Is Dubay misleading with this text?

[Mt_28_19_20]

When one reads the following by Dubay, anyone else question the integrity of quoting and writing as he does? This book is often recommended for those considering the celibate life. Notice what he left out? Accidently?

Starting on page 91 of " AND YOU ARE CHRIST’S" The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life by Thomas Dubay, S.M., in chapter 8, “Who is A Consecrated Woman?”

" Prophet Woman

 There was a prophetess ... serving God night and day with fasting and prayer. (Luke 2:36-37)

 A biblical prophet is a charismatic man or woman called and sent by the Lord to proclaim his holy will by deed and by word. As charismatic, the prophet is gifted for the community, not just for himself. God takes the initiative and commissions him for the task. A prophet is not an innovator; he proclaims the undiluted will of the Lord God in a life and word of burning zeal.
 The virgin is charismatic because she is gifted for the community. The primary prayer orientation of her virginity is a gift to the Church at large because we keenly need certain people so to live that they can be prayer in the midst of the Church. The dedicated woman is needed, not simply to pray for the wants and woundedness of our world, but to be prayer within it. She is needed to live in the flesh fully and obviously what the Church herself is, a society of prayer.
 The consecrated person is charismatic because her factual frugality is a living witness..."

Michael

 

[Mt_28_19_20]

When one reads the following by Dubay, anyone else question the integrity of quoting and writing as he does? This book is often recommended for those considering the celibate life. Notice what he left out? Accidently?

Starting on page 91 of " AND YOU ARE CHRIST’S" The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life by Thomas Dubay, S.M., in chapter 8, “Who is A Consecrated Woman?”

" Prophet Woman

 There was a prophetess ... serving God night and day with fasting and prayer. (Luke 2:36-37)

 A biblical prophet is a charismatic man or woman called and sent by the Lord to proclaim his holy will by deed and by word. As charismatic, the prophet is gifted for the community, not just for himself. God takes the initiative and commissions him for the task. A prophet is not an innovator; he proclaims the undiluted will of the Lord God in a life and word of burning zeal.
 The virgin is charismatic because she is gifted for the community. The primary prayer orientation of her virginity is a gift to the Church at large because we keenly need certain people so to live that they can be prayer in the midst of the Church. The dedicated woman is needed, not simply to pray for the wants and woundedness of our world, but to be prayer within it. She is needed to live in the flesh fully and obviously what the Church herself is, a society of prayer.
 The consecrated person is charismatic because her factual frugality is a living witness..."

Michael

Luke 2:36-37 “And there was a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers.”

What Dubay selected:
“There was a prophetess … serving God night and day with fasting and prayer. (Luke 2:36-37)”

Michael

 

[MTD]

I have a couple other of his books, and I will admit that his quotations from Scripture are often a little on the “free” side.

However, I would note that although the prophetess Anna was not a virgin, she did live a celibate life for many years.

Also, I can’t tell since I don’t have the whole context, but it seems he is comparing virgins to prophetesses, and not necessarily implying that the prophetess Anna was a virgin.

Maria

 

[Mt_28_19_20]

I have a couple other of his books, and I will admit that his quotations from Scripture are often a little on the “free” side.

However, I would note that although the prophetess Anna was not a virgin, she did live a celibate life for many years.

Also, I can’t tell since I don’t have the whole context, but it seems he is comparing virgins to prophetesses, and not necessarily implying that the prophetess Anna was a virgin.

Maria

Maria,

Thank you for your sincere response. I was surprised that with 66 views, only one opinion was posted thus far.

This may sound like picking at words and making assumptions about interpretations. In my opinion, the term would be she chose to continue a chaste life, honoring the marriage she had been given by God. My understanding is that celibacy is renouncing the gift of marriage. Thus her vocation was one marriage, which she did not renounce or decline. When her spouse died, she remained the wife of one man, and diid nor remarry, consistent with 1 Cor 7:8.

From beginning of quote to end of quote, nothing was omitted.

The continuation is:
“The consecrated person is charismatic because her factual frugality is a living witness to the spareing-sharing manner of life of all God’s people must live. “If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none”, we read, “and the one with something to eat must do the same” (Lk 3:10). No one who does not share his wealth with his needy brother can love God (1 Jn 3:17-18). the virgin’s simple lifestyle is a witness to the world of what all must do: share with the poor.
She is prophetic because she is radical. Unafraid to challenge conventional wisdom, whe proclaims in her life that God’s thoughts and ways are not ours. She chooses to be countercultural, an nonconformist in the best sense of the term. Like Saint Paul she proclaims in life and word the undiluted word of God (2 Cor 4:2).”

In my opinion, if one did not remember who Anna was and that she had been married, which Dubay explicit left out the middle text of his Scripture reference, one would reasonalbly believe he was using Anna, a widow, as an Scriptural example of consecrated virginity.

God’s peace be with you,

Michael

 

[MTD]

This may sound like picking at words and making assumptions about interpretations. In my opinion, the term would be she chose to continue a chaste life, honoring the marriage she had been given by God. My understanding is that celibacy is renouncing the gift of marriage. Thus her vocation was one marriage, which she did not renounce or decline. When her spouse died, she remained the wife of one man, and diid nor remarry, consistent with 1 Cor 7:8.

No, you’re not picking at words and making assumptions. You have a very good point.

In my opinion, if one did not remember who Anna was and that she had been married, which Dubay explicit left out the middle text of his Scripture reference, one would reasonalbly believe he was using Anna, a widow, as an Scriptural example of consecrated virginity.

Yes, you are quite right. From the rest of the quote, I see that he is saying a virgin is a sort of prophetess. This is in addition to saying a virgin is a prayer. Thus, since the two keynotes in that Scriptural quote are prophetess and praying constantly, it could easily be assumed that Anna was a virgin if the Scriptural context of that quote were not known.

I respect Fr. Dubay’s expertise in the field of prayer, but I can’t deny that I was a little turned off by two things from my reading of his books: 1) loose quoting of Scripture, and 2) gender-inclusive language. There are simply some times when the Scripture quoted doesn’t really apply to the situation he says it does (and I don’t say this from seeing your example; I had already come to this conclusion after reading his Prayer Primer). And the constant reference to “men and women” does get on my nerves (after all, what about children? ). So although I do have respect for his knowledge in the area of prayer and the spiritual life, that respect and the confidence based on it are not what they could be. I really think the loose quoting and the gender-inclusive language taint the purity and strength of his teaching.

Maria

 

[Mintaka]

If you think Fr. Dubay quotes Scripture loosely, you haven’t read much of the Early Church Fathers, or the great theologians’ Bible interpretations. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen somebody return again and again to the same few verses, dragging out different important phrases and combinations of phrases every time.

(Which really isn’t a surprising practice, given that word order makes no difference to meaning in Latin.)

If Fr. Dubay were talking about the issue of widows remarrying, and he were (like many early Church Fathers) to argue that widows should never remarry or that being a consecrated widow was more holy than remarrying, he’d have quoted the whole verse. However, since most rules for consecrated virgins and consecrated widows were the same, even back in the early Church (except that the virgins didn’t generally have children of their own to care for), I’m pretty sure the prophetess Anna would have been quoted in support of virgins, too, by all but the most literal-minded.

But Fr. Dubay was talking today about various scriptural precedents for female consecrated life, and the prophetess Anna was indeed one of these precedents. Nowadays we have many more virgins than widows joining orders, but there’s even less practical difference between the two.

 

[Mt_28_19_20]

If Fr. Dubay were talking about the issue of widows remarrying, and he were (like many early Church Fathers) to argue that widows should never remarry or that being a consecrated widow was more holy than remarrying, he’d have quoted the whole verse. However, since most rules for consecrated virgins and consecrated widows were the same, even back in the early Church (except that the virgins didn’t generally have children of their own to care for), I’m pretty sure the prophetess Anna would have been quoted in support of virgins, too, by all but the most literal-minded.

But Fr. Dubay was talking today about various scriptural precedents for female consecrated life, and the prophetess Anna was indeed one of these precedents. Nowadays we have many more virgins than widows joining orders, but there’s even less practical difference between the two.

As the title of Dubay’s book is “AND YOU ARE CHRIST’S” The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life", in my opinion it is misleading to omit the middle of the verse that mentions she was married, and thus had not renounced marriage, and was not a virgin. Would it not be more reasonable to say that the prophetess Anna would not have been quoted in support of consecrated virgins, except by those who overlook that she was married?

Michael