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SFH
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patg
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Actually it is very solid, common, documented, and understandable stuff. You need to read about Jewish styles…see below
The concept that if things that sound like history aren’t and therefore the authors must be lying is one which indicates a basic misunderstanding of Jewish writing in the first century and throughout most of the old testament. Jewish authors made extensive use of a style known as Midrash - a type of writing in which a scriptural text is used not simply to discover the meaning of that text but to seek out new meanings that have practical application to the present. In midrash, the original meaning of a text is not being explained; rather, the text is being used to interpret contemporary events.
Midrash played an important role in Judaism after the Babylonian exile. Once the Israelites resettled the holy land, the age of the prophets ended. The function that had been fulfilled by prophets, to confront the contemporary audience with God’s will and God’s word, was taken on by the scribes. Through reinterpretations of Old Testament texts scribes tried to bring the words of the law and of the prophets to bear on the lives of the people. Midrash had much the same function in postexilic Judaism that a good homily or sermon has in our lives. The question that the scribe, homilist, or preacher is trying to address is not “What is the original meaning of this text?” but “How does this text, God’s living word, help us understand the meaning of our present situation?”
In the Infancy Narratives, for example, Matthew and Luke’s contemporaries would have been familiar with the technique of using an Old Testament text to cast light on a contemporary situation. In the infancy narratives. Images from Scripture are woven around the accounts of events in order to teach the significance of those events in the lives of the audience.
When a person who knows the Old Testament reads Matthew and Luke’s infancy narratives they realize that many of the details unique to each story have a very familiar ring to them. In fact, they are Old Testament allusions added to the stories to teach the significance of the events being recounted. When one is able to bring these Old Testament allusions to bear on one’s understanding of the story, a whole new level of meaning opens up.
The task before us, then, is to interpret the allusions, many from the Old Testament, that have been woven into the accounts in Matthew and Luke’s infancy narratives. Only then can we understand the theological richness that Matthew and Luke have added to their accounts by their use of midrash.
What is Matthew telling his audience when he includes in his infancy narrative the accounts of the star, the magi, Herod’s plot, the massacre of the babies, and the flight into Egypt? Each of these images recalls to the mind of Matthew’s largely Jewish audience something significant in their past, something that touches their minds and hearts because it reminds them of their history, their hopes, and their sense of purpose and destiny.
We must remember that when Matthew was arranging his inherited oral and written traditions into the Gospel that we now have, he was ever mindful of the needs of his Jewish audience. He was writing to people of the covenant who wanted to remain faithful to that covenant. Matthew presents Jesus to his audience as the new Moses who has authority from God to give the new law. This basic concern is reflected in both the form and the content of Matthew’s Gospel. He organizes his Gospel into five sections that reflect the Pentateuch, the five books of the old law.
I could go on but I hope you get the idea.
If it leads to a better understanding of the truth, then it is leading on a much better path.
The truth is worthless? A better and deeper understanding is worthless? I don’t believe the results of centuries of scholarship are worthless. I do believe that superficial reading and interpretations are worthless.
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buffalo
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A reason this is familiar from the Old Testament is that the OT prophecied the coming of Christ.
So, was there a census or not?
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SFH
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The problem with this theory (and I emphasize that it is no more than a theory) is that early Christianity produced a distinct set of midrash-type texts–the Christian apocryphal books. Two of the reasons the Gospels were not lumped into the midrash/apocryphal works was their perceived historical accuracy and their apostolic origin and antiquity.
An example of a midrash-type Infancy narrative would be the one where the Hebrew midwife feels the Blessed Virgin’s vagina to verify that she did not lose her virginity in childbirth, and the midwife’s hand shrivels up as punishment for her unbelief (I believe this account is in the Gospel of Thomas but I’m not sure). The purpose of this midrash is to teach the Virgin birth to early Christians, and the danger to their Faith from unbelief in the Virgin birth. When you read St. Matthew’s and St. Luke’s Infancy narratives alongside the apocryphal Infancy narratives, there’s no question which one is supposed to be midrash and which one is supposed to be history.
Similarly, a comparison of 1 Machabees to 2 Machabees leaves no question which one is supposed to be a historical narrative and which one is supposed to be midrash. And incidentally, a perusal of Josephus or 1 Machabees confirms that first century Jews knew how to write historical narratives when they wanted to (i.e., not everything that was written in that period was midrash).
History repeats itself, or so goes the old adage, and there is no reason why an event in the Old Testament shouldn’t find echoes in the New Testament, especially when God has used the Old Testament to prefigure the New Testament. That would be like arguing that the historical accounts of the Pioneers heading West on the Oregon Trail are not true because those historical narratives find an earlier parallel in the Pilgrims crossing the Atlantic and coming to America.
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Gottle_of_Geer
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Not so fast - how did the OT texts in question (which is presumably what what you’re referring to) prophesy of Christ ?
Isaiah 7.14 is not a prophesy of Christ - Christ did not eat curds and honey, there were no Assyrians in Judaea. Isaiah 7 mentions both.The oracle in Isaiah is applicable to Christ: one can even say, more adequately fulfilled in Him than it was in the original context - but it is not a prophecy of Him, if what is meant is a direct prediction about Him and His coming, and about no one else. If Isaiah had been talking of Christ, his oracle would have been completely irrelevant to his contemporaries. The OT prophets spoke to their contemporaries - not to people hundreds of years in the future.
So why in Matthew 1.23 is Jesus identified with Immanuel ? Because the Church, reading the OT in the light of her faith in Jesus, saw in that passage a prediction of what Jesus had been to her: and interpreted it as such. Re-interpretation of the texts goes on throughout the Bible - the author of Daniel draws on Jeremiah (for example) in order to find comfort for his people’s troubles - this doesn’t mean that the 70 weeks in Daniel 9 has any basis in Jeremiah’s own intentions. When Hosea says “Out of Egypt I have called my son”, he was not referring to Jesus, but to Israel - the evangelist sees this as fulfilled in Jesus.
New situations lead to re-readings of the text, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit: as the NT shows. That says nothing about the intent of the original authors - it’s most improbable that what Isaiah (say) meant in his own situation, was an issue at all for (in this case) the evangelists - what mattered, was that the words of Isaiah were inspired by God. ##
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patg
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Michael - thanks for jumping in!
No it did not predict it in any way. As mentioned in the previous post, Jewish prophets always talked to the people regarding the current situation; they never made predictions about events far in the future. Later writers, old and new testament, used previous prophecies to add meaning to the events they were relating. No Jewish reader would have assumed they were implying that the current event was actually prophecied hundreds of years before. It is the gentiles who were unfamiliar with this Jewish style who started assuming the prophecies were more than they were.
Another thing you should note is that in all the talk of a Jewish Messiah in the O.T., there was never any mention of a poor itinerant preacher who was killed, raised from the dead, and provided heavenly salvation. These items were never any part of the Jewish Messiah concept, so even when the O.T. talks of a messiah, it sure wasn’t talking about Jesus.
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dennisknapp
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Pat, your tagline… are you absolutely sure about that?
Peace
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patg
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No, and I am fully aware that it makes no sense! I just liked it when I first saw it and thought it was better than my usual
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cbwhite
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I can’t find the word Truth surrounded with quotes in the Catechism, or in Scripture! Anyway, the Catechism summarizes the three criteria layed down by the Second Vatican Counsel for the interpretation of Scripture:
112 1. Be especially attentive “to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture.”
113 2. Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church.”
114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith (the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.
The living Tradition of the Church certainly affirms his miracles - do you?
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buffalo
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Their are over 700 phophecies that Jesus fulfilled. The odds of one man fulfilling them has been said to be like going into the desert blinfolded and on the first try pick up a grain of sand that was stained red.
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patg
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Jesus worked miracles. That was the universal opinion of his early followers, and it undoubtedly helped make him famous in his lifetime.
Actually, what the gospels say he performed were dynameis, “mighty deeds,” or semeia, “signs.” Signs of what? Signs of his status: that he was the one spoken of by Isaiah and Daniel, that here was the Son of Man, the eschatological prophet, who would herald the arrival of the new kingdom. However much scholars might dispute the idea that Jesus believed he was the prophet of the Last Days, there is no doubt that he is presented as such in the gospels. Whether or not he saw himself that way, that was certainly how the early church saw him.
However, the miracles really don’t tell us much of anything else about Jesus. They certainly put him on the level of a Jewish “holy man” but that isn’t all that special since there are many documented cases of Jewish holy men performing the same miracles during the same time period (one of them was also named “Jesus”). And none of them were thought of as divine.
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patg
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Please name one that had nothing to do with the era in which it was made and which had something to do with Jesus.
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buffalo
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Do you have an example of a holy man raising a man from the dead?
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buffalo
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Gottle_of_Geer
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Thanks for the welcome 
Given that Jesus was sent to a culture with Hebrew roots and Hebrew sacred books, perhaps “signs” here should be read with the Hebrew oth in mind. An ot was not necessarily a “miracle” - if by “miracle” one means “something beyond the powers of nature to achieve”; it might be something completely everyday, such as a young woman giving birth (see Isaiah 7). It would be significant, because, though ordinary in itself, it had been given added significance by being a sign of God’s activity in a particular place at a particular time for a particular person.Some of Jesus’ acts may have been of this kind.
If this upsets anyone, my sincere apologies - it’s not meant to upset. It’s just that Jesus has to be looked at within His own culture as far as possible, just like any other human being in history - and this may from time to time clash with the time-honoured picture of Him as being very obviously Someone Special. For us who are Christians, He was: for we know Him by faith - it doesn’t follow that He was recognised as special by His contemporaries; or that He was, as man, any different from them in his ideas about (say) the Bible. ##
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TOME
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I think to approach the 4 Gospels from the starting point of these being historical documents misses the nature of the Gospels themselves and why there are 4 canonical Gospels and not just one. The 4 a first and foremost “Faith Documents” that through the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit reflect theFaith response of the various communities from which they developed. Most important, in my opinion, is that these are the communities faith response to Jesus in light of the Resurrection - how did these communities response to the Resurrected Jesus? It was in light of the Resurrection that they came to understand the life and ministry of Jesus and His Death and Resurrection that allowed them to understand that Jesus is the Christ. That must be our starting point in understanding the Gospels (always, may I add, being ulimately guided by the Teaching Church).
That being said, I think many are surprized by how what we perceive to be history permeates all four Gospels, and we should appreciate modern scientific and biblical research for this understanding.
That being said, I think many are surprized by how what we perceive to be history permeates all four Gospels, and we should appreciate modern scientific and biblical research for this understanding.
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SFH
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Gottle of Geer said:
The fallacy with this argument is that you are assuming what was going on in the mind of the prophet Isaiah–something neither you nor I know. Unless you’ve talked to Isaiah recently, you really have no basis to say he wasn’t refering to Jesus Christ directly (i.e., this argument is just another example of the historical-critical method’s scientific dogmatism, which really isn’t very scientific at all).
The only sure objective sense of the text that we can obtain is the one revealed through the Holy Spirit. Since God was the author of the Sacred Text, that interpretation of the Sacred Text given by the Holy Spirit in a different part of the Bible (e.g., New Testament) is the only way we can “get into the mind” of the author–in this case God. Christ and the Holy Spirit have interpreted certain texts of the Old Testament and confirmed that they were direct references to Christ. So yes, certain parts of the Old Testament make direct reference to Jesus Christ and are fulfilled in Him.
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SFH
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That is false and unbiblical. In the Pentateuch (i.e. first five books of the Old Testament), Moses instructs the people that they will be able to distinguish true prophets from false prophets because the true prophets will say something will come to pass and it will come to pass.
Not only did prophets predict future events, but they were expected to come true. For example, King Achab and King Josaphat sought Micheas prophecy on the success of their pending battle. Micheas said the battle would result in defeat and the fulfillment of his prophecy revealed that he was a man of God.
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SFH
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Gottle of Geer:
By virtue of the fact that Christ had infused knowledge due to the Hypostatic Union, it necessarily follows that Christ had a different view from contemporary scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees (e.g., “He taught them as one having authority and not as one of the scribes or Pharisees”). He knew He was the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament and He knew which prophecies in the Old Testament specifically referred to Him.
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patg
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Ok, ok… Maybe I should have been clearer here - they did not predict things that would happen far in the furture to other people - they predicted what would happen in the future which would affect the current group in their current situation.
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