Thetazlord i#139
you are incorrect that Church has historically believed that the Gospels were originally written in Hebrew.
No facts have been, or can be, quoted to support any teaching of the Catholic Church against that reality, because the reality lies in the overwhelming historical evidence.
**The Gospels — Direct Testimonies or Late Writings?
by Marie-Christine Ceruti-Cendrier **
Extracts:
“Let’s be straightforward: I believe the Gospels to be direct testimonies that tell real and non-mythic or symbolic facts. I do not believe it by fideism — not because of my faith — but because I have rational, scientific, carefully researched reasons to do so. Indeed,
we who affirm the absolute historicity of the Gospels are now only a small minority. Although this truth of the faith was strongly asserted by the Second Vatican Council and has been believed by millions of Catholics throughout the centuries of Christianity, we nowadays seem to be considered as outsiders. Let’s examine here the different aspects of this situation.
“Concerning the philological research (B), two specialists thoroughly analyzed the language of the Gospels:
Fr. Jean Carmignac, one of the greatest experts in biblical studies in the world, and recognized as foremost in the knowledge of the Qumran Hebrew (of Jesus’ times), and Claude Tresmontant, lecturer for the Institut de France who taught for a long time in the Sorbonne University. Tresmontant is the author of an Old Testament Hebrew-to-Greek (Septuagint) dictionary. (The Septuagint was translated in the third — second century B.C.) **They both demonstrated that the Greek language used in the Gospels (all four of them for Tresmontant, the three Synoptic ones for Carmignac who did not consider St. John’s) was translated from Hebrew or Aramaic. **They both consider the whole of the Gospels (excluding the Preface to St. Luke’s) and not just fragments introduced into a Greek text. They both provide tens (may be hundreds) of proofs. Fr. Carmignac, in La Naissance des Evangiles Synoptiques, points out semitisms of thought, vocabulary, syntax, style, composition, transmission, translation and even multiple semitisms.”
Homiletic & Pastoral Review, January 2005].
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6336
Marie-Christine Ceruti-Cendrier is a professor in the Department of Theology of the European Humanities University, Minsk, Belarus. This article originally appeared in Les Dossiers d’Archeologie, No. 249 (special issue on Jesus). It was translated into English by Agnes Souto and Moura-Ausser and edited by Jerome D. Gilmartin. Professor Ceruti-Cendrier is Administrator of the Paris-based Association Jean Carmignac (for the safeguarding of the historicity of the Gospels) and head of the editorial staff of its bulletin. She and her husband Gianni, an Italian diplomat, reside in Rome. This is her first article in HPR.
But nothing, in the Gospels or the New Testament can be changed and separated from Christ’s own established Catholic Church without harming His Message which is historically willed by Him. The erroneous figments of imagination limiting the Christ to an assumed meaning against that taught by His Church exposes the caricature when seen in the light of His authoritative establishment of His Church.
**All four promises to Peter alone: **
“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." (Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19) [Later also to the Twelve].
**Sole authority: **
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).
How could these commands be fulfilled if Peter or his successors could TEACH error? Do you think that the Christ lied?
The reason to believe the Sacred Scriptures is precisely because the Magisterium has taught emphatically that “the task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in the written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone.” [Ecumenical Council Vatican II, *Dei Verbum, 10]. Not in every Tom, Dick or Harry.
