Catholic scholars - a little help?

Great Debates
1

OK, this isn’t really a debate, and it certainly isn’t witnessing, but I can’t say I am looking for a factual answer, either. It is really a question of interpretation, which is kinda like a debate. Besides, this forum is where most of the people who can provide good responses hang out, so I’d prefer if it were left here.

The question - In the catechism of the Catholic Church (which someone here addressed the other day, but I can’t find the post to properly attribute it), it is taught that **110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."76 **

Essentially, it is giving guidelines on how to properly interpret the words of the Bible. What I am looking for are examples the church would point to as what should not be taken in it’s literal sense, due to the conditions mentioned above. Some that come to mind are the stories of Jonah and Methuselah and his 800 year old buddies.

Can anyone point out examples and explain what “literary genres”, for example, are being used.

Thanks

2

Well, there is a “literary device” which I heard referred to as “rabbinic exaggeration”. This is not exactly a literary genre, but a method of teaching, more or less.

Thus when Christ taught “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. Better that you should enter life maimed than that your whole body should burn in hell” - Matthew 5:29, He was not exactly offering body modification advice. He was exaggerating a point for emphasis.

Is this the sort of thing you mean?

I believe the official teaching of the Roman Catholic church is that the laity ought to study the Scriptures under the guidance of their own priests. The priests are presumed to have been educated in methods of exegesis that are approved by the Church, and thus are less likely to fall into errors of interpretation.

So it is more or less on a case-by-case basis.

I hope this is helpful. I don’t believe there is a definitive work listing exactly what every passage in Scripture means and how literally to take it.

Regards,
Shodan

3

Yes, that is helpful. I am looking for a few examples rather than a complete list. Maybe more specifically, I am looking for examples that Catholics would view as needing interpretation, while other more evangelical Christians would take literally.

4

The stories of Creation, for one.

5

Then I would recommend the footnotes of the Jerusalem Bible, especially on the book of Revelations.

But again, I don’t believe it is considered definitive, even by Catholics.

Regards,
Shodan

6

Well, I am not a catholic, but one comes to mind: The fact that there are three conflicting versions of jesu’s last words. One of them seems to contradict the whole of christianity.

One caveat: Any verse that an apologist give is possible a perfect explanation, and I might be wrong to doubt it, but then again, they may be reading more into it then is actually there, which is the stance I am more likely to take.

7

I know about the contradictions, but that is not what I am asking. What I want to know is like this:

Catholic A - The story of Jonah represents the theological point ____________

Fundamentalist Christian B - The story of Jonah is that a man got ate by a whale.

8

Not exactly what you are looking for, but may I recommend The Jerome Bible Commentary, published by Prentice-Hall. It’s a scholarly exegesis of Scripture based on the New American Bible translation, with each article by a leading scholar on that book or aspect of scholarship and edited by three scholarly Censores Deputati (Raymond Brown, for example) for conformity with Catholic teaching.

An example of where context is important: there are several cases in Scripture where someone swearing to something places his hand on the thigh of the person receiving the oath. First, “thigh” may possibly have been euphemistic for genitalia. Second, this was not a sexually-based custom but rather in Israelite custom, the mode of emphasizing the seriousness with which the oath was given, equivalent to the American tradition of placing one’s right hand on a Bible. Without that latter fact in mind, anyone reading those passages would be going, “WTF? Why is he feeling up Abimelech’s thigh?”

Likewise, finds based in Ebla have revealed that it was common custom in the Syria-Palestine area in patriarchal times for a woman being given in marriage to be formally adopted by the father of the bridegroom and then married to her new “brother,” the adoption symbolizing her transition from her father’s family to her new father-in-law’s and abnegating the idea that land might pass out of one family’s ownership into another’s through inheritance through her. This bit of ancient legal fiction gives new perspective to the repeated occasions in which Abraham and Isaac, facing the possible ire of a monarch, pass off their wives as their sisters.

9

The easiest (and biggest target) for this sort of thing would be the Revelation of John or Apocalypse (from the Greek word for revelation, Apokalypsis ([symbol]Apokaluyis[/symbol]).

Catholics, (along with Anglicans, most Lutherans, etc.), look at the tradition in which apocalyptic (or revelatory) works were written, using extremely vivid and imaginative symbolism to convey a message. Revelation, was addressed to a particular group of churches in Asia Minor during the first great persecution of the church by Domitian in the 90s. It speaks of terrible things that will occur in the world, great suffering and catastrophe followed by the ultimate triumph of God and eternal joy of God’s saved people. It was intended to be a comfort to people under persecution, encouraging them to hold fast to their faith because God would eventually triumph. The message for the entire church is that there will be many persecutions through the years, each of which will seem to mean the end of all that people hold dear, but if the faithful will remain true to God, they will either be rewarded with eternal life if they are martyred or they will see the triumph of God when the persecutor has, himself, fallen.

In order to convey this message, there is a lot of numerology, with different numbers conveying different meanings. There is wild imagery (dragons sweeping the stars from the sky) and there are a lot of things coded in other images, (a seven-headed dragon representing the seven hills of the city of Rome, with ten horns representing the ten kings who would rule it leading up to the persecution). The imagery and symbolism builds on other images that have appeared in other works, previously. Thus, there are apocalyptic passages in the books of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel (and, to a lesser extent, Isaiah) along with small passages in other books. These build on each other with each author using images that were familiar to his readers through earlier works, but while the images are reused, sometimes the authors change the meanings to meet new situations.

In contrast to that explanation, some (not all) biblical literalists, while recognizing that there is imagery used, try to see how the images match the world as they know it, expecting the events described in the book to play out exactly in the way they are described (or in a way that can easily be reconciled as symbolic). Similarly, they force each repeated image to mean the same thing in each book (which sometimes goes against the clear meaning of the passages). Thus, since the world has not been destroyed in the way described in Revelation, it is clearly an event that is still coming, and the imagery describing Rome and Jerusalem are actual events that will happen to the real cities of Rome and Jerusalem.

The Catholic Church looks at the message given to actual communities at the time it was written, notes that Domitian died and his persecution faded, and sees the message of Revelation to be a general encouragement for any persecuted Christians without attempting to treat the book as a “future history” describing actual events that will occur.

10

The Jerusalem Bible’s footnotes are not for the weak hearted. I made it to page two before I started yelling that Eve did NOT presage Mary* and where the hell did he GET that shit, closed the book before I had a stroke, and haven’t picked it up since. I mean, I’m as much a Marianist as the next guy but some things are just NUTS!

    • It’s at home so I can’t give the precise wording and, anyway, I might not survive looking it up. :mad:
11

That’s true - it represents a very Roman Catholic view of Scripture, and theologically liberal as well.

But, AFAIK, it accurately represents many aspects of Roman Catholic thought, especially when contrasted to fundamentalist teachings on the Bible.

I am not a Marianist, nor a Roman Catholic, but I thought that was what Lamar Mundane was asking for.

I don’t really care for the translation in the Jerusalem Bible, but the footnotes and introductions are useful for one set of scholars view of Scripture.

Regards.
Shodan

12

That view is not unique to the Jerusalem Bible. The church fathers teach that just as Christ was the new Adam, so Mary is the new Eve – as Eve disobeyed and so made way for death to enter the world, Mary obeyed and made way for life.

13

I’ve met at least one preist who was of the opinion that the words were correct, and that God did indeed look away, not only from Jesus (so as not to witness the death of the Son), but from all of creation, or at last Jerusalem, at that moment.

As a book of prophecy, there are some who believe it already came true as well, in the fal of Rome. Much of the imagery implicitly refers to Rome.

14

I see what you are saying, but such a reading would seem to require a deliberate misreading, as I understood the words to mean a betrayal, not a simple looking away from the results of his acts.

15

Or He could just be making reference to the Psalms. Or it could be (as the East teaches) that He experienced death in His humanity to the extent that He (in His humanity) actually did feel forsaken and alone.

16

Yes, I thought that He was echoing a Psalm (or Isaiah??) much as the crucifixion narrative reflects OT prophesy.

17

I think that Eli eli lama sabachthani is undoubtedly an intentional reference to Psalm 22:1. The question of why, in His extremity, He might have done it, is something else again.

First, He was “steeped in the Scriptures” – He knew the Tanakh very well indeed. It’s evident in His teachings that He always has the apposite quote from it, and will often deflect baiting about one passage by citing an entirely different one.

Second, there’s a very famous literary passage, the details of which I don’t recall, about some Jewish soldiers who died “with the Sh’ma on their lips.” Christians of all sorts pray the “Our Father,” Catholics and Orthodox the “Hail Mary,” T.H. White in a moving passage has Merlin see Arthur “get it” at the end of his childhood training and then Merlin says the Nunc Dimittis." And some people are suggesting that “The Star-Spangled Banner” be replaced as national anthem by “My Country 'Tis of Thee.”

What these incidents have in common is that the affirmation, prayers, canticle, and patriotic anthem in question are referenced by their opening words. As of course is Psalm 22.

It is possible that in His extremity Jesus, whom it is important to remember is in orthodox understanding truly God and truly man, participating fully in our human nature, experienced the last missing element of this: the loss of faith and despair. And that Eli eli is a cry of despair.

But even more plausible, considering that He is “tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin,” in Paul’s language, is that He experienced that sense of losing faith and despairing – and conquered it.

It’s instructive to read Psalm 22, because it starts out with that soul-wrenching cry of despair. And continues as a spiritual exercise ending in a quiet heart again calm and firm in faith.

Jesus loved to teach by example, and this may have been His last bit of doing that. “Here’s what you do when you’re being martyred and tempted to renounce your faith and give up on God. Watch Me do it!”

Gigi, I’m absolutely certain that Jesus knowingly acted out some elements of Messianic expectations, even as He rejected other ones because they didn’t fit what He came to do. But I’ve found that “playing the fulfillment of prophecy card” is something best done in homeopathic doses. After all, we’ve all witnessed, right here on this board, an avenging angel cast out Satan for encouraging flames, and Eve reveal that she was in sober truth made from male body parts, just as a fundamentalist reading of Gen. 2:21 would explain. And I might point out that richness in poverty and remaining staunch for the truth of patience and love while the noisies claim to be doing God’s work while actually spreading hatred, are pretty fair descriptions of what I’m supposed to be doing here (not that I don’t often let my angry and polemic side show lately :(). Now, remembering that “angel” means “messenger, spokesman” as well as “supernatural being,” and was used in apocalyptic to reference the bishops (and elders) leading the local churches, read Rev. 2:8-11.

Anyway, where I’m going with that is that you can easily overdo the “fulfillment of prophecy” idea. Jesus did what He did because they were necessary and important steps to carry out His purpose. If at times He made sure that they were acting out an Old Testament reference as well…

18

Lamar,

The difficulties of interpretation (commonly called hermeneutics) were recognized from the very beginning of the institution of the church.

My knowledge of these things is restricted to the early and medieval church, but I will suggest two sources I think are useful. A fascinating primary source dates back to the end of the 4th century. See the Book of Seven Rules by the Donatist Tyconius. Tyconius exerted enormous influence on Augustine, whose works on hermeneutics are legion. The Book of Seven Rules is short and definitely worth reading.

For a more contemporary view on how the ancients interpreted the Bible, read The Bible in the Middle Ages by Beryl Smalley. It is simply the best treatment on the subject.

19

Thank you for those ideas. I too was taken aback by His words and it made more sense to me once I knew it was based on OT writings. I was also thinking more of the “for his vesture they cast lots” business.

20

[sidetrack]
Which is why, possibly, testimony and testicle are etymologically related.
[/sidetrack]