Theme Presentation 1: Catholics and the Bible In the amusing words - - PDF document

Theme – Presentation 1: Catholics and the Bible  In the amusing words of popular comedian Jim Gaffigan: “I myself don’t read the Bible, because I don’t have to, because I’m Catholic.”

• For better or for worse, I think that joke really is an accurate reflection on the

general attitude towards the Bible that most Catholics have – or at least are perceived to have, by others as well as by themselves

• Nonetheless (and whether Catholics actually know this or not), Catholics really do

have a relationship with the Bible; indeed, a rather profound relationship, manifested in the fact that the Catholic Mass is overflowing with direct and implied references to Sacred Scripture (hand-out)

• For example: the lectionary
• (brief history/explanation of the 3-year lectionary cycle)
• I think I read or learned somewhere that something like 80% of the Bible is

proclaimed at Sunday Mass in accord with this 3-year lectionary cycle (…of course, I also read or learned somewhere that 75% of statistics are made up

• n the spot, so…)

 For our purposes tonight, I shall try my best to confine myself to just three considerations: what is the Bible; considerations with regard to biblical interpretation; and sola scriptura (and with sola scriptura, the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium)  What is the Bible?

• Authorship
• Divinely inspired, certainly; humanly authored  ergo, like Jesus Christ

Himself, the Bible is both divine and human

• There are many paintings and icons of the four Gospel writers (Matthew,

Mark, Luke, and John) with pen in hand writing the Gospel narratives, but with their eyes fixed on the angel beside them, like the angel is telling them the Gospel and they are writing down what they hear

• Different authors were inspired to compose what would later become the

books of the canon of Sacred Scripture at different times in history; it was certainly not a matter of some guy sitting in a castle for decades writing!

• Literary form
• Realizing that the Bible is comprised of a wide array of literary forms, and

then recognizing those literary forms, is absolutely crucial for our efforts to understand and interpret what the Bible is saying

• The literary forms found in the Bible include: historical/ahistorical

narratives; songs/poems/proverbs; allegory/myth; letters; apocalypse

• Historical development
• According to my own professors of Sacred Scripture, the earliest fragment

that still exists of any part of the Bible comes from the Book of Exodus and dates back to the 4th Century BC (though of course historians and biblical scholars still debate; the fragment in question: Ex 15:1)

• According to these same professors, the earliest written text in the New

Testament is Saint Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, and the last New Testament text to be written was the Book of Revelation

• How the canon came about: a process spanning three centuries

 Marcion (~144 AD)

 Saint Athanasius (373 AD +)  What was going on in the mean time? Was Christianity on leave while waiting for the Bible to come about? No! Tradition! (More on that later….)  What made the cut and what did not, and why?  The canon of Sacred Scripture was only officially declared by the Council of Trent in the 16th Century in response to Martin Luther

• Different Bibles: Catholic vs. non-Catholic
• Catholic and non-Catholic Bibles differ only in the Old Testament: the non-

Catholic Bible excludes seven books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees) and parts of two other books (Esther and Daniel)

• Why the difference?

 The LXX

• So-called because of a legend that seventy Scripture scholars

were all working independently to translate the Scripture, and all of them were inspired to translate everything precisely the same as everyone else

• Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria who translated the

Hebrew Scripture into Greek for the Greek-speaking Jews not living in Palestine and therefore not speaking Aramaic

• Greek-speaking Jewish scholars wrote original works at the

same time, written in Greek, and they were never translated into Hebrew for the Jews in Palestine  these Greek works are Deuterocanonical books (Protestants: the Apocrypha)  Martin Luther

• In striving to arrive at the purest version of Sacred Scripture

as possible, he excluded everything in the Old Testament that was not originally written in Hebrew

• So no, contrary to popular belief, Martin Luther did not tear

pages out of a heretical Catholic Bible just to make a point!  Commentary on translation

• Two general approaches to biblical translation
• Formal equivalence (word for word, not thought for thought
• Functional equivalence (thought for thought, not word for word)
• Issues/concerns
• Idioms

 Is it more important to capture the word-for-word or to capture the general idea of the idiom?  Example: the Latin “Amabo te” literally means, word-for-word, “I will love you,” but it is idiomatic (thought-for-thought) for “please”

• Lost in translation?

 American movie titles translated into Chinese and back into English  Examples

• Jack Nicholson comedy film As Good As It Gets  in

Chinese, the title is Mr. Cat Poop

• Bruce Willis action film Die Hard  in German, the title is

Die Slowly (the sequel Die Hard With a Vengeance is called Die Slowly, Now More Than Ever)

• And what if the language into which the Bible is translated is one that itself

keeps changing, daily even? Like, oh, American-style English!  Commentary on sola scriptura

• Cutting right to the chase: sola scriptura is not taught in the Bible
• Catholics agree with Protestants that Scripture is a “standard of truth,” even

the preeminent one

• But no biblical passage teaches that Scripture is the only formal authority or

rule of faith in isolation from the Church and Tradition

• Sola scriptura cannot even be deduced from implicit passages
• The “Word of God” refers to oral teaching also
• “Word” in Sacred Scripture often refers to a proclaimed, oral teaching of the

prophets or the Apostles

• What the prophets spoke was the word of God regardless of whether or not

their utterances were recorded later as written Scripture

• For example, we read in Jeremiah: “For twenty-three years…the word of the

Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again…. ‘But you did not listen to me,’ declares the Lord…. Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: ‘Because you have not listened to my words….’” (Jer 25:3, 7-8 [NIV])  This was the word of God even though some of it was not recorded in writing  It had equal authority as writing or proclamation-never-reduced-to- writing

• This was true also of apostolic preaching

 When the phrases “word of God” or “word of the Lord” appear in Acts and the epistles, they almost always refer to oral preaching, not to Scripture  For example: “When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God.” (1 Thess 2:13)  If we compare this passage with another, written to the same church, Paul appears to regard oral teaching and the word of God as synonymous: “Keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.” (2 Thess 3:6)

• Jesus and Paul accepted non-biblical oral and written traditions
• Protestants defending sola scriptura will claim that Jesus and Paul accepted the

authority of the Old Testament

• This is true, but they also appealed to other authority outside of written

revelation

• For example:

 The reference to “He shall be called a Nazarene” cannot be found in the Old Testament, yet it was “spoken by the prophets” (Matt 2:23);

therefore, this prophecy, which is considered to be “God’s word,” was passed down orally rather than through Scripture  In Matt 23:2-3, Jesus teaches that the scribes and Pharisees have a legitimate, binding authority based “on Moses’ seat,” but this phrase

• r idea cannot be found anywhere in the Old Testament; it is found

in the (originally oral) Mishnah, which teaches a sort of “teaching succession” from Moses on down  In 1 Cor 10:4, Paul refers to a rock that “followed” the Jews through the Sinai wilderness; the Old Testament says nothing about such miraculous movement, but rabbinic tradition does  “As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses” (2 Tim 3:8): these two men cannot be found in the related Old Testament passage (cf. Ex 7:8ff) or anywhere else in the Old Testament

• The Apostles exercised authority at the Council of Jerusalem
• In the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:6-30), we see Peter and James speaking

with authority; this Council makes an authoritative pronouncement (citing the Holy Spirit) that was binding on all Christians:  “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity” (Acts 15:28-29)  In the next chapter, we read that Paul, Timothy, and Silas were traveling around “through the cities,” and Scripture says that “they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.” (Acts 16:4)

• The Council of Jerusalem is, to my satisfaction, the best refutation of sola

scriptura; it is the first Ecumenical Council in Church history and illustrates quite clearly that Tradition and Magisterium exude as much authority as Scripture

• Paul casually assumes that his passed-down tradition is infallible and binding
• If Paul were not assuming that, he would have been commanding his

followers to adhere to a mistaken doctrine

• He writes: “If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that

man, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.” (2 Thess 3:14)

• He also writes: “Take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties,

in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them.” (Rom 16:17)

• Paul did not write about “the pretty-much, mostly, largely true but not

infallible doctrine which you have been taught”

• Sola Scriptura is a circular position
• When all is said and done, Protestants who accept sola scriptura as their rule of

faith appeal to the Bible

• If they are asked why one should believe in their particular denominational

teaching rather than another, each will appeal to “the Bible’s clear teaching”

• Often they act as if they have no tradition that guides their own

interpretation  This is similar to people on two sides of a constitutional debate both saying, “Well, we go by what the Constitution says, whereas you guys do not”  The U.S. Constitution, like the Bible, is not sufficient in and of itself to resolve differing interpretations; judges and courts are necessary, and their decrees are legally binding  Supreme Court rulings cannot be overturned except by a future ruling or constitutional amendment  In any event, there is always a final appeal that settles the matter

• But Protestantism lacks this because it appeals to a logically self-defeating

principle and a book that must be interpreted by human beings

• The only conclusion we can reach from the Bible is what we call the “three-

legged stool”: Bible, Church, and Tradition are all necessary to arrive at truth; if you knock out any leg of a three-legged stool, it collapses

• Authority of and relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium

 The Bible at home (or: the individual Catholic’s personal relationship with the Bible)

• Even if families do not sit down to study the Bible at home, families that pray

popular Catholic prayers at home are, in a sense, praying the Bible

• The Lord’s Prayer
• The “Hail Mary” (Lk 1:28, 42)
• The “Glory Be” (The Book of Revelation, et al.)
• Bible study groups are on the rise (parishioner John Brugger)
• Bible prayer groups are on the rise (parishioner Catherine Reimer)
• The Bible at pre-school
• The Ten Commandments
• The Lord’s Prayer

 The Bible at Mass (or: the Catholic liturgical use of the Bible)

• Allusions and direct references to biblical passages and themes are abundant all

throughout the entire Mass, right down to the liturgical dialogue that takes place between the priest and the people, the gestures and postures used throughout the Mass, and even the all-too-infamous Sign of the Cross

• The Introductory Rites
• Various gestures

 Genuflexion (Phi 2:10)  The Sign of the Cross

• Constant reminder of the great gift given to us in our

Baptism, when we were baptized “in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”

• Mt 28:19
• The Greeting

 “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  The words of the priest’s greeting to the congregation at the very start of Mass are an exact echo of the words of Saint Paul himself  2 Cor 13:14

• The Confiteor and the Kyrie

 Beating the breast, begging the Lord for mercy  Lk 18:13-14

• The Gloria

 “Glory to God in the highest….”  The first words of the Gloria echo the greeting of the angels to the shepherds on the night of the Lord’s Nativity  Lk 2:14  The rest of the Gloria is a hymn that praises why we give glory to God

• The Liturgy of the Word
• During Easter: Acts of the Apostles; Psalm; New Testament Epistle
• Outside of Easter: Old Testament or Revelation; Psalm; New Testament
• And always: a Gospel text
• Various unique occasions

 Palm Sunday: an additional Gospel text proclaimed at the very beginning of Mass  Easter Vigil: up to seven Old Testament passages, each of them accompanied by a Psalm, plus a New Testament Epistle and the Gospel text

• The homily

 Primary purpose: to console, explain, and exhort, all of that rooted in the Gospel text that was just proclaimed  Perfect example: Jesus Himself  Lk 4:16-21  Lk 24:27

• The Liturgy of the Eucharist

• Preface I for Sundays in Ordinary Time (1 Pt 2:9)
• Sanctus

 “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts….”  Is 6:3  Rev 4:8  Mt 21:9  Mt 23:39 (Ps 118:26)

• The institution narrative

 This is the heart and soul, as it were, of the entire Mass  This is when the Eucharist comes about  This is its own topic, coming up in a couple of weeks, and so, what I would explain about the institution narrative and the Eucharist now I will explain then

• Memorial Acclamation

 “When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup….”  1 Cor 11:26

• Doxology

 “For through Him and with Him and in Him….”  Rom 11:36

• The Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:9-13)
• The Sign of Peace

 The words that we say to one another: “Peace be with you”

• The words of Christ Himself
• Jn 20:19-21

 The gesture of offering peace to our brethren (Mt 5:23-24)

• The Agnus Dei

 “Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world….”  These are the words of Saint John the Baptist  Jn 1:29

• “Behold the Lamb of God….”

 Jn 1:29  Rev 19:6-9