This is sooo exciting: the Pope will soon be releasing an apostolic exhortation on the Bible, which will include the input of the Bishop’s Synod on the Bible held in October 2008. I’m holding out hope that he will declare next year the “Year of the Bible”.
Details from Rome Reports:
H/t: Michael Barber over at The Sacred Page.
Today’s Gospel reading addresses one of the most contentious issues in the early Church:
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
(Matthew 5:17-19)
Although it may appear clear to us what Jesus means here, it was not so clear to the first Christians. The debate regarding the validity of the Jewish law for Christians divided the Church for decades. Some, such as James, followed the Mosaic law very precisely and did not stop attending the Temple and celebrating the Jewish feasts. Others, however, eventually stopped following the ceremonies of the Old Covenant. And some proposed a compromise between the two extreme positions. This debate underlies much of Paul’s letters and was a constant concern for him.
So how did the Church resolve this issue? Since we no longer practice any of the ceremonial laws of the Mosaic Law, didn’t we in fact “abolish” the law, contra Christ’s explicit command? In my article Abolished or Fulfilled? I did an in-depth study of this issue and found that the early Church divided the law into different parts, and each part was fulfilled by Christ, but its fulfillment took different forms, depending on the type of law involved.
For example, St. Justin Martyr divided the Old Law into three parts:
(1) Ethical commands
(2) Commands symbolic of Christ (such as the Passover lamb)
(3) Laws due to the hardness of the Jews’ hearts
For Justin, then, only the first type of law was still to be followed, for Christ’s work had fulfilled the others in such a way to make them unnecessary.
Another common delineation in the Law by the Church Fathers was to see two types of Law in the Mosaic Covenant:
(1) Ceremonial Laws
(2) Moral Laws
Christ’s saving works brought an end to the ceremonial laws because his life, death and resurrection brought them to complete fulfillment. But the Christian must still follow the moral laws (such as the Ten Commandments) because they were still necessary to follow Christ fully.
So in fact Christ did not “abolish” the law, but brought it to fulfillment. However, that fulfillment in some cases meant that certain particular laws were no longer necessary to follow.
For those of us who are discouraged by the seemingly constant debates that rage within the Church today should take heart that similarly intense debates also existed at the beginning, and that they were eventually resolved. Sometimes it takes hundreds of years, but the Holy Spirit is always faithful in bringing resolution to our own hardness of heart.
Just remember, every time someone confidently proclaims that something in the Bible has been proven by scholars to be false or “mythical”, don’t believe him.
One of the common themes underlying much of the New Testament is the grappling of the early Church to understand the meaning behind the person and life of Jesus of Nazareth. In so many ways, Jesus Christ was a truly “new” event; in fact, in many he is the only “new” event since the beginning of time. So the first Christians were understandably at a loss to completely understand what it all meant. Some of the realities revealed by Christ – such as the Trinity – took centuries to explain in human language (and even then, the language only scratched the surface of the reality).
In order to try to make sense of Jesus, the first Christians – all Jews – looked to one place: the Scriptures, or what is called our Old Testament. They poured over the Scriptures to find ways to understand and explain the events of Christ’s life, especially his death and resurrection. And in the Old Testament, there is one place that especially deepened their understanding of Christ’s Passion: the book of Isaiah. More than any other, this book, called the “fifth Gospel” by many of the Church Fathers, was the “go-to” book when it came to comprehending the meaning behind the life of Christ, particularly the crucifixion and the empty tomb.
The climax of Isaiah can be found in the “servant songs” found in Isaiah 42-53. These songs depict a “servant” of the Lord who is faithful and brings salvation to the world through his obedience to God. Before the advent of Christ, many interpreted this “servant” as the people of Israel, but the first Christians saw in the servant a snapshot of their Lord Jesus Christ. And it is especially the fourth servant song, found in Isaiah 52:13-53:12, which reveals Christ’s work on the Cross. Every single word of this passage is quoted in the New Testament, and the first Christians were quite clear about who this servant was:
Traditionally, the book of Isaiah has been recommended reading for Lent. I would pass that recommendation on to you: read this “Gospel” and you will more deeply understand and appreciate our Lord and his saving work.
Today is the feast of St. Onesimus, the slave of Philemon and the subject of Paul’s letter which is found in the New Testament. According to tradition, Onesimus was set free by Philemon, became the bishop of Ephesus and eventually was martyred. But he quite possibly also had a major role in the development of our New Testament canon. Here is how it happened.
We know that eventually thirteen of Paul’s letters were included in the New Testament canon. The question is: why those letters? Paul most definitely wrote other letters (he even mentions one of them in his correspondence with the Corinthians), so why were they not included? And why did a letter like Philemon get included?
In the late 1st century and early 2nd century, many of Paul’s letters were being circulated throughout Asia Minor, the main area of his preaching and the location of most of his letters. It was the bishops of that area who were primarily responsible for copying and circulating his letters (as they were the only ones with the reason and resources to do so), and three of the most prominent bishops of this era were Onesimus, Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch.
In the early 2nd century, St. Ignatius of Antioch was on his way to Rome to be martyred. Along the way, many bishops met him along his journey to encourage him and pray with him. One of these meetings involved Onesimus and Polycarp, along with other bishops, in Smyrna. It was at this meeting that Onesimus presented his collection of Pauline letters, which had the Letter to the Ephesians as the first in the collection and included an odd little personal letter concerning a runaway slave. After this meeting, this collection of Paul’s letters was always included in any Scriptural canon.
Admittedly, we do not have clear-cut proof for the above scenario, but we do have strong evidence in its favor:
1) Ignatius in his letter to the Ephesians, written after this meeting, alludes to Paul’s letter to Philemon and compares his situation with that of Onesimus.
2) A slave who was brought to Christ and then freed would have understood the power of Paul’s letters and would have promoted them heavily.
3) A bishop of Ephesus would have had the resources to compile such a collection.
4) The fact that Philemon is included is the strongest evidence: why would this little letter dealing with one specific situation be included in the collection being distributed? Perhaps it was because the subject of that letter was the one doing the distribution.
(Note: these arguments can be found in “The Formation of the New Testament Canon” by William Farmer and Denis Farkasfalvy, pp. 77-79).
I always find it quite fascinating to consider the human factor in the working of God’s will in this world. The role of St. Onesimus in the formation of the NT canon is an especially interesting story of that “human” element in the plan of salvation.
St. Onesimus, pray for us!
Over at the Classical Liberal Arts Academy website there is a great article by Biblical Theologian Dr. Nathan Schmiedicke (who is the brother of some friends of mine) entitled Why Study the Bible?, which looks at the reasons to study the Scriptures in the context of a classical liberal arts education. An excerpt:
“Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ!”
These bold words of St. Jerome contain a deep truth. The God-given goal of our existence is nothing less than God Himself. And yet, as the catechism has it: in order to be with God forever in Heaven, we must first love him and serve him in this life. But to love him and serve Him in this life we must first know him.
Well, how can we know God in this life? The classical answer to this question is that we can know God in two ways: through reason and through revelation.
REASON: MAN REACHING OUT TO GOD
We can know many things about God simply through the use of our reason exercised on ourselves and the world around us. However, because of our fallen human nature, these truths about God (which are the most important of all truths!) can only be arrived at by a few really wise people, after a really long time and a whole lot of effort. Plus, it is inevitably the case that there is a lot of confusion and error mixed in with these.
REVELATION: GOD REACHING OUT TO MAN
The wonderful thing about revelation is that it is a superior way of knowing God that comes to us from God Himself. It is available to everyone who has faith, right now, and without the error mixed in. Plus there is the added benefit that God can reveal more about himself to us than we would ever be able to figure out about Him from reason alone.
WRITTEN REVELATION: THE BIBLE
A primary way God reveals Himself and His will to mankind is through the Scriptures. Before (and after) the Word of God became a man (John 1:14), the word of God became a book. Unlike all other books, however, the Bible is not simply human words, but is really the word of God, “living and active” (Heb 4:12). Because of this, the Bible has always been at the heart of the Church’s liturgical, devotional, intellectual, and practical life. This word, since it is God’s word, is simply better and more important than any other words that are out there.
Go read the entire article here.
In my previous post, I listed the various saints, doctors, Fathers, and other Christians whose work I quote in “Who Do You Say That I Am?” As I mentioned in that post, I don’t want to invent any new interpretation or new doctrine; instead, I want to stand on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before us in the Faith.
But the greatest literary giants of Christianity of course are the authors of Scripture itself. These men were theologians of the first order, and unlike any other authors, their work was inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Bible is the primary source for theology and any Catholic work should be soaked in the Sacred Page. And this is true of any Scriptural study as well: you must use the Scriptures to understand the Scriptures. One must always recognize the context in which a biblical book was written – not only the cultural context, but the canonical context. By placing these books in one Bible, the Church tells us that they are all interrelated on a deep level. So if we want to understand what Matthew is saying about Jesus, we must look also to the other biblical books to see what they also say about Jesus.
With that in mind, here is a list of all the biblical books I quote, along with the number of times the book was quoted:
Old Testament
New Testament
I’m happy I was able to include such a wide breath of biblical texts. The only omission that might stand out is that I didn’t quote the Gospel of Mark at all. This is mostly because whenever I had a text which was shared by both Matthew and Mark, I always chose Matthew, since that is the basis of the book. No slight was intended to Mark! 
The moral of the story: if you want to understand Scripture, read Scripture!
When I was writing “Who Do You Say That I Am?” I was consciously trying not to say anything “new”. Too often in Scripture studies you find everyone trying to make a name for themselves by advocating some new theory or interpretation that no one has ever heard of before. This will make them stand out and, they hope, help them sell more books. In my view, if a Scripture interpretation is brand new, it is probably faulty. This is because for almost 2,000 years we have had saints, Fathers, doctors and scholars pouring over the words of Scripture – do we really have the arrogance to think that we have some new interpretation that no one has ever thought of?
This does not mean, of course, that old views cannot be said in new ways. I hope I have done this with “Who Do You Say That I Am?”. But always with the recognition that I am standing on the shoulders of those who came before me and that my interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is only an extension or restatement of what they have already taught the Church. Furthermore, I wanted to include the entire Tradition of the Church, not just one aspect of it; so saints from both the East and the West and throughout the centuries have been consulted.
With that in mind, I recently had to go through my manuscript and check all the references to make sure all were properly noted. While I did that, I kept track of the various people I quoted in my book, and I was pleased to see that I was able to include a broad spectrum of Christian voices from both the East and the West and throughout the centuries. Here is the list of people quoted in my book (the number following a name indicates multiple quotations):
As I mentioned, I was very pleased with the results: I included the voices of a wide variety of Christians and hopefully their voices will allow readers to enter more deeply into the words of Scripture. This list does not, of course, include all the quotations from Scripture in the book, which numbers almost 500 different verses from throughout the Bible. I’ll try to make a list of the different Biblical books I quote as well and post that later.
This is pretty cool: someone has gone through the entire Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and noted all the biblical references in it. A small example:
Choir: Through the prayers of the Theotokos (Mother of God), Savior, save us.
Bible References: Galatians 3:24, Saint Luke 1: 46 – 55, Saint Luke 1:42
Deacon: Again and again in peace let us again pray to the Lord.
Bible References: 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Choir: Kyrie, eleison.
Translation: Lord, have mercy.
Bible References: Psalms 51:1
Deacon: Help us, save us, have mercy upon us, and protect us, O God, by Your grace.
Bible References: Psalms 123:3, Psalms 106:47, Saint Mark 9:22
Choir: Amen.
Deacon: Remembering our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commit ourselves and one another, and our whole life to Christ our God.
Bible References: Saint Luke 1:42
Choir: To You, O Lord.
Bible References: Acts 20:32
Priest: For Thine is the majesty, and Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
Bible References: Revelation 8:12, 1 Chronicles 29:11, Saint Matthew 6:13, Daniel 4:34
Oftentimes Protestant Christians will accuse liturgical Christians such as Catholics or Orthodox of not engaging in “biblical worship”. This page shows that nothing could be further from the truth.
One of the primary fruits of the Enlightenment is the belief that we can put our complete faith in the results of science. If scientific testing shows something, then we can believe it is true without a shadow of a doubt. And many times this is true. There is no reason to doubt the law of gravity nor that the earth revolves around the sun nor countless other findings of science.
However, in the 19th century this assuredness transferred to the realm of Biblical studies. For over a millennium the Church was seen as the final authority on how to interpret Scripture. After the Protestant Reformation, the individual was seen as that authority. With the rise of biblical criticism, the scholar became the final authority in all matters biblical. In the world of biblical scholarship, certain theories are sacred cows that cannot be challenged, because the “assured results of scholarship” have magisterially declared that they must be true (the two-source hypothesis comes to mind). Yet the more you study such theories, the more you realize that many of them are built on questionable presuppositions and weak scholarship. Most of the “assured results” are anything but. I thought of this when I read this article about a fascinating discovery:
Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests
Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing — an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David’s reign.
The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible’s Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.)
Until now, many scholars have held that the Hebrew Bible originated in the 6th century B.C., because Hebrew writing was thought to stretch back no further. But the newly deciphered Hebrew text is about four centuries older, scientists announced this month.
“It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research,” said Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text.
This is very typical; for a long time some scholars questioned if King David really existed, because there was no proof of him anywhere but in the Bible. Then an inscription was found outside of Israel which mentioned King David, and that theory was quickly discarded.
My point is not to say that biblical scholarship is worthless. Far from it: we have learned many invaluable things about Biblical times over the past two centuries. However, problems arise when the results of scholarship are elevated to magisterial status. The Holy Spirit has guaranteed to protect the Church, not PhD’s, from error, so we should be careful where we place our faith.
One of the most profound sections of the entire Bible is the first three chapters of Genesis. I tell my kids that everything we need to know about life can be found in those chapters, if we look carefully enough. Which is why it is so sad that it has become a battleground for a false dichotomy between faith and science and a litmus test for determining one’s political views.
Anglican bishop N.T. Wright (one of my favorite Scripture scholars) gives some good advice on how to read these chapters properly:
H/t: Dr. Beckwith
Today is the start of Ordinary season, when we come off the high of Christmas and everything (liturgical) turns green and “ordinary”. So what is the Gospel reading to start off this season? Well, it is anything but ordinary:
After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God:
“This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Then they left their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them.
So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him. (Mark 1:14-20)
Although Mark does use rather ordinary language to describe this scene, think about the extraordinary step that these four men – Peter, Andrew, James and John – just took. They left their entire livelihood to take up with an itinerant preacher who, up to this point, had done nothing really spectacular and had no real following. Yet they answered Christ’s call and followed him. We have witnessed much greater works than they had up to this point – but are we following his call?
As our days become more ordinary, let us pray that we might make the extraordinary step each day of Ordinary time of leaving everything behind to follow Christ.
The general rule in Internet writing is “short is sweet”. Because most people are reading these articles on their computer screen (or even their cell phone screen) it is a good idea to keep articles relatively brief or else you will lose most readers.
I’ve mentioned before that when I started blogging I decided to try to keep my blogs to less than 400 words if possible. I often break that barrier, but I still try to keep all posts under 1,000 words unless I just really can’t shut up. The Internet, generally, isn’t a very conducive medium for long, drawn-out arguments; most people aren’t going to stay that long at one site. Conventional wisdom says that the longer an article is, the less likely it is to be read or commented on.
So what if I told you someone wrote an Internet article that was over 18,000 words and included almost 100 footnotes? And that it had generated, at last count, almost 700 comments? Sounds interesting, even if a bit insane, does it not?
Bryan Cross over at Called to Communion is the author of such audacity and the topic of the article is Solo Scriptura vs. Sola Scriptura. Over the past decade or so, Catholic apologists have been very successful showing the weaknesses of a “Bible Alone” approach to authority as it is practiced by Protestants today; common sense alone shows that having the Bible as the only authority is simply illogical. In response, Keith Mathison has crafted a Protestant reply: he has distinguished between Solo Scriptura and Sola Scriptura. The former, which is practiced by most Protestants over the past 150 years, takes the Bible as the only authority. The latter, on the other hand, accepts the Bible as the only infallible authority. True followers of Sola Scriptura, according to Mathison, accept other authorities, such as church councils and creeds, but they accept only Scripture as infallible. Mathison’s argument is a strong one, and it is good to see Protestants recognizing the faults in how their conferees have practiced their faith in the past two centuries.
However, Cross in his article details (in great detail!) why ultimately both Solo Scriptura and Sola Scriptura end up with the same interpretive authority: oneself. It is only through apostolic succession, argues Cross, that one can escape this conundrum and have a truly independent authority.
I recommend the article highly. I printed it out (25 pages in 10-point type!) and read it at my leisure rather than burn out my eyeballs staring at the computer screen. This article and the ensuing discussion gives me hope that the Internet hasn’t completely made us stupid yet!
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This year Our Sunday Visitor will be publishing my book Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew, a series of reflections on the titles given to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
I began my study of the Catholic faith in 1991 as an Evangelical Protestant, converting to the Catholic Church in 1993.
I serve as head of evangelization at St. John Neumann parish in Gaithersburg, MD, and am cofounder of Little Flowers Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to assist Catholic families seeking to adopt special-needs children.
You can email me at eric@ericsammons.com.
