Raymond Brown: Anti-Catholic, ignorant or other?

[Catholic_Dude]

I could use your help on this guy. I have recently been bombarded by some protestants with “quotes” from Raymond Brown. I looked around and found that he is Catholic, but I cant find any details on his position. From the quotes I am reading and if I am understanding them correctly this guy is a low life scum for writing this stuff and still claiming to be Catholic.

His comments are along the lines of the Bible contains errors, Catholic teachings are unBiblical, no proof for teachings, etc.

So what is it with this guy? I hope I am not misunderstanding him, but what I have read he is way out of line on some of his quotes.

 

[PhilVaz]

Out of line on some things, but he considers himself “moderate.” He is not a full biblical inerrantist. Fr. William Most devoted a few books responding to him, The Consciousness of Christ and Free From All Error come to mind.

Fr. Brown is not for beginners, but he can be useful on the details of biblical scholarship, dating, interpretation, etc. And he was critical of the radical "Jesus Seminar"

Phil P

 

[savone]

PhilVaz wrote “Fr. Brown is not for beginners.”

Several examples are his “The Birth of the Messiah,” “The Death of the Messiah,” and “The Gospel According to John” (2 vols). They are not what I conisider “light reading.”

 

[tpillip]

Stay away from Brown–he was a heretic–he believed scripture has histrical errors in it–this has been repeatedley condemned by the Church—

 

[GregoryPalamas]

I found his commmentary on John to be extremely helpful. I used it as the textbook for a two year study of the Gospel when I taught adult education in a Methodist Church several years ago. I do not believe that he is a scumbag.

Dan L

 

[puzzleannie]

even on issues where the late Fr. Raymond Brown followed the lead of historical-critical method bible scholars, such as Mary’s role in Jesus ministry and public life, he always asserted he would continue to believe in and teach the doctrine held by the Catholic Church, even if his own scholarship seemed to be contradictory. He had the humility to recognize that he could not put stand his own work against the magesterial teaching. something more bible scholars should imitate. He is a highly respected Catholic bible scholar, and in the areas where his scholarship does raise questions he was open to holding his work up to the scrutiny of the Church.

 

[DavidB]

I read some of his writings, and was particularly appreciative of “Priest and Bishop”. I really appreciated his honest scholarship. That book, in particular, angered many Catholics for revealing that the role of priest was not immediately implemented by Christ (based on all evidence available) and the Apostles, but rather evolved over those first few decades by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The funny thing is, as a non-Catholic Christian, while that book angered Catholics for contradicting some of their traditional claims, it’s honest scholarship appealed to me and led me to understand and accept the priesthood as a valid role in the Church. I was previously from the school that only the ministry offices mentioned in scripture were acceptable, so bishop and deacon were fine as were Apostle, Prophet, Teacher, Pastor and Evangelist, but no priesthood.

Father Brown is considered both a major theological force for good and for evil depending on your particular viewpoint. Robert Sungenis villifies him ad nauseum on his website. The fact Sungenis rebukes him and I appreciate him is probably enough to put him in bad light for the majority of folks on this forum.

David

 

[Gracie2004]

Fr. Brown, from what I’ve read and studied, was very liberal in his approach to Christ and Christology…He’s been widely condemned by many Biblical scholars.

 

[challenger]

DavidB:

Father Brown is considered both a major theological force for good and for evil depending on your particular viewpoint. Robert Sungenis villifies him ad nauseum on his website. The fact Sungenis rebukes him and I appreciate him is probably enough to put him in bad light for the majority of folks on this forum.

David

For me, at least : )

 

[Catholic_Dude]

PhilVaz:

Out of line on some things, but he considers himself “moderate.” …

Fr. Brown is not for beginners, but he can be useful on the details of biblical scholarship, dating, interpretation, etc. And he was critical of the radical "Jesus Seminar

This bothers me a lot to say that the considers himself a “moderate”, especially nowdays when people can get away with saying/believing anything.

As for the “not for beginners” part, that is not the impression I get when looking to places like here from Barnes and Noble where out of his many many books a lot of them seem to be the short inexpensive paperback type aimed at the average joe. In otherwords that is very bad what he is doing because even if he is not technically “out of line” marketing those things to “beginners” is a sure fire way to lead people astray (which from what I have read is his very intention).

And the part about the Seminar, Im surprised Brown didnt join, or even open his own seminar.

Phil, Im not going off on you here, after I read some quotes by him and all I can say is that was stupid of him to even write such stuff in the first place.

puzzleannie:

even on issues where the late Fr. Raymond Brown followed the lead of historical-critical method bible scholars, such as Mary’s role in Jesus ministry and public life, he always asserted he would continue to believe in and teach the doctrine held by the Catholic Church, even if his own scholarship seemed to be contradictory. He had the humility to recognize that he could not put stand his own work against the magesterial teaching. something more bible scholars should imitate. He is a highly respected Catholic bible scholar, and in the areas where his scholarship does raise questions he was open to holding his work up to the scrutiny of the Church.

This is what is really disturbing about RB. Why did he even go there in the first place? And from what I have seen nowdays with so called “scholarship” when I hear people say they remain faithful to the CC but still go off on their own tangent I really question if they mean what they say about remaining faithful.

As for the respected part I have been to a some big name Catholic pages and they blast him in a few short articles.

davebj:

Father Brown is considered both a major theological force for good and for evil depending on your particular viewpoint. Robert Sungenis villifies him ad nauseum on his website. The fact Sungenis rebukes him and I appreciate him is probably enough to put him in bad light for the majority of folks on this forum.

all I can say is thank God for CAI. I read the first few pages concerning RB and CAI was the ONLY Catholic www I could find that actually went into some depth of why RB was out of line.

What was said by RB was stupid and had to have been done with the worst of intentions.

 

[dcdurel]

Catholic Dude:

His comments are along the lines of the Bible contains errors, Catholic teachings are unBiblical, no proof for teachings, etc.

So what is it with this guy? I hope I am not misunderstanding him, but what I have read he is way out of line on some of his quotes.

You are correct. Raymond Brown often taught contrary to the Church.
Raymond Brown often said some Church teachings are contrary to the best biblical scholarship, but that he believed the Church even though the Church was wrong. That is plain stupidity. Essentially he is saying that Jesus requires us to believe false teachings.

Raymond Brown is typical of Catholics who don’t seem to understand the basics. Usually it can be traced back to lack of desire to obey God, thus lack of prayer, especially the Rosary.
This lack of praying the Rosary leads to blindness in basic areas.

Raymond Brown’s primary error was that he rejected apostolic Tradition as the word of God whenever apostolic Tradition contradicted his opinions. In fact, he called Tradition as only “the lived experience of the people”, instead of God’s teachings handed down without scripture. By his definition, every erroneous opinion could be included in Tradition. Tradition then becomes only a man-made idea, instead of teachings that come from God. Thus scripture can now be interpreted apart from the word of God handed down in Tradition. Thus he came up with interpretations that contradicted Catholic Church teachings. Then he called those Catholics who followed God’s word in apostolic Tradition “simplistic”, “arch conservatives”, etc.
Since he rejected apostolic Tradition as God's word, he was essentially a Protestant, but, a liberal Protestant.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

dcdurel:

You are correct. Raymond Brown often taught contrary to the Church.
Raymond Brown often said some Church teachings are contrary to the best biblical scholarship, but that he believed the Church even though the Church was wrong. That is plain stupidity. Essentially he is saying that Jesus requires us to believe false teachings.

You hit the nail on the head with the last part. These protestants I was talking with were putting out these absurd quotes and claimed they were by “well know CATHOLIC scholars” and I would reply to them in shock and confused with “why does he continue to believe in a Church he says is teaching falsehoods?”.
And at the same time they never forget to include that his works have the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur which all I can do is turn my head in disgust and I dont know what to tell them.

What did this guy do to get where he is undetected? Did he start off and get his advanced degrees and awards using a moderate personality and then turn around and write this out of line garbage? And another thing why did he teach at Union Theological Seminary if he was so great?

 

[savone]

An apology to CatholicDude:

I am sorry for not having read your first, original post more carefully. Had I done so, I would not have replied to this thread. Thereby, I would not have wasted your time, and perhaps added to your exasperation, nor have wasted mine.

savone

 

[challenger]

Catholic Dude:

all I can say is thank God for CAI

My thoughts exactly…

 

[dcdurel]

Catholic Dude:

You hit the nail on the head with the last part. These protestants I was talking with were putting out these absurd quotes and claimed they were by “well know CATHOLIC scholars” and I would reply to them in shock and confused with “why does he continue to believe in a Church he says is teaching falsehoods?”.
And at the same time they never forget to include that his works have the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur which all I can do is turn my head in disgust and I dont know what to tell them.

What did this guy do to get where he is undetected? Did he start off and get his advanced degrees and awards using a moderate personality and then turn around and write this out of line garbage? And another thing why did he teach at Union Theological Seminary if he was so great?

He started off defending the Church teachings in the Anchor bible series of books. And he was an excellent writer, he was wonderful with his use of words. He was appointed to the Pontifical biblical commission, But, then he turned against Church teachings. But, since he came at a time when dissidents controlled the seminaries and Catholic universities, he became very popular with those groups.
The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are not infallible because they are only the opinions of a bishop. When most of the bishops were orthodox, these statements were useful. But, now, because at least 1/3 of the bishops are not faithful to Church teachings, they are not useful at all.
We forget that almost all heretics throughout history started off as Catholic theologians and scripture scholars, Arius, Luther, Calvin, etc. And Father Hardon says the only reason these heresies spread was because of the complicity of bad bishops.
Thus, there will always be bad theologians, scripture scholars, bishops, etc. who claim to be Catholic. Even Jesus had an apostle who was bad. But, these scholars do not determine what the content of the teachings of the Church. Only the Pope and those bishops who are in union with the Pope have authority to determine Church teachings. Because Jesus gave authority to teach and preach ONLY to the Peter and the apostles. Thus, while Raymond Brown was outwardly a Catholic scholar because he did not publically reject the Church and because no bishop rejected him, it is hard to see how he was in actual fact even Catholic, since Catholics must believe all the fundamental teachings of the Church and he rejected the exclusive Divine origin of apostolic Tradition, which led to many other errors.
These are some of the other errors. He doubted:

Jesus’ physical Resurrection; the Transfiguration; the fact that Jesus founded the one, true Catholic Church and instituted the priesthood and the episcopacy; the fact that 12 Apostles were missionaries and bishops; and the truth that Jesus was not “ignorant” on a number of matters.

Thus, he was hardly Catholic, since Catholics must believe all the Church teaches, and obviously he didn’t even believe the Church was infallible.

 

[PhilVaz]

OK, I’d like some documentation from Fr. Raymond Brown books or articles on the following.

dcdurel << He doubted: Jesus’ physical Resurrection >>

Give me a quote, book or reference, not a secondary source nor a critic, but a direct quote, book or reference by Fr. Brown denying the physical, bodily Resurrection. I have read Raymond Brown here and there on the Resurrection and he does not doubt it. Are you being fair and reading Brown directly, or are you relying on critics?

<< the Transfiguration >>

Need quote, book or reference on this one.

<< the fact that Jesus founded the one, true Catholic Church and instituted the priesthood and the episcopacy >>

That’s a matter of interpretation. Don’t think you’re reading him right. He might question whether we can explicitly trace back the priesthood and epicopacy to the apostles based on the available historical evidence (the NT documents do tend to equate presbyter, elder, and bishop), etc. But as a matter of dogma, as far as I know, he accepts Jesus founded the Catholic Church and that the priesthood and episcopacy are true. The three-fold division (bishop, presbyter, deacon) is explicit in St. Ignatius (110 AD), but implicit in Clement (c. 96 AD) and the NT documents.

<< the fact that 12 Apostles were missionaries and bishops >>

Need quotes on this one. Similar to above.

<< and the truth that Jesus was not “ignorant” on a number of matters. >>

Fr. Most deals with this in The Consciousness of Christ, but if you have some examples list them.

<< Thus, he was hardly Catholic >>

That might be the opinion of many in here, but you need to read Fr. Brown directly rather than critics. I haven’t read a whole lot, just his Gospel of John commentary (written 1969 or so), flipped through his massive tomes Birth, Death of the Messiah, and I do own his Introduction to NT Christology, and his Antioch and Rome co-authored with John P. Meier.

The fact that Fr. Brown was a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission suggests to me both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI (former Cardinal Ratzinger) considered him Catholic.

As I mentioned he considers himself a “moderate” scholar (see his explanation in the beginning of his 1994 book on NT Christology), and I would put him there too. The “Jesus Seminar” (J.D. Crossan, Robert Funk, etc) would be the “liberal” side, and Fr. William Most would be the “conservative” side of biblical scholarship in my opinion.

Phil P

 

[BibleReader]

Catholic Dude:

I could use your help on this guy. I have recently been bombarded by some protestants with “quotes” from Raymond Brown. I looked around and found that he is Catholic, but I cant find any details on his position. From the quotes I am reading and if I am understanding them correctly this guy is a low life scum for writing this stuff and still claiming to be Catholic.

His comments are along the lines of the Bible contains errors, Catholic teachings are unBiblical, no proof for teachings, etc.

So what is it with this guy? I hope I am not misunderstanding him, but what I have read he is way out of line on some of his quotes.

Fr. Brown was a dedicated Catholic Biblical analyst who made some errors here and there.

On the other hand, I agree with him, where he diverges from what can be described as “Church teaching,” on a point or two.

For example, Father Brown maintained that though Christ’s conception was miraculous, Christ’s birth was non-miraculous, and that the Bible is clear that Christ’s birth was non-miraculous.

I think that he was right.

Fr. Brown died about seven years ago.

 

[mkw]

Where in the bible does it make the point that the birth of Jesus was Non-Miraculous?

 

[dcdurel]

PhilVaz:

As I mentioned he considers himself a “moderate” scholar (see his explanation in the beginning of his 1994 book on NT Christology), and I would put him there too. The “Jesus Seminar” (J.D. Crossan, Robert Funk, etc) would be the “liberal” side, and Fr. William Most would be the “conservative” side of biblical scholarship in my opinion.
Phil P

This is typical Brown to describe Church teachings as liberal or moderate when it comes to the Divinity of Christ. There is no “liberal” or “conservative” when it comes to doctrine. It is either Catholic or it is not.
Jesus was God, always was God, was never less than God. When He took on a human nature, He did not lose any of His divinity. God cannot change and Jesus was never two persons. Thus, when Jesus was a one day old embryo and had no human brain, He was fully God and knew everything. As he developed as a man, He developed a human brain and He could learn. But everything He learned He already knew. Jesus is the only one in the world who could learn what He already knows. We can’t. If we learn something, it is because we don’t know something already. Everything Jesus learned as man, He already knew as God.
In order for Brown to justify a Church in which he wanted doctrine to change, he had to postulate an ignorant Jesus, a Jesus who learned because He did NOT know something already, specifically a Jesus who did not know the future, a Jesus who did not know how the Church would turn out. Brown wanted a partially ignorant Jesus in order to justify changing Church teachings. It is no secret, for example, that Brown wanted women priests. In order to do that Brown had to separate Jesus into two persons, a Divine Jesus and human Jesus. Thus on while visibly present on earth, Brown postulated a Jesus in which His humanity predominated and His divinity was minimized, a “moderate” Christology as opposed to Church teaching in which Jesus was always fully God, a “conservative” or “high Christology”, which he labeled as “extreme”. And of course, he picked certain scriptures to justify his view. In other words, Brown promoted a semi-Nestorian heresy, in which Jesus was semi-two persons, instead of one full Divine person with two separate natures.
In all this process, Brown promotes the Protestant view of scripture alone, in which doctrine is based almost soley on each person’s interpretation of scripture. But, of course, since he was a scripture “scholar” his view was superior to everyone elses. Then after implying the Church’s view was wrong, he would say that he still believes what the Church teaches (even though it is wrong). Pure stupidity. So now he promotes a fallible Church.
The error in all this is the Protestant view of religion, in which the basic teachings of the Gospel comes from man’s interpretation of scripture, especially scripture scholars interpretation of scripture. That is why Brown highly praised Protestant “scholarship”. That is why Raymond Brown was the greatest promoter of “scripture alone” among Catholics than any Protestant who ever lived.
But, the fact is that the basic Church teachings don’t originate from scripture. They come from the apostles, who learned from God. They are handed down in apostolic Tradition. Only some of this Tradition is written in Scripture, and none of it is perfectly clear in scripture. Jesus said we had to believe what the Church teaches, that is, what the Church hands down in Tradition. Jesus never said to believe Gospel based on someone’s interpretation of scripture. That is why the Church has alway said scripture must be interpreted according to God’s word handed down in sacred Tradition. The norm for interpreting scripture is apostolic Tradition or sacred Tradition. Since the Catechism presents this living Tradition, the Church teaches that the Catechism is a “sure norm for teaching the faith”. The norm is not Brown’s “scientific exegesis”, “current biblical scholarship”, etc., which are simply euphamisms for Luther’s “scripture alone”.
Thus, in Brown’s little section on NT Christology He promotes severeal errors.

1. He rejects that part of the Gospel handed down in sacred Tradition as being of little importance, instead of equal to scripture. This is an extremely serious error.
2. He inteprets scripture according to private interpretation, instead of by sacred Tradition. Another serious error.
3. Based on the two errors above, he postulates a semi-ignorant Jesus by promoting a semi-Nestorian heresy, in which Jesus is two separate persons, instead of one Divine Person with two natures.
4. He separates the teachings of the Gospel into liberal, moderate, and conservative, therefore rejecting Church teaching and authority as secondary.
5. He makes the Church fallible, since it doesn’t conform to his interpretation of scripture, which is based on a “centrist” postition.

These are only a few. In short, Raymond Brown was an excellent Protestant, and promoted exactly what “scripture alone” has always promoted: confusion and error.

 

[BibleReader]

mkw:

Where in the bible does it make the point that the birth of Jesus was Non-Miraculous?

At three places, two explicitly, and one implicitly. I’ll do one of the explicit ones first. Textual characteristics such as capitals, boldface and italics are for emphasis: I am not “yelling” at you.

EXPLICIT VERSE I: Christ was a “king,” was He not? See Matthew 21:4-5, where the text explicitly affirms that Jesus entering Jerusalem on the colt of an a ss fulfilled Zechariah 9:9, which predicts that our “king” would come to us on the colt of an a ss.

Now flip over to Wisdom 7:5: “NO KING HAS ANY DIFFERENT ORIGIN OR BIRTH; BUT ONE [WAY] IS THE ENTRY INTO LIFE FOR ALL” – traumatic and bloody – “AND IN ONE THE SAME WAY THEY LEAVE IT” – by repugnant death.

Because Christ was a “KING,” tautological Wisdom 7:5 applies to Him, too.

**THE IMPLICIT VERSE: **Luke 2:24 says that the Holy Family went to Jerusalem after Jesus’ birth “to offer the sacrifice of ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,’ in accordance with the dictate of the law of the Lord.”

What law?

Leviticus 12:1-8, where the Torah prescribes that a woman who has given birth shall be unclean “AFTER HER FLOW OF BLOOD” and this uncleanliness may be cured by the sacrifice of “two turtledoves” or “two pigeons.” See Leviticus 12:7, 8.

In other words, Luke is implying – very, very, very clearly implying – that Jesus came out of Mary in the normal, bloody fashion.

Radical Marianists respond to this difficulty by “reading into” Luke, saying that Mary and Joseph were “putting on a show,” lying, by their actions, to deceive the world into believing that Jesus’ miraculous birth was non-miraculous.

I don’t see the teeniest, tiniest hint of this “out” in Luke’s text.

**EXPLICIT VERSE II: **Now, IN LIGHT OF Wisdom 7:5 and Luke 2:24, re-consider Revelation 12:2, about the woman who gave birth to a son destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod who was caught up to God and His throne – in other words, the woman who is the mother of Christ: “She was with child and WAILED ALOUD IN PAIN AS SHE LABOURED TO GIVE BIRTH.”

Remember who wrote Revelation: John, who took care of Mary after Christ’s death, and who therefore would have been able to learn the details of Jesus’ birth “from the horse’s mouth” – MARY!

I know, I know what radical Marianists say in response to this: Genesis 3:16.

I personally believe that Mary “wailed aloud in pain” as she gave birth to son destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod who was caught up to God and His throne, in spite of her Immaculate Conception. Behold: Revelation 12:2 is functionally corroborated by Wisdom 7:5 and Luke 2:24.

THREE TIMES Scripture teaches that JESUS’ birth was PERFECTLY NORMAL.

There are several other implicit statements that Jesus’ birth was perfectly typical and therefore non-miraculous. For example, Luke and Matthew use precisely the same Greek words, tikto and gennao, to describe MARY giving birth as they use to describe ELIZABETH giving birth.

There are OTHER difficulties, Scriptural and philosophical, with claiming that Jesus somehow “beamed down” out of Mary’s womb.

Scripture seems CLEAR, mkw: Jesus was born in the same bloody, traumatic fashion I was.