How do we know that Mary recited the Magnificat?

[Publisher]

The Gospels were named by those who knew who wrote them. Period. Any claims to much later dates is pure speculation by “scholars” of the historical-critical method. I don’t subscribe to their findings since their methodology is seriously flawed in many areas, and not because I just want to have it “that way”. Not that you are saying that, but to stem anyone thinking that the case.

And I follow it because Christ’s Church which he founded tells me so, and not because, once again, it makes me happy to do so for cultural reasons. I am a “convert” to the Catholic faith. I didn’t enter into it with blind eyes or without proper investigation/study. I believe it because it’s true not because I want to follow my faith tradition. Trust me, if it weren’t true I wouldn’t waste my faith on it. Truth matters–it matters more than life itself.

Friend, I understand your beliefs…I just don’t share them. I too believe Truth matters…and it is Truth that I seek.

 

[Della]

Friend, I understand your beliefs…I just don’t share them. I too believe Truth matters…and it is Truth that I seek.

That’s fine. I’m just explaining that I won’t accept modern “scholarship” over the Church Fathers who were closer to the time and the people involved and so knew who said/wrote what and why.

 

[Maryann_C]

Errrr Mary is a Jewish girl so why wouldn’t she know her Jewish scriptures??

The writer of “Luke’s” gospel used the Jewish scriptures to frame his version and story of the life of Christ. The writer of the gospel used Hannah’s song as the basis for the magnificat…he used his “literary license” and had Mary “speak” the words. His gospel was written for evangelistic purposes…it is not a 100% accurate historical account…it is based on “midrash”…not historical facts.

You seem to know alot of Luke’s intent and exact way of writing and who said what. Your source? Spoken to Luke lately? You avoided my point that it is entirely possible that Mary , being a faithful Jewish girl, knew her scriptures very well and used Hannah’s song as the basis for her magnificat. How do you know that she didn’t actually speak it or something very similiar. You are also ignoring the fact that Mary was still alive for quite a while after Jesus had risen and she was present at pentacost…you don’t think she shared any stories? you don’t think that the apostles didn’t ask Mary things like ; when did she know she was pregnant with the messiah? what was it like? what did she do first? was Jesus from Joseph’s seed? etc. you think they just ignored the mother of their Lord and made stuff up???

 

[Maryann_C]

That’s fine. I’m just explaining that I won’t accept modern “scholarship” over the Church Fathers who were closer to the time and the people involved and so knew who said/wrote what and why.

Amen Amen because it would make sense to follow what people who were ‘eye witnesses’ and who heard it from ‘eye witnesses’ right.

 

[Publisher]

Amen Amen because it would make sense to follow what people who were ‘eye witnesses’ and who heard it from ‘eye witnesses’ right.

Except…there are no record of any eyewitnesses left behind…the gospels are anonymously written…their authorship is tradition…not fact.

But…I understand the necessity in found in your faith tradition to affirm it as so…and modern scholarship be dismissed out of hand…and I’m good with that…I have no wish to convince you otherwise…just offering my opinion from my own study over several decades…it boils down to a “faith issue” and accepting our respective faith traditions requirments.

 

[Della]

Except…there are no record of any eyewitnesses left behind…the gospels are anonymously written…their authorship is tradition…not fact.

But…I understand the necessity in found in your faith tradition to affirm it as so…and modern scholarship be dismissed out of hand…and I’m good with that…I have no wish to convince you otherwise…just offering my opinion from my own study over several decades…it boils down to a “faith issue” and accepting our respective faith traditions requirments.

Their authorship isn’t merely tradition, as in “we accept it because some nice men in the early Church said so”. Who do you think would know more about people and events than those who sat at the feet of the Apostles and passed their knowledge on to their successors? Do you really think some modern minimalist “scholar” who knows he’ll get ahead in his field by debunking the Early Church Fathers using the never proved and specious “historical-critical method” should be trusted over them?

Again, we Catholics don’t accept truths just because they are part of our “faith tradition” like using Auntie Rose’s lace tablecloth at every Thanksgivng dinner. We accept it because it is historically and theologically sound. Catholics believe in reason, evidence, and proves, not in made up theories that satisfy none of those criteria.

 

[Publisher]

Their authorship isn’t merely tradition, as in “we accept it because some nice men in the early Church said so”. Who do you think would know more about people and events than those who sat at the feet of the Apostles and passed their knowledge on to their successors? Do you really think some modern minimalist “scholar” who knows he’ll get ahead in his field by debunking the Early Church Fathers using the never proved and specious “historical-critical method” should be trusted over them?

Again, we Catholics don’t accept truths just because they are part of our “faith tradition” like using Auntie Rose’s lace tablecloth at every Thanksgivng dinner. We accept it because it is historically and theologically sound. Catholics believe in reason, evidence, and proves, not in made up theories that satisfy none of those criteria.

That’s just it…we have no written records of ANYONE who sat at the apostles feet recording their teachings. Paul states all he taught was by direct revelation from Christ…not the other apostles…we have writings from late in the first century to early in the 2nd century…not one written by an original apostle.

If believing that there are and the gospels are eyewitness accounts makes sense to you…by all means…don’t give up that belief by embracing those beliefs the whole message of grace and redemption makes sense to you…but those faith stories and fanciful tales of miraculous encounters of “saints” during persecution told of the ECF’s don’t “do it” for me.

Modern scholarship makes much more sense to me…and by reviewing and me seeking to understand how our faith traditions developed historically and thru the means I find make sense…then my faith becomes more real.

I no more accept without question the “history” of the early chruch as told by the ECF’s than I do the “history” of the LDS told in their multi-volume “History of the Church”…there is embellishment…myth…folk tales throughout…but we know it is embelished because we have contemporary histories to compare and get another view…not a lot of contemporary early Christian history except as pieced together by archeological evidence…scholarship…critical bible study…makes sense to me.

 

[Della]

That’s just it…we have no written records of ANYONE who sat at the apostles feet recording their teachings. Paul states all he taught was by direct revelation from Christ…not the other apostles…we have writings from late in the first century to early in the 2nd century…not one written by an original apostle.

If believing that there are and the gospels are eyewitness accounts makes sense to you…by all means…don’t give up that belief by embracing those beliefs the whole message of grace and redemption makes sense to you…but those faith stories and fanciful tales of miraculous encounters of “saints” during persecution told of the ECF’s don’t “do it” for me.

Modern scholarship makes much more sense to me…and by reviewing and me seeking to understand how our faith traditions developed historically and thru the means I find make sense…then my faith becomes more real.

I no more accept without question the “history” of the early chruch as told by the ECF’s than I do the “history” of the LDS told in their multi-volume “History of the Church”…there is embellishment…myth…folk tales throughout…but we know it is embelished because we have contemporary histories to compare and get another view…not a lot of contemporary early Christian history except as pieced together by archeological evidence…scholarship…critical bible study…makes sense to me.

It’s simply not true that we have nothing recorded by those who sat at the feet of the Apostles. We have the Early Church Fathers, and we have the oral teachings they passed down through the bishops of the Church and early scriptural scholars, who were a lot closer, as I wrote before, to the people and events of the 1st century.

We don’t believe truths because the make more sense to us or make the faith we want to believe more believeable to us, but because they are true. There is no “Q” source and there are serious flaws in the historical-critical method that have tainted and weakened the faith of millions.

As I wrote before, trurth is all important when discussing these things. It’s not just a matter of wanting to believe, but of what truly can be proved, not what can’t be proved. The evidence is there for anyone who is willing to look for it without bias or the desire to make what he thinks sensible fit into what actually happened. If that were the criteria we wouldn’t believe in a good many things we hold in common–such as the existence of a loving God, for starters.

 

[Publisher]

It’s simply not true that we have nothing recorded by those who sat at the feet of the Apostles. We have the Early Church Fathers, and we have the oral teachings they passed down through the bishops of the Church and early scriptural scholars, who were a lot closer, as I wrote before, to the people and events of the 1st century.

We don’t believe truths because the make more sense to us or make the faith we want to believe more believeable to us, but because they are true. There is no “Q” source and there are serious flaws in the historical-critical method that have tainted and weakened the faith of millions.

As I wrote before, trurth is all important when discussing these things. It’s not just a matter of wanting to believe, but of what truly can be proved, not what can’t be proved. The evidence is there for anyone who is willing to look for it without bias or the desire to make what he thinks sensible fit into what actually happened. If that were the criteria we wouldn’t believe in a good many things we hold in common–such as the existence of a loving God, for starters.

As I said…I do not find jsut because the ECF’s related “oral tradition” far removed from where the actual events occured…the myths and stories of that time do not “prove” to me they are “more correct” just because someone relayed a story of a story of a story they heard and then wrote it down as being historical fact with no historical evidence other than they lived within 80-100 years of the events they claim to record…there were no records of those who actually LIVED the events…just followers who had come to beleive the stories and teachings of those who claimed to have been taught by the apostles.

Some of the Gnostic “heretics” claimed to have received their teaching directly from the mouth of an original apostle…yet the “orthodox” dismiss out of hand THEIR claims as false…but they too claimed to be contemporaries of some of the apostles…some Gnostic teachers claimed to received their teachings directly from John…James…Thomas to name a few…but their claim is “dismissed”…why would their claim be dismissed but an “ECF’s” claim be accepted as truth?

It is Truth I seek…not stories claiming to be truth…I look at not only the ECF’s…but the “heretics” too to get a better understanding of the development of the Christian movement. I understand it conflicts with the accepted “tradition” of your faith community…but it makes much better sense to me.

 

[Mintaka]

Most of the Gnostic “gospels” were written 100-200 years after the real Gospels, in language of that time. That makes them a bit hard to swallow as written by eyewitnesses.

If you don’t accept the Gospels as a historical text, and you don’t accept Papias, and you don’t accept the Church Fathers, what do you accept as historical? Tacitus? Inscriptions? Archaeological evidence?

Truly, I am interested to know, because you don’t seem to accept any of the ordinary forms of historical documentation, and yet give hinky occult texts found in an Egyptian trash pile some kind of precedence.

• Not that I have anything against the trash piles of Oxyrhynchus. They are very useful trash piles.

 

[Publisher]

Most of the Gnostic “gospels” were written 100-200 years after the real Gospels, in language of that time. That makes them a bit hard to swallow as written by eyewitnesses.

If you don’t accept the Gospels as a historical text, and you don’t accept Papias, and you don’t accept the Church Fathers, what do you accept as historical? Tacitus? Inscriptions? Archaeological evidence?

Truly, I am interested to know, because you don’t seem to accept any of the ordinary forms of historical documentation, and yet give hinky occult texts found in an Egyptian trash pile some kind of precedence.

• Not that I have anything against the trash piles of Oxyrhynchus. They are very useful trash piles.

I don’t completely discount the ECF’s…they are the group of Christians we have inheirited our basic understanding of which group of Christians finally gained dominance. “Proto-orhtodoxy” was ONE form of early Christianity among many…it gained dominance over time…and developed in such a way that Rome was able to use it to “cement” a crumbling empire together under a common religious belief.

Constantine was an opportunist…he saw the strength the “proto-orthodox/catholic” version of Christianity held among the people called Christians…he had a ready made network of communication the proto-orthodox/catholic group had set up…they stayed in communication with each other and developed a brand of Christianity which became dominant and suppressed the other competing groups…it is in studying the competing groups that I have gained a better understanding…at least in my opinion…of the development of Christianity in those first centuries…the victors of this struggle wrote the history…and suppressed or destroyed as many competing religous writings and histories as possible.

Anathasias decreed I believe that all “spurious gospels” be destroyed and burned…Nag Hammaddi Library was hidden away by a group of monks that valued their sacred books over and above the “established churches” decree.

Archelolgy and the study of these other documents that have come to light do shed a better understanding on how Christianity developed…of course, it’s not “faith affirming” for those who believe the “orthodox” verision of Christianity was divinely ordered…but I do not belong to a tradition that places great importance of preserving the “sacred story” and "faith affirming " history to the exclusion of modern archeological finds and technological advances in linguistics and the development of ancient religious beliefs.

Moses didn’t write the Pentatuch…Jonah wasn’t swallowed by a great fish…the Red Sea didn’t part down the middle…there were no talking snakes or donkeys…no angels destroying cities…no floating axe heads nor parting of rivers for men to walk across…these are religious myths that teach deep profound Truths…they are the vehicle of Truth…not Truth itself.

 

[Mintaka]

Okay, Nag Hammadi, then.

That makes me even more curious. All that was found was several scrolls, stuffed into a lidded earthenware pot. As far as I’ve ever heard, there was no documentary evidence found with the pot (other than the style and age of the pot itself, and the style of the scrolls). Nobody left a note saying, “Us monks from St. Pachomius are hiding these scrolls till the heat is off.” All that is just speculation by the archeologists.

So it could be from anywhere, not St. Pachomius. It could be a Gnostic researcher’s library that he buried and hid before reaching St. Pachomius, intending to retrieve it when he came back, but dying first. It could be a thief’s cache. It could be a way of getting rid of trashable scrolls without wasting expensive firewood or dung on them. It could be a way of trapping occult scrolls beneath the earth, away from the demons of the air. It could even be the beginnings of a nice paper stew.

It could be a hundred things – but you accept the archeologists’ authority for an educated guess, in exactly the same way you don’t accept the authority of written contemporary sources.

 

[Publisher]

Okay, Nag Hammadi, then.

That makes me even more curious. All that was found was several scrolls, stuffed into a lidded earthenware pot. As far as I’ve ever heard, there was no documentary evidence found with the pot (other than the style and age of the pot itself, and the style of the scrolls). Nobody left a note saying, “Us monks from St. Pachomius are hiding these scrolls till the heat is off.” All that is just speculation by the archeologists.

So it could be from anywhere, not St. Pachomius. It could be a Gnostic researcher’s library that he buried and hid before reaching St. Pachomius, intending to retrieve it when he came back, but dying first. It could be a thief’s cache. It could be a way of getting rid of trashable scrolls without wasting expensive firewood or dung on them. It could be a way of trapping occult scrolls beneath the earth, away from the demons of the air. It could even be the beginnings of a nice paper stew.

It could be a hundred things – but you accept the archeologists’ authority for an educated guess, in exactly the same way you don’t accept the authority of written contemporary sources.

I accept it as an “educated guess”…you are correct…and one that makes much more sense to me in the larger picture of early Christian development…I don’t boil it down to a “single” occurance and offer it as proof…this forum is not equipped with long extensive drawen out references to “prove” a single point…it has taken me decades…I’m 57…I’ve read and studed since I was in my 20’s in college church history…conservative…agnostic…neo-conservative…liberal…neo-liberal…Catholic…Protestant…authors…and have come to my conclusions which make sense to me in sorting thru 2000 years of church history and biblical study…TO ME…the evidence points to a different conclusion than the “faith stories” embraced by those of the various faith traditions that paint a more…“divine” intervention and cause for early Christian development…I have in a short space and limited resources to name and research offered my opinion…

I have drawn a different conclusion than you have…

 

[Mintaka]

Yes, you have.

You don’t have to trash historical criticism to believe that, in general, the traditions passed down to us about scriptural origins are true. There are some exceptions, where people missed or forgot certain genre markings.

But to go back to the original question.

Important occurrences and sayings – like inspired prophetic utterances straight from God, sung by a woman from a society where it was normal to have a trained memory for oral recitation, and composed along the lines of the familiar Hannah prayer – were probably indeed remembered exactly, by Mary and the people of her kin’s household. You don’t start chanting like a prophetess every day, and everyone who saw it happen would also remember and repeat it. That’s the whole point of chanting in poetry - the form reinforces the content, and helps if people start to forget.

Similarly, it is entirely normal for someone to come up with a pastiche of another well-known poem; it’s easier for an inexperienced poet, and in this case it reinforced the parallel with the OT story.

 

[Publisher]

Yes, you have.

You don’t have to trash historical criticism to believe that, in general, the traditions passed down to us about scriptural origins are true. There are some exceptions, where people missed or forgot certain genre markings.

But to go back to the original question.

Important occurrences and sayings – like inspired prophetic utterances straight from God, sung by a woman from a society where it was normal to have a trained memory for oral recitation, and composed along the lines of the familiar Hannah prayer – were probably indeed remembered exactly, by Mary and the people of her kin’s household. You don’t start chanting like a prophetess every day, and everyone who saw it happen would also remember and repeat it. That’s the whole point of chanting in poetry - the form reinforces the content, and helps if people start to forget.

Or it could have been a literary device used by the author of “Luke” to convey the understanding his particular faith community had come to believe about the events of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The simpler idea seem much more credible to me…I am a very simple man.

 

[Josephene]

Have not read all the posts and thus unsure if this is a repetition ; in our times, God has blessed us with scientific understandings on time as an illusion and thus of the timelessness that we have been told to believe by faith ; history of The Church is replete withh mystics who were close to God and shared more in His nature , in turn being able to see and hear thing from the past , future, in distance etc :

The writings of Bl Emmerich may be a prime example of same for our times , as a gift to help augment faith .

Thus, we need not make too much burden of worrying as to the authenticity of events and words of the Holy Sciptures and instead can thank The Father for the gift of The Spirit !

A blessed Pentecost !

 

[Mintaka]

How is it simpler for Luke to make stuff up, rather than look up eyewitnesses (which is what he said he did) and quote what people actually said (which is what he said he did)?

Sigh. This is just like people who used to assume that all records of Roman court cases were totally made up, until they found out that Rome had stenography and court case archives. It’s a lot simpler to just look it up.