I think that the distant past, including our Christian past, is much stranger and more unfamiliar than most of us would imagine. As the well known Princeton historian of Late Antiquity, Peter Brown, writes in his new book, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. xxviii-xxix:
It seems to me that you are supposing that no one knows for sure what Christianity is.
Reading only this snippet I’m not quite sure what the author is saying. Why have the catacombs been rendered disturbingly unfamiliar? What “landscapes” have been discovered that suddenly renders an incredible treasury of Christian history ambiguous? Something is missing here. Would you mind filling in the blanks so that I can understand what he is trying to convey?
What post are you addressing?
The “landscapes” that Peter Brown is speaking about are our views and knowledge of the past. We think we know what the past looked like as if it was a familiar landscape. But new archaeological discoveries and new, more sophisticated ways of interpreting old information has shown us that the past is stranger and more unfamiliar than what we thought. In fact, it is sometimes so strange and so foreign that it is like looking at the surface of a distant planet beamed back from a space probe. There have been many new studies over the last decade that have radically changed our understanding of Late Antiquity. As he himself says, “Given the explosion of late antique studies, it has been no easy task to keep up-to-date with current literature and with new discoveries.” Among the many important new studies, he cites Brent D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425 (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Studies such as these are changing what the “landscapes” of the past look like to us. Brown writes, “I am well aware (indeed, I look forward with relish to the prospect) that new work, some of which I have overlooked - scattered as it now is through so many publications in Europe and in the English-speaking world - will challenge readers to revise yet further our views on the relation between Christianity and society in this hotly debated period. This scene changing has been a hard-won achievement. Much of it has taken place through the reinterpretation of well-known texts. But there is one direction from which a new wind has arisen: the field of late Roman archaeology. I trust that I have made clear my debt to this field in my notes.”
Ok. Thanks. In the mean time I did a little research on Peter Brown and this gentlemen has racked up the credentials. Very impressive. I will have to read some of his work.
It just shows us all the more that the catholic church is the last moral voice left in the world. Thank God Jesus promised that nothing will prevail against it.
" This is most certainly true."
All I’m saying is that I believe that anyone who claims with certainty that they can read the Bible (in whatever translation they happen to be using) and use whatever other often ambiguous historical sources we have to arrive at a clear understanding of what first century Christianity was like and of how the texts of the Bible that arose in that period apply to us now is mistaken. That first century world is, as Brown would say, “an unimaginably distant world.” I’m not going to make claims, for example, that I know for certain how the texts in Paul’s epistles apply or don’t apply to modern LGBT people since we are talking about two very different worlds. Of course, most Catholics will probably say that they understand the meaning of those epistles very well because they have an infallible Magisterium that tells them what they mean. But I’m not Catholic and so will have to live with uncertainty on this and many other issues.
I agree with Mr. Brown, but not in the way you think. The point he is making directly supports the premise that individual interpretation of Scripture is a dangerous business. The average person, with little or no idea of the original languages, time periods, cultures, places, ancient modes of expression, idioms, etc. has no business thinking that they can pick up the Bible and come to a clear understanding of what is in it.
Thor- do you believe Scripture is inspired by God?
I, too, wonder this.
They can’t. Full stop. They’ll go into how scholars interpret this or how this Greek phrase means that in Hebrew… the plain, simple Scriptural text forbids such behavior and even calls such behavior an abomination. The Bible doesn’t go into SS marriage because such a thing was simply unthinkable.
By homosexuality, I think you mean same sex sex acts, not simply the orientation. Let us not forget the two are different!
I believe that some but not all of Scripture is inspired by God. I doubt, for example, that this is inspired by God:
But Scripture is clear that it is a sin…I would certainly agree that we should welcome everyone in our churches but not at the expense of of the inspired Word of God.
I just wanted to start off by apologizing for my rudeness towards you in another thread it was uncalled for.
And yet earlier, it was you who argued that Scripture can be hard to understand simply because it relates to times long past. Apparently, you understand this item clearly, you’ve decided it does not sit right, and so you’ve crossed it out…declared it as “a mistake”.
It seems you have multiple means with which to discard Scripture.