Did Moses write the Pentateuch?

[Gottle_of_Geer]

[continuation & end]

…meant by it - and judged to be consistent with it or allowable as an interpretation of it.

IOW, there is a serious possibility that the term “Mosaic authorship” endures, while the content does not; so that the notion is evacuated of meaning. Which makes a nonsense of insisting on it - for what is being insisted on ? Doctrinal assertions need to have stability of meaning and of content - otherwise they become mere empty words. Which is most unhealthy for the Church, her mission, her teaching, her understanding of Scripture, and a host of other things.

This issue cannot be dealt with by law alone - legal enactments & disciplinary instruments are not adequate to help Catholics deal with issues which are not confined to the Church, but are also current outside the Church; such as archaeological discoveries, their interpretation, and so on. IOW, it is artificial to separate Catholic biblical scholarship from that of their non-Catholic peers. It might be consistent with Church scholarship to insist on a sort of Catholic Fundamentalism - but it would make matters extremely diofficult for the Church, her mission, and for scholarship. As well as implying that there could not be solid arguments against Mosaic authorship as construed by Rome in 1906/7. ##

I agree that solid arguments may be made. I disagree that the doctrinal decisions of the PBC have been rescinded. Therefore, despite the uncompelling arguments made by the Taught Church, the Teaching Church regarding the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is still the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

I go by the Teaching Church.

Which is fine - but what is meant by that teaching ?​

The limitations of CAF posting forbid one to say more ##

 

[buffalo]

stumbler:

I’m no expert, but I have read some “historicritical commentaries” and “source criticisms” and “redactional analyses” and it seems plain to me it’s largely speculative bunk. Towering theories are built on the flimsiest bits of evidence. That 2 sections of a text have different styles is definitive proof that 2 authors were involved. Possibilities are piled upon probabilities upon potentialities. Mathematically the result is near zero, but in their minds it is all but a certainty.

I now have a very different style of writing than I had in the past. In the future they will claim two different people wrote the things I wrote. The styles thing to me is questionable scholarship.

 

[Melchior]

buffalo:

I now have a very different style of writing than I had in the past. In the future they will claim two different people wrote the things I wrote. The styles thing to me is questionable scholarship.

Excellent points. By you and Stumbler.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

he [Cardinal Ratzinger] does have some authority in the matter; his opinion has a moral weight (at least) greater than that of most of us.

That depends upon how he exercises his authority. If he writes a book, he is not acting in his capacity as an office holder within the Catholic Church, right? His authority is that of any other learned theologian. If he writes a “report” as a congregation president, that certainly has more authority, but less than that of a decision approved by the Pope and published in the AAS.

Yet, even in his report, he does not assert that Moses was not the true author of the Pentateuch. Even if we were to weigh this report greatly (as it should be when he exercises his magisterial authority), I don’t find it in disagreement with Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

… such scholars are - it seems - of one mind with Ratzinger.

Huh? I don’t get that impression. In a lecture on Jan 27, 1988, Cardinal Ratzinger “delivered the most trenchant critique of the erring philosophical and theological presuppositions which lay behind the historical-critical method since the early days of the Pontifical Biblical Institute founded by Pope Leo XIII.” (Stephen Hand, Cardinal Ratzinger, Biblical Exegesis and the Church, Traditional Catholic Reflections & Reports, May 2003).

It can be read here:

Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Exegesis Today
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 27 Jan 1988
christendom-awake.org/pages/ratzinger/biblical-crisis.htm

Some excerpts follow…

“To speak of the crisis of the historical-critical method today is practically a truism.”

{sarcastically, he states, regarding the Protestant beginnings of this method} “… dogma or church doctrine appeared as one of the real impediments to a correct understanding of the Bible itself. But freed from this impertinent presupposition, and equipped with a methodology which promised strict objectivity, it seemed that we were finally going to be able to hear again the clear and unmistakable voice of the original message of Jesus.”

“… Gradually, however, the picture became more and more confused. The various theories increased and multiplied and separated one from the other and became a veritable fence which blocked access to the Bible for all the uninitiated. Those who were initiated were no longer reading the Bible anyway, but were dissecting it into the various parts from which it had to have been composed. … Faith itself is not a component of this method.” {cf. the Jesus Seminar’s conclusions}

“… Underneath the existing sources — that is to say, the biblical books themselves — we are supposed to find more original sources, which in turn become the criteria for interpretation. No one should really be surprised that this procedure leads to the sprouting of ever more numerous hypotheses until finally they turn into a jungle of contradictions.”

“… if “hermeneutics” is ever to become convincing, the inner harmony between historical analysis and hermeneutical synthesis must be first found… I must honestly say that a truly convincing answer has yet to be formulated”

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

itsjustdave1988:

That depends upon how he exercises his authority. If he writes a book, he is not acting in his capacity as an office holder within the Catholic Church, right? His authority is that of any other learned theologian. If he writes a “report” as a congregation president, that certainly has more authority, but less than that of a decision approved by the Pope and published in the AAS.

Agreed​

Yet, even in his report, he does not assert that Moses was not the true author of the Pentateuch. Even if we were to weigh this report greatly (as it should be when he exercises his magisterial authority), I don’t find it in disagreement with Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

Huh? I don’t get that impression. In a lecture on Jan 27, 1988, Cardinal Ratzinger “delivered the most trenchant critique of the erring philosophical and theological presuppositions which lay behind the historical-critical method since the early days of the Pontifical Biblical Institute founded by Pope Leo XIII.” (Stephen Hand, Cardinal Ratzinger, Biblical Exegesis and the Church, Traditional Catholic Reflections & Reports, May 2003).

Thank you for both links ​

I notice that the former contains this:

• While Ratzinger did not question the validity of the historical method per se, he clearly attempted to undermine much of it it ( at least to the extent that it has been practised for over two hundred years) by summoning orthodox Catholic theologians and exegetes to “get beyond disputes over details and press on to [a critique of] the foundations”, calling for “the work of a whole generation” which he referred to as a “criticism of criticism”. The Cardinal suggested that only now could such a thorough “criticism of the criticism” be undertaken, precisely because the method has been around so long; indeed almost to the point of exhausting itself in variations on its central theses. The kind of criticism that the former theology professor called for is one that would aim at and be able to expose the “appearance of quasi-clinical-scientific certainty” which posed as the method for so long.

[My emphasis]

The principle involved - that criticism is, in principle, legitimate - is left untouched. Incidentally, this address is AFAICS neither more nor less weighty that to which I posted a link. Possibly, it is of slightly less weight: not being a canonist or a Vatican insider or a professional theologian, I can’t say. As you say:

• That depends upon how he exercises his authority. If he writes a book, he is not acting in his capacity as an office holder within the Catholic Church, right? His authority is that of any other learned theologian.

I apologise for quoting quite so much - I don’t like omitting things, because one wonders what is missing, and even why. Hence my emphasis.​

I’m entirely in favour of examining one’s basic ideas, and their foundations. C.S. Lewis said something of the kind over 40 years ago - IIRC, in his essay “Fern-Seed and Elephants”. I think that such examination is necessary, & desirable. I try to do it, and I think the Church should so too: this ought to help her to be all the more certain of the foundations for her mission in the world. And all the more effective in living out that mission.

…continue… ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

##…continuation…end

So, in a sense at least, I agree with you

For some reason, which I don’t pretend to know, thinking about the mission of the Church seems to be somewhat unusual among Catholics of rather “conservative” views, and fairly widespread among Catholics of less “conservative” views - notably among theologians of that variety. Perhaps the former have a more static notion of the Church than the latter.
This is not meant as a slur, but as an observation - and it may or may not be well-founded. I mention it because I think ecclesiology is of great, if indirect, importance to how we think about the Bible.

Equally, defensiveness about these questions is a poor approach - they need to be looked at on their merits. As is the suspiciousness of some Catholics of anything not coming from Catholic Tradition - as though Biblical Scholarship were a Protestant aberration, and not something with deep roots in the Christian past to which many, Catholics included, have contributed. Richard Simon & Alexander Geddes were both Catholic priests, & both helped lay the foundations for scientific Biblical criticism. IMO, Christians today are deeply in their debt.

We have to avoid suspecting or demonising one another, whatever our views on criticism. Seeing “liberalism” - whatever that is meant to mean - or “obscurantism” where neither exist, is only going to make the Church giddy. And it certainly won’t build it up. AFAICS, we are all Catholic Christians - not “liberals”, “obscurantists”, “conservatives”, “progressives”, “true Catholics”, or anything else with a label or slogan. ##

It can be read here:

Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Exegesis Today
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 27 Jan 1988
christendom-awake.org/pages/ratzinger/biblical-crisis.htm

Some excerpts follow…

 

[itsjustdave1988]

The principle involved - that criticism is, in principle, legitimate - is left untouched.

I agree. I wasn’t among those bashing the historical critical method. I agree that the Church teaches it and uses it, but sometime not so well. Yet it should be noted that the Church maintains that this method is insuffiicent alone. Catholic hermeneutics, in other words, cannot be equal to the historical critical method if it hopes to interpret the truth of Scripture. Both diachronic and synchronic methodologies are necessary, without overemphasizing the sufficiency of one or the other.

I’m not a fundamentalist. Yet, I believe one must attempt to understand the literal (not literalist) meaning of Scripture as foundational, and all other senses (e.g. typological) may go beyond the literal without denying the veracity of the literal sense.

Authorship may be a question answerable from the text. Then again, it may not be. For example, we cannot know who St. Mark was nor that St. Mark wrote the Gospel of St. Mark from exegesis alone. The Catholic Encyclopedia article: CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pentateuch gives a good summary of bibilical scholarship up to that point (1909-1917) regarding the authorship of the Pentateuch. I don’t find any recent exegetical breakthroughs to have convincingly placed this scholarship into question. I certainly have found no magisterial texts to have recinded previous doctrinal statements on this topic.

The point I wanted to make was that some were denying that Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was part of Catholic doctrine. I suggest that those who deny this read the article above. It seems clear that it has been Catholic doctrine, and has been the constant tradition of the Church until recent contrary hypotheses have been suggested. These recent hypothesis seem to stem from a purely historical critical method apart from consideration of Catholic tradition or magisterial teachings.

I don’t believe we have enough evidence, if one were to use Catholic hermeneutics (which also considers tradition and the teachings of the magisterium), to safely abandon the traditional Catholic doctrine that Moses was the true author (in the sense described by the PBC decisions).

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Incidentally, this address is AFAICS neither more nor less weighty that to which I posted a link. Possibly, it is of slightly less weight

I agree. I did not post it as though it was authoritative in any way, but only with regard to the lack of “one mindedness” of Cardinal Ratzinger with many if not most modern exegetes.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

itsjustdave1988:

I agree. I did not post it as though it was authoritative in any way, but only with regard to the lack of “one mindedness” of Cardinal Ratzinger with many if not most modern exegetes.

Understood ​

I’m not sure that we are that far apart - perhaps I am a bit more sceptical about “Mosaic authorship” - or about what it adds up to. What I am sure of, is that the CE article is badly in need of revision - partly beacause the Magisterium & the scholars on 1909 had no way of knowing about what has come to light at places such as Ras Shamra. The texts commonly available certainly fill in some gaps in what was known about the OT background - not just in the Pentateuch, either.

I think you are more impressed by the Magisterium, and I’m more impressed by collections of texts and objects fromn the Ancient Near East ##