overnight, why does He not have the ability to send angels to announce the coming of John the Baptist and His Son the Messiah? Why does your God (if you believe in God) seem to be so weak and small?
I seem to have gotten here a bit late to comment on what the Archbishop of Canterbury actually said -- rather than the tortuous thread of comments that his misunderstood comments have provoked.
If you read the archbishop's actual statements, I don't think you will find a single challenge to orthodox Christian belief on the subject. He doesn't say that no wise men visited the Christ child. He simply points out that there is no scriptural authority for saying that there were three of them. And I am unaware of any Christian tradition requiring snow in Bethlehem in December or any other month. Take a look at Renaissance nativity and adoration paintings. No snow. Does that make Giotto and Veronese theological modernists?
There are plenty of points for Catholics to argue with Rowan Williams about -- but nothing in that Radio Five interview, as far as I can see.
Well, I cannot argue with J. Potter on the impressive testimony he gives, nor do I want to.
The cult of saints has enthroned many a fictional being such as Philomena or George. Raphael figures in a totally fictional biblical book, and only there as far as I know. He is a fictional character in a fictional story and there is no need to suppose that he is the only nonfictional character in the story. Luke picked up Gabriel from somewhere in the OT, I think. Michael is very popular, but where is he in the Bible? What about Uriel? The fact that all their names end in El is another piece of literary convention. Common sense, really.
Traitorous spy Kim Philby figures in a totally fictional book called "Declare" by Tim Powers. It does not follow that Kim Philby did not exist.
Gabriel is not mentioned in the Old Testament. According to the testimony of Luke, he introduced himself to Our Lady, who has no reputation for fibbing.
Michael is found in the book of Daniel. Uriel is not found in Scripture but in Jewish extracanonical literature and is not among the angels the Church mentions as deserving of honor.
It's curious that angels pose such a problem for some believers. Despite the fact that the Church teaches they are real (as, indeed, our Lord himself insisted), some people cannot find a way to distinguish between them and the conviction that they are mere literary and artistic conventions. I think the artistic and literary conventions are a *response* to the reality of angels, not a mere fancy of human beings.
As to the accounts of angels at the Nativity, if the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity is not an ocassion for angelic manifestations, then what is?
John said: The cult of saints has enthroned many a fictional being such as Philomena or George.
Saints Philomena and George aren’t fictional, they’re real persons about whom little if anything is known. Both were Christian martyrs, and Philomena was a virgin, and they apparently lived from about 200 to 500 A.D., and with that the extent of our historical knowledge of them ends. They are also very powerful intercessors, that much we know. But just because legends and tall tales surround them, that doesn’t mean they themselves were fictional. (Out-of-date archaeological studies formerly questioned the identification of St. Philomena’s tomb, but more recent studies give reason to believe that the original identification of her tomb and interpretation of her grave inscription was correct. Contrary to a common misconception, St. Philomena was never “de-canonised,” which is something the Church can’t do: there are still churches and schools dedicated to her, including two parishes and one school in my own diocese.)
Raphael figures in a totally fictional biblical book, and only there as far as I know.
Opinions vary on the degree of fiction in the Book of Tobit. For all we know, it may be entirely fictional, or mostly fictional, or substantially historical, or entirely historical. And as Mark pointed out, it’s possible to include a real person as a character in a work of fiction.
By the way, Raphael is named in the apocryphal Book of Enoch and in various other Jewish works from around the time of Christ and during the centuries immediately before his birth.
He is a fictional character in a fictional story and there is no need to suppose that he is the only nonfictional character in the story.
No need, that is, apart from the longstanding tradition and belief of the Catholic Church that Raphael is a real person.
Luke picked up Gabriel from somewhere in the OT, I think.
Correct (and here Mark’s memory failed him). Gabriel first appears in the visions of Daniel the prophet. It is Gabriel who revealed to Daniel (in Dan. 9) the mystical framework of chronology by which the Jewish people were able to predict the date of the appearance of the Messiah. Sure, it could be literary convention that the angel who gives Daniel a Messianic prophecy would be chosen to announce the birth of the Messiah in the New Testament --- or it could simply be what actually happened, which is what the Catholic Church insists.
Michael is very popular, but where is he in the Bible?
Michael also first appears in the Book of Daniel, where he is presented as the special patron and guardian of the Jewish people. Consequently, as the Church is the New Israel, he is honored as the special guardian angel of the Catholic Church. Michael also appears in St. John’s visions in the Book of Revelation, where he wages war against Satan and the fallen angels and casts them down from heaven.
What about Uriel?
Ur
What about Uriel?
Uriel appears in various ancient Jewish apocryphal works, chiefly the Apocalypse of Ezra, traditional called IV Esdras in the Latin Vulgate. Until the 20th century, IV Esdras was published in an appendix of the Latin Vulgate Bible. In Jewish and Christian tradition, Uriel is identified as the Angel of Death from the story of Passover in the Book of Exodus.
Mark said: As to the accounts of angels at the Nativity, if the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity is not an occasion for angelic manifestations, then what is?
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
"...Mark’s memory failed him"
D'oh!
All very interesting. Still, you can allow me the libery to take angel-language as a flight of imagination to which no doubt some reality corresponds somewhere in heavenly space. I remember the diligence with which the clergy asked shopkeepers and the like to abolish the title St Philomena back in the sixties. I see that there is evidence that a tomb of St George martyr existed in Palestine. Nothing else is known of him. The elaborate legends of his passion and so on were recognized to be apocryphal by the Roman church early on, but they had a huge popularity. The potency of such names as George, Barbara, Christopher and Philomena in prayers of intercession is no proof of their historical existence. Indians and Mahometans claims the same potency for all sorts of beings that had no historical existence. By the way, did Mahomet not receive his revelations from the angel Gabriel?
I remember the diligence with which the clergy asked shopkeepers and the like to abolish the title St Philomena back in the sixties.
Yes, a lot of nonsense went on back then, and many Catholics were misinformed. For example, the urban legend is still current that the Catholic Church has suppressed the cults of St. Christopher and St. Catherine of Alexandria because they supposedly didn't exist, whereas all the Church did was reform the calendar such that these saints' days were demoted to local, optional memorials -- but their names are still in the Roman Martyrology. Similarly, the cult of St. Philomena is still thriving throughout the Church and was never lawfully suppressed.
The potency of such names as George, Barbara, Christopher and Philomena in prayers of intercession is no proof of their historical existence. Indians and Mahometans claims the same potency for all sorts of beings that had no historical existence.
I'd stack up the numerous testimonies of saintly intercession against the claims of Hindus and Muslims any day. As for saints George, Barbara, and Christopher, the reason that almost the only record of them that we have is legendary is because their cults are of great antiquity -- but living a long, long time ago is not reason to doubt that they ever lived. (Also, St. Christopher has been convincingly identified as the indisputably historical St. Menas of Egypt, a martyr and a soldier in the Roman army during the 200s A.D.)
By the way, did Mahomet not receive his revelations from the angel Gabriel?
Yes, that's what his followers claimed after his death -- there is next to no historical documentation of Muhammad's teachings from his own lifetime (some religious poems, I think), most of the historical records of his teachings dating from the later 600s and early 700s. And as I understand it, there are also early Muslim traditions that some of Muhammad's revelations were spurious, coming from Satan who had tricked Muhammad into thinking he was Gabriel. Those are the so-called "Satanic Verses" on which Salman Rushdie based his novel of the same name.
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