Homosexuality and The Old Testament. How to defend the faith

[ProdglArchitect]

The problem is that there is no “Catholic Annotated Bible” to separate the two.

It’s not a Bible, but it goes over pretty much all of this stuff:

Catholic Introduction to the Old Testament.

It’s helped me out a ton as I’ve been reading through the OT. It outlines information about each book, the historical context, theories and evidence for authorship, as well as information about any controversies associated with a given book.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

I’ll be honest, after my exchanges with NightOwl I don’t have much energy to get into a long debate over this, but I’d be happy to give you a quick rundown of Catholic thought on this.

If the “original sin” is just a story, then Christianity collapses into insignificance.

While Catholics are not required to uphold the Genesis account as literal history, we do believe that it is presenting the theologoical reality behind original sin and the fall of humanity. The language is poetic, and it’s unlikely that it was eating the fruit of some tree that was the first sin. What’s important about the account, the theological truth behind it, is that God created mankind, and at some point, for some reason, our first parents chose to reject God’s will, thereby sinning and losing salvific grace.

We don’t know for sure what form that sin took, but that’s not really important. What’s important about the story is that our first parents broke our relationship with God, and God promised to redeem us at some point in the future.

If the miracles attributed to Jesus are fictitious, then Jesus cannot be God.

The only reason to assume that they are fictitious is that they do not conform to the normal operation of the universe. But then, if they did conform then they wouldn’t be miracles. It’s a “Begging-the-Question” fallacy. “We know they couldn’t have happened because there’s no way they could have happened.” The theological response to this objection is that if God is what we say He is, omnipotent and all that, then there’s no reason for these miracles to be impossible. They would be completely within His capabilities.

By the way, when I read that Jesus was FULLY God and FULLY human, that kind of contradiction invalidates the “gist” of the Bible

Not really. It’s only a problem if you treat each fullness as a competing object occupying a finite space. What we mean by it is that Jesus embodied within his human nature all the aspects of humanity except sin. His divine nature contained the fullness of what it is to be God. The two coalesced into a single whole. It’s one of those mysteries we probably won’t ever have adequate language to explain, but we keep trying.

I hope this helps some, but I really don’t have the time today to get into an extended debate over it. God bless!

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Look - If you are unwilling to accept the most obvious, blatant contradictions in the Bible, so be it. There literally are two different paternal genealogies for Jesus presented. Saying one is maternal is simply false. Read the Bible.

Alright, this is the only bit I’m going to waste my time responding to, it boggles my mind that you haven’t grasped it yet.

I NEVER CLAIMED IT WAS A MATERNAL GENEALOGY.

I really need you to understand that, because the fact that it has eluded you thus far is genuinely concerning.

The very simple explanation for this is that Matthew and Luke selected different individuals from the paternal lineage to focus on in relation to the people they were writing to. I know this sounds taboo to you given our modern tendency towards exactitude and specificity, but the Bible was written roughly 2000 years ago, and they had different standards.

Say that I have ten people in my family line.

Bob
John
Patrick
Michael
Peter
Andrew
Kyle
James
Ryan
Ken

Now, Matthew wants to focus on those people in my line who were scoundrels, so he includes Bob, John, Peter, Kyle and James. Given that the people he’s writing too about my family are intimately familiar with them (as the Jews in Jesus’ time were with OT figures), they will see the common thread of “These people were all scoundrels.”

Luke, on the other hand, wants to focus on those who lived lives according to God’s will, so he includes Patrick, Michael, Andrew, Kyle, and Ken. Once again, the people I’m writing to, being familiar with my family’s history, will see the common trend and get an idea about the nature of the letter Luke is writing.

You might not think this is a proper method of writing out a genealogy, but what you think doesn’t matter. This is how the did it, and it’s completely within the stylistic conventions of their time. To claim that it is a contradiction because you’re unwilling to acknowledge this shows an extreme stubbornness and intellectual hardness on your part, which is why I’m not going to waste any more time. This one just really bothered me, because I thought I’d made it as clear as possible and you still didn’t seem to get that I NEVER CLAIMED IT WAS A MATERNAL GENEALOGY.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

This is easily refuted because the genealogies are not lists.

In Matthew, Jacob WAS THE FATHER of Joseph.
In Luke, Heli WAS THE FATHER of Joseph.

This is directly stated in scripture.

There are a couple reasonable explanations for this.

This first is that the word father is being use in the ancestral sense, the same way that Abraham is called the Father of the Jewish people. Abraham isn’t literally the genetic father of every last Jewish person, though all members of the Jewish race are descended from him.

This is unlikely, as the Greek word used in Matthew is ἐγέννησεν (gennaó). It is used almost exclusively for the literal sense of “being the genetic father of”, though there are a few times it’s used in the metaphorical sense of “bringing one into a way of life”, or “to cause to arise.” Jesus uses the same word when describing the necessity of baptism and “being born” of the water.

This metaphorical understanding is bolstered a bit by the fact that there are several known gaps in he genealogical record, implying its use as a descriptor of lineage rather than genetic relationship. Still, it is clearly used at other points to describe a literal father-son relationship, so that explanation can’t be guaranteed.

Luke, on the the other hand, does not use any language of begetting. In the Greek there is no language of direct lineage used in any of the pairings. It simply says Jacob, of Heli.

---

The more likely explanation deals with how succession was handled in the OT times. There are a couple places in the OT where we see what’s known as a Levirate marriage. It is outlined explicitly in Deuteronomy 25:5-6.

If a married son dies without having children it is the duty of the dead man’s brother to then marry the widow and conceive a child. So, if Joseph’s mother married Heli, but Heli died without having a son, then Heli’s brother Jacob would have a duty to marry Heli’s widow and conceive a child. While genetically Joseph would be the son of Jacob, legally he would be the son of Heli.

---

You really need to accept the fact that the modern standards for genealogy were not in play at the time this was written. It is necessary for you to understand, or at the very least acknowledge, the way family structure and the continuation of the family line was handled. This was the norm in Jesus’ time, and so it presents a perfectly reasonable explanation for the supposed discrepancy.

For a bit more in depth reading on this:

Loading…

www.catholic.com

 

[ProdglArchitect]

But the purpose of the genealogies is to prove actual BLOODLINES of Jesus paternally through King David. If what you say is true (which it isn’t regardless), then you are saying that Jesus doesn’t meet the prophecy that he would be descended from David. Why do you think the genealogies are even in the Gospels?

No, that is what YOU want them to do. “Bloodlines” as you understand them are focused on genetic inheritance. That wasn’t important to the ancient Jews, it was about being in the line, being part of the family. You are imposing modern standards on an ancient methodology and understanding.

So why would Luke then create a metaphorical lineage to David when a real, actual one exists?

I’m not saying he did. I was just pointing out the linguistic oddity, and ruminating on the possibility that it plays into the indirect lineage option. It wasn’t important to Luke to list every option, it was important to emphasize a certain subset of the descendants in that line in order to relate them back to the people that he was writing to. The fact that that’s not how you would have done it doesn’t make it wrong, nor does it create a discrepancy. It just means it’s not the way you personally want to see it.

Why is it so hard to admit the obvious?

Because it’s only “obvious” if you’re only willing to give it the most cursory of examinations based solely on modern examples of how we handle certain things like genealogy and succession. If you stop and admit that the ancient people did things differently, used language differently, and placed an emphasis on different things, then these problems evaporate.

In short, you’re being extremely close minded to anything that doesn’t work the way you personally feel it should. That’s the fallacy of personal incredulity, or at least close to it.

I fully admit much of the Bible is incorrect.

And I don’t, because it’s not. There are some clerical discrepancies which I’ve already acknowledged (such as with the missing Ishmaelites), but the vast majority of these so called discrepancies have very simple, straightforward explanations if modernists would pull their heads out of their keisters long enough to learn about historical context and conventions. A few, such as with the genealogies, take some actual research to explain, but most have perfectly reasonable explanations.

I’ve said it two or three times already, but trying to debate with you is a waste of time. You’re not even willing to entertain the possibility that explanations exist, so I’m out.