Fr. Dwight Longenecker: Sneaky, snaky, modernism

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So the guy who literally just said that the old testament is for Jews proceeds to quote it to a Catholic as evidence of his view.
 
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Pure silliness. Jesus literally takes OT teachings and says they were wrong / have changed / no longer apply. There’s a reason the Pharisees hated Jesus, he was nothing like they expected based on the OT.
 
No, I am saying the Old Testament contains the Old Covenant superseded by the New.
 
Fair enough, it’s just semantics that we disagree on at this point. I agree with the core of what you said and that’s good enough.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
Pure silliness. Jesus literally takes OT teachings and says they were wrong / have changed / no longer apply. There’s a reason the Pharisees hated Jesus, he was nothing like they expected based on the OT.
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it was more that the Pharisees misunderstood the OT rather than anything else.
 
I sincerely doubt that explanation. I think they understood it well and that’s the problem. Many things were added to the NT to try and maintain the continuity but they are not historically accurate. There’s a lot of wisdom in the OT that takes humans from point A to point B in terms of progress, but it could never get to point C with an eye for an eye etc.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
I sincerely doubt that explanation. I think they understood it well and that’s the problem. Many things were added to the NT to try and maintain the continuity but they are not historically accurate. There’s a lot of wisdom in the OT that takes humans from point A to point B in terms of progress, but it could never get to point C with an eye for an eye etc.
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Get a free, 1 week subscription to FORMED.org and watch the Symbolon series for starters. Pay attention to the parts about salvation history.

By the time of Christ, there were many sects of Judaism. The Pharisees were one sect, and obviously started to become an important sect because they were the only sect to survive after the destruction of the Temple (rabbinical Judaism is based on the Pharisees, but with the Sadducee’s non belief in the afterlife).

There were other sects of Judaism, like the Essenes, that had a more spiritual understanding and a less literal understanding than the Pharisees.

The problem was Judaism, at the time of Christ, had so many different sects by then that no one was sure which sect was closes to God’s teachings (kind of similar to all the sects Christianity has now). And most importantly, most of the leaders, were not following God’s true intent.

So again, it’s not so much that the OT was wrong, but more that the Jews either took it too literal or over time forgot to the true meaning of the scriptures. It was not uncommon for the Jews to do what today’s Protestants do… take a line of scripture too literal and not understand it within the context of all scripture.

God bless.
 
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Well that i find a more compelling answer. Put it this way, if you take the bible, take out the NT and say ‘that’s Catholicism and that’s our God’ them i’m off to become a Buddhist.
 
I don’t think it’s just semantics. God’s unchanging nature is very important, not only philosophically, but in terms that it is revealed truth as well.

If we were Buddhists, we would say all the “gods” change like the world, and are not really gods. But we are not, we believe that there is one God, that the passing away of this world points to the eternal, unchanging metaphysical reality underlying the physical world.
 
While I don’t think that these novelties will actually happen or be adopted by the Church, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a fight over them within the Church using the methods Fr. Longenecker discusses. For example, I expect that there will be continuing attacks on Humanae Vitae in an attempt to undermine it.
 
Kei said:
Old Covenant superseded by the New
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The New Covenant didn’t so much supersede the Old, rather it was more of a reformation and supplementation of the Old Covenant, thus forming the New Covenant.

The Church teaches the Old Covenant was never revoked.
 
Yes.
But, I think supersedes is a fine description. Does it mean something other than “taking precedence over”?
 
Yes, it carries connotations of supplanting and replacing as well, invalidating the Old. In Western jurisprudence, when a new law supersedes the old, the old law is totally done away with and only the new law is in effect.

Which is why I said it’s better to describe the New Covenant as reforming and supplementing the Old, rather than superseding it.

The etymology of the word supersede literally means “above seat.” If a seat is above and higher than the old one, when you sit in it you will only sit on the new seat, making the old under seat totally obsolete.

I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it, that rhymes quite nicely!
 
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He lost me with this:
Amoris Letitia began with ambiguities. Nothing was being changed they said. It was simply a matter of emphasis. It was a matter of interpretation.

Modernists always do this.
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The encyclical was written by Pope Francis. How is this not calling him a modernists? That is hits me as sneaky and snarky. Pot, meet kettle.
 
Hm, but the Old Covenant doesn’t apply anymore by itself. Following it doesn’t bring one to salvation (indeed, there is not even a temple).
Let’s go with the CCC and say that the Law of the Gospel “fulfills,” refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection.
 
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