But as for the subject, nothing I have said about the Infancy Narratives is opposed to any church teaching. Dei Verbum specifically states that we are to consider the literary form of each story and doing so makes it impossible for me (and many scholars) to treat these stories as literal historical accounts.
Thanks for the post Patg!
You seem to me to be limiting yourself to a few words of
Dei Verbum and reading them as if they were written in a vacuum. Even the very sentence mentioning “literary forms” says that they are to be given attention as being one “among other things” that help us discern “what meaning the sacred writers really intended.” And we are also told that the “living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account” (Art. 12), and that we are to apply the tools of Biblical exegesis in a manner that follows “the mind of the Church” (Art. 23).
Dei Verbum also states that the Gospels are historical and that the source material for the Gospels was selected “from [the apostles’] own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who ‘themselves from the beginning were eyewitnesses’” (Art. 19). The difference between “memory and recollections,” as held by the Church on the one hand, and “imagination and invention,” as held by you on the other, is the difference between history and fiction.
There is clear evidence that parts of these stories exactly match the classical fictional literary form well known as the Infancy Narrative. There is also clear evidence that parts follow midrashic styles. There is no independent historical evidence to indiicate otherwise and there are even statements in the gospels themselves which cast strong doubts on any claims of historicity (who is this man…isn’t he just the son of the carpenter…?).
On the basis of examining which infancy narratives do you assign a fictional literary form to the canonical infancy narratives?
“Is not this the carpenter’s Son?” (Matthew 13:55; cf. Luke 4:22; John 6:42). How do these sayings contribute to appreciating the fictional character of the infancy narratives? The reason why it does this in your mind, I think, is that you have assumed the Gospels to be comprised of discreet and antinomically disparate subsections. But this quote from Matthew is best understood after comparison with a similar statement found in John’s Gospel: “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” (John 7:42) These are quite simply examples of dramatic irony, where the reader knows more than the historical figures in the narrative. The people
think that Jesus is Joseph’s Son, just as they think that Jesus is
not from Bethlehem or of David’s stock. But we the readers know better.
When one understands the literary form of the story, claims of historicity become pointless - at least to me and numerous respected authors of teh church. You are free to champion their historical nature and I (and numerous scholars, many writing under the imprimatur and nihil obstat) are free to read them differently. Fiction is NOT a synonym for lying.
Claims to historicity only become pointless when it has been proven that the composition under examination is in fact nonhistorical. From the little I’ve read of Margaret Nutting Ralph, she does not seem to draw the “fiction” conclusion that you draw. Of the Gospels she writes, “Neither can the Gospels be classified as history. This is not to say that the events reported in the Gospel never happened. They did. But the intent of the Gospel writers is not the intent of the historian. They are not trying to give an accurate historical account. Rather, they… report the events of Jesus’ lifetime in such a way as to make their significance fully realized only in hindsight, visible to their readers” (
And God Said What?, p 168).
Which authors would you say you are following in drawing the conclusion that the infancy narratives are “
mostly fiction”?
Your brother in Christ,
Pete
