And just to be clear, you haven’t said anything along the lines of “I go direct to God, and there’s no priest I have to go to confession to.” Correct? So you do understand that I wasn’t accusing you of being a protestant, yet. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop; and evidence of one kind or the other to be made manifest.
Also, I replied to GrannyMH before I read your previous post; I really wasn’t trying to snub you a third time. But I do encourage you to read castii connubi, and also humani Generis before reading too much into the Jerusalem bible’s footnotes.
I went upstairs and found my sister’s Jerusalem Bible. I don’t generally read it because, well, it doesn’t have an imprimatur from a cardinal. There were some priests who recommended it back in the late 70’s for scholarship, which is why my sister got a copy of it (and left it collecting dust on my parent’s book-shelf…)
I do see that it says, A couple of notes, the Name Yahweh, is a false name that probably has Jews laughing all over the place at Christians (or Jehovah withnesses via German pronunciation) who have been misled into thinking that’s God’s true personal name. The personal name of God has the letters YHWH, but the vowels a,e would definitely not be found in any of the original Hebrew texts and are known to be wrong. It was a scholar’s fad a few years back to claim YaHWeH is God’s personal name… but serious scholars know the vowels were changes made by the Masorites, who did so over a thousand years after Christ’s time to purposely obscure God’s name with a false rendering. I assume you go to a Catholic church and have noticed that a liturgical decree from the Vatican went out a few years ago forbidding any songs which use YAHWEH to be sung in church Liturgy. Now you know part of the reason why. Bad scholarship makes for bad liturgy. The name “Jesus” actually has a version of the pronunciation of God’s personal name in his own name. YHWH saves. An older pronunciation would be found in the name Joshua. And Jesus himself claimed the title from the Greek, eg: Lord.
So, the Jerusalem bible has a lot of scholarship in it which is worth investigating, but quite a bit of it is speculative and dated to the opinions of the 60’s; especially people who wanted exciting new religious revelations to pad out their college thesis, even if they risked false interpretations. The bible I have is (C)1966-1968; I do not know if later bibles were given approval by the Catholic Church or not. You’ll need to check the first few pages to see whether or not your copy has an imprimatur; but I think the Jerusalem bible is a less tried and traditional translation. It’s good for stimulating thinking, but not so good for stability and reliability of translation.
eg: Case in point: There is a difference between places in the Hebrew which say “adam” (as in red earth), and “The Adam” which is Hebrew for a definite man’s name. Yet the footnote I am reading on Genesis 3 in the Jerusalem bible does not clarify the distinction but claims Although they aren’t exactly wrong; I don’t see how they could get that inference from the Hebrew itself; The reading “man” as in mankind, is from the Greek translation. But, in the Hebrew, the passage could be referring to God taking red earth and forming that particular kind of earth into an image of God, thus making both man and woman out of the same red earth.
So, what I’m saying is that you’re going to find some arguments I’ve been making more difficult to follow without checking the Hebrew sources that the Jerusalem bible is primarily translated from; or also checking other bible translations.
I’ll read the Jerusalem bible and try to be more sensitive to issues that translation adds to the thread from here on out. But the things I’ve been pointing out are still valid; Genesis 3:16 is used to define how government should operate, it is not strictly about lust and arbitrary domination.
The Catholic church in it’s members is the bride of Christ, and Catholic Priests acting in persona Christi are lords and kings of their respective churches. The church, too, is full of sinners; both lusting members and priests who lord it over their congregations in attempt to dominate rather than shepherd. (The pedophile priest scandals of the last fourty years is a very painful example of both.)
But: Jesus doesn’t negate the relationship established at creation, but does expect a higher standard of rulership from his priests: cf. Matthew 20:25, Even so, the reality is that many priests and some popes have clearly done exactly what Jesus forbade them to do.