Raymond Brown: Anti-Catholic, ignorant or other?

[BibleReader]

Psalm45:9:

Here’s an article for Revelation 12, pay attention to the last paragraph.

catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9705chap.asp

As for the Wisdom of Solomon: “For none of the kings had any other beginning of birth. For all men have one enterance into life, and the like going out.” (Wisdom 7:5-6)

To me it says that all kings are the same, they are born of a woman and die. Christ was born of a woman and he did die. It does not imply that the women has to have labor pains.

Just because Akin says it doesn’t mean that it’s so.

In effect, his analysis “bootstraps.” He assumes that his “fusion” symbolism entails a license to un-fuse and then pick and choose the items relevant to each un-fused element. Where does he get his license to put asunder what God has joined together? In other words, without proving his ultimate conclusion – that Revelation is a “buffet” of disassociated concepts forced into uneasy partnership and begging to be split-up again, with the splitter-upper himself picking-and-choosing what to associate with what from the “buffet” – he reaches the result he seeks without really giving a justification: Contradicting the painful nativity idea contained in the plaintext reading of Revelation 12.

The “bottom line” is that Akin is making God-inspired Scripture orbit around his own thinking.

Pope Liberius condemned his own prior statement about the Arian Heresy.

Suppose this business of a non-uncomfortable delivery by Mary is another such statement, and in 2010 the papacy nastily condemns the notion as well as all prior declarations that Jesus’ birth was in any way unusual.

Will Mr. Akin then go back to the “buffet” and pick-and-choose *new * ingredients for his “sandwich”?

The plaintext meaning of Revelation 12 could not be clearer: The mother of the boy taken up to God’s Own thrown yelled allowed in pain as she laboured to give birth.

 

[Jedi_Master]

For me, it is very unlikely that a first century Jew or knows Judaism quite well would interpret Isaiah 7 in such a way that was never thought of before. There were no pre-Christian messianic interpretation of Isaiah 7. Why would someone interpret it that way unless Jesus was born of a virgin? If we are going to reconstruct history, it seems to me that the Christians interpreted Is. so that it would fit into the birth of Jesus. For a virgin birth story to pop up out of no where, and have two different stories of it, is very unlikely especially in a two generation period.

huh? Did not the Jews translate it as virgin in the Septuagint?

 

[Apolonio]

Jedi,

No one thought it was a messianic passage though.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Apolonio:

Jedi,

No one thought it was a messianic passage though.

so you now admit that it was interpreted as virgin by Jews??
Jews did not know eveything and even today there are things they do not understand and are waiting for the “messiah” to come and explain.
I think it is VERY deceitful in part by Jews when they ommit the fact that they interpreted it as virgin in the Septuagint.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Gottle of Geer:

…

To try to honour Mary by insisting on the continuance of her virginity while she gave birth to Jesus is not only unnecessary - it cuts her off from the common lot of women, as though she, a woman like them, were to be spared pains like theirs.

…

Maintaining the perpetual viginity is KEY to understanding the Blessed Virgin. It is a disgrace nowdays especially when people go out of their way to defile Her, most notably by saying that the virginity part was no big deal. Thats a slap in God’s face as well, defiling what God makes sacred should be avoided at all costs.

catholic2003:

Is there any official Church support for the claim that Fr. Brown’s teachings are contrary to the magisterium? With Pope John Paul II reappointing him to the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1996 (after his first appointment by Pope Paul VI in 1972), and with his works having Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs, I don’t understand how anyone can legitimately make such a claim. (Unless, of course, they are setting themselves up as “super-judges” of the quote-unquote “true” magisterium of the Church, above even the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.)

Im looking for common sense here when I question this guy.
To clear up any questions on what quotes I was referring to here is one of them (listed by BBAS64 on christianforums.com):

Some Roman Catholics may have expected me to include a discussion of the historicity of **the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of **Mary. But these Marian doctrines, which are not mentioned in Scripture, clearly lie outside my topic which was the quest for historical knowledge of Mary in the NT. Moreover, I would stress the ambiguity of the term “historicity” when applied to these two doctrines. A Roman Catholic must accept the two dogmas as true upon the authority of the teaching Church, but he does not have to hold that the dogmas are derived from a chain of historical information. There is no evidence that Mary (or anyone else in NT times) knew that she was conceived free of original sin, especially since the concept of original sin did not fully exist in the first century. The dogma is not based upon information passed down by Mary or by the apostles; it is based on the Church’s insight that the sinlessness of Jesus should have affected his origins, and hence his mother, as well. Nor does a Catholic have to think that the people gathered for her funeral saw Mary assumed into heaven—there is no reliable historical tradition to that effect, and the dogma does not even specify that Mary died. Once again the doctrine stems from the Church’s insight about the application of the fruits of redemption to the leading disciple: Mary has gone before us, anticipating our common fate. Raymond E. Brown, Biblical Reflections on Crises facing the Church (New York: Paulist Press, 1975), p. 105, fn. 103.
How is writing like this not out of line? Look at the title, it looks like a everyday liberal title, they type that liberal Catholics and Anti-C’s (same as liberal Catholics) flock to read and use as “proof” against us. This kind of talk hurts the faithful and IS DONE in an attempt to lead Catholics astray. The truth is that these teachings are not made up, which RB clearly claims they are. I was debating with another person and I decided to read that encyclical on the Assumption and it used both historical and Scriptural means to show that it is not unfounded.
People like RB are what keeps real Catholic apologetics in check because it limits the apologists to putting out brush fires caused by their supposed “fellow Catholics”.

Another question that I have that nobody can figure out is why did he work at Union Theological Seminary? This fact says a lot to me about his position.

 

[dcdurel]

PhilVaz:

dcdurel << Thus, in Brown’s little section on NT Christology He promotes severeal errors…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. >>

Whoah, whoah, whoah, stop. I don’t need all that, what I wanted was some documentation on your previous claims. Let’s start with the first one in a previous post. You claimed:

“These are some of the other errors. He doubted: Jesus’ physical Resurrection…”

Now back that up. Give me a direct quote from Fr. Raymond Brown where he denies or doubts the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. Then we can move on…

If you can’t, no harm done. Simply say “I was wrong on Fr. Brown and the resurrection.” No big deal.

I’m not near my books now, but I’ll try to dig up something on Brown affirming the bodily resurrection, would that help any?

Phil P

This is written by some Jews on the internet:

** In an essay carrying the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur (official declarations by the Catholic Church that a book is “free of doctrinal or moral error”), Brown admits that the apparent contradiction in records of the post-resurrectional appearances is real. “It is quite obvious,” Brown writes, “that the Gospels do not agree as to where and to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection.”[1] “Just as the Jerusalem tradition leaves little or no room for subsequent Galilean appearances,” explains Brown, “the Galilean narratives seem to rule out any prior appearances of Jesus to the Twelve in Jerusalem.”[2] Citing immense textual evidence, Brown then declares his disapproval of the simples solution to the contradiction: “We must reject the thesis that the Gospels can be harmonized through a rearrangement whereby Jesus appears several times to the Twelve, first in Jerusalem, then in Galilee.”[3] Rather, concludes the Church spokesman, “Variations in place and time may stem in part from the evangelists themselves who are trying to fit the account of an appearance into a consecutive narrative.”[4] Brown makes clear that the post-resurrection appearance accounts are creative, substantially non-historical attempts to reconstruct events never witnessed by their respective authors.**

Raymond E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, New York: Paulist Press, 1973, p. 99.
This is the link:
simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christian_Credibility.htm

First, note the error. They think that a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations by the Catholic Church that a book is “free of doctrinal or moral error”. This is false. These are only declarations by an individual bishop that in “his” opinion, the books are without error. These are NOT official declarations by the Catholic Church.
But, nevertheless, notice how they think Brown is a Church Spokesman. Notice also how Brown implies the bible is not truthful, that is it does not “tell us the honest truth about Jesus”. Vatican II had to put that statement in Dei Verbum that the Gospels do “tell us the honest truth about Jesus” because of the constant assertions of Raymond Brown that the Gospels were not historical.

Raymond Brown was an excellent Protestant because he rarely interpreted scripture according to the teachings handed down by the apostles themselves in apostolic Tradition, unless he happened to agree with that Tradition. He rejected apostolic Tradition as the Word of God.
We must always think of Raymond Brown as a good liberal Protestant and nothing more. In fact, he praised Protestant scripture scholars to the hilt. He practically adored them.
But, like all Protestants, there is not a single teaching that he and all the other Protestant scripture “scholars” can all agree on. How scientific can Protestant scripture scholarship be if there is not a single teaching they can all agree on? Obviously, it is almost worthless.

 

[PhilVaz]

dcdurel quoting some jewish site on Fr. Brown << Brown admits that the apparent contradiction in records of the post-resurrectional appearances is real. “It is quite obvious,” Brown writes, “that the Gospels do not agree as to where and to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection.” >>

Has nothing to do with your previous claim that Brown denied or “doubted” the physical, bodily resurrection. Nothing.

I agree with Brown here: there ARE apparent contradictions in the resurrection accounts (the where, when, who, the detailed circumstances, but not the what “that Jesus rose from the dead” which is what the Gospel accounts agree on). But I also suggest that the Gospel accounts can and have been reconciled, we should see them as complementary (see for example, the book Easter Enimga by John Wenham, and this article on resurrection harmony).

Now how about some documentation from Fr. Raymond Brown himself where he doubted the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. Or will you admit you were wrong there?

BTW, I defend the Immaculate Conception and Assumption in a similar fashion as Fr. Brown did, but I also provide the biblical, historical, and theological support that the Popes provide in their encyclicals. See my answers in my 2002 debate with JasonTE. Brown is simply saying the “proof” for these doctrines is not the “historical evidence” or any individuals private interpretation of Scripture, but the definition of the Church who has the authority to decide such matters.

Phil P

 

[PhilVaz]

Wanted to add another article on the authority of the Church.

B.C. Butler, in his response to anti-Catholic Anglican George Salmon, agrees with Fr. Raymond Brown that Catholic doctrines are accepted on the authority of the Church, not because we can derive them from plain “historical” or “biblical” evidence. See also Newman’s Development of Doctrine on this point.

When you side against Fr. Brown here, you agree with anti-Catholics like George Salmon that “yes, all Catholic doctrines must be absolutely proved from historical/biblical evidence” for someone to accept them as true.

However, that is like mathematics, and doesn’t require any faith.

Phil P

 

[Psalm45_9]

BibleReader:

Just because Akin says it doesn’t mean that it’s so.

In effect, his analysis “bootstraps.” He assumes that his “fusion” symbolism entails a license to un-fuse and then pick and choose the items relevant to each un-fused element. Where does he get his license to put asunder what God has joined together? In other words, without proving his ultimate conclusion – that Revelation is a “buffet” of disassociated concepts forced into uneasy partnership and begging to be split-up again, with the splitter-upper himself picking-and-choosing what to associate with what from the “buffet” – he reaches the result he seeks without really giving a justification: Contradicting the painful nativity idea contained in the plaintext reading of Revelation 12.

The “bottom line” is that Akin is making God-inspired Scripture orbit around his own thinking.

Pope Liberius condemned his own prior statement about the Arian Heresy.

Suppose this business of a non-uncomfortable delivery by Mary is another such statement, and in 2010 the papacy nastily condemns the notion as well as all prior declarations that Jesus’ birth was in any way unusual.

Will Mr. Akin then go back to the “buffet” and pick-and-choose *new *ingredients for his “sandwich”?

The plaintext meaning of Revelation 12 could not be clearer: The mother of the boy taken up to God’s Own thrown yelled allowed in pain as she laboured to give birth.

From the Haydock Douay-Rheims Bible:

“CHAP. XII. Ver. 1. A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet. By this woman, interpreters commonly understand it to be the Church of Christ, shining with the light of faith, under the protection of the sun of justice, Jesus Christ. The moon, the Church, hath all changeable things of this world under her feet, the affections of the faithful being raised above them all.–A woman: the Church of God. It may also, by allusion, be applied to our blessed Lady.”

The commentaries from this bible were written in the 1830s.

Here’s another article, it speaks of the labor pains at the bottom:

matt1618.freeyellow.com/woman.html

 

[Catholic2003]

Catholic Dude:

… A Roman Catholic must accept the two dogmas as true upon the authority of the teaching Church, but he does not have to hold that the dogmas are derived from a chain of historical information. … Nor does a Catholic have to think that the people gathered for her funeral saw Mary assumed into heaven—there is no reliable historical tradition to that effect, and the dogma does not even specify that Mary died.

How is writing like this not out of line?

This seems to me to be an accurate description of what the Church’s magisterium requires of faithful Catholics as regards the Marian dogmas.
Catholic Dude:

People like RB are what keeps real Catholic apologetics in check because it limits the apologists to putting out brush fires caused by their supposed “fellow Catholics”.

If an accurate presentation of what the Church’s magisterium actually teaches is interfering with your apologetics efforts, I have to wonder if you are truly presenting the Catholic faith in all its fullness, or if you are only presenting one narrow viewpoint that you would wish to impose upon everyone.

I know that there are a lot of heterodox Catholics out there who make it difficult for non-Catholics to understand and accept the true Catholic faith. But it is also important not to forget that orthodox Catholic thought does allow for a legitimate variety of viewpoints which cannot be dismissed as “not faithful to the magisterium” merely because you happen to disagree with them.

 

[Apolonio]

I think it is VERY deceitful in part by Jews when they ommit the fact that they interpreted it as virgin in the Septuagint.

Response:
Well, the Jews said that it was a bad translation. But even if it was translated as “virgin,” I don’t think it is deceitful. They simply did not believe that it was a messianic passage. And that is what is remarkable about the Christian movement. They had to “re-interpret” (actually, re-interpret is bad since the Jews themselves had many different interpretations) the Old Testament in order to fit it to Jesus. And that’s why I believe the virgin birth is historical. It is unlikely that one would think of such a thing if it never really happened.

 

[BibleReader]

Psalm45:9:

From the Haydock Douay-Rheims Bible:

“CHAP. XII. Ver. 1. A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet. By this woman, interpreters commonly understand it to be the Church of Christ, shining with the light of faith, under the protection of the sun of justice, Jesus Christ. The moon, the Church, hath all changeable things of this world under her feet, the affections of the faithful being raised above them all.–A woman: the Church of God. It may also, by allusion, be applied to our blessed Lady.”

The commentaries from this bible were written in the 1830s.

Here’s another article, it speaks of the labor pains at the bottom:

matt1618.freeyellow.com/woman.html

The Sun in the Bible is the type, or symbol, for “a testing presence of God.” The Moon is the type, or symbol, for “the Devil.”

As a consequence, subjectively speaking, the Sun is not necessarily a good thing, right? God’s “testing presence” can result in damnation! And therefore we see Psalm 121:6 saying, "By day the sun cannot harm you, nor the moon by night."

In Genesis 1, the Moon is “the lesser light that ruled the night,” because “night” is the Darkness Type symbolizing “God’s judgment,” the epitome of which is Hell. So, the “Moon” rules “Hell” because Satan rules Hell! It’s probably inappropriate to use the Moon to symbolize “the Church” as the note from the Haydock Bible, above, tries to do.

The Moon is under Mary’s feet, in Revelation 12, because she is “Queen of Heaven and Earth,” the Fifth Glorious Mystery – even Satan is threatened by Mary!

But if the Revelation 12 “woman” is indeed Mary (noting that, consistently, Jesus calls Mary “woman” two times in another work by John – John’s Gospel), why is Mary, in Revelation 12, burdened with “a testing presence of God,” the Sun? Luke 2:35 predicts the same thing!: “(and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Mary had to watch the son she loved with inspired desperation get tortured, and then nailed to wood!

The note from the Haydock Bible says that “by allusion” we can apply the Revelation 12 verse to Mary.

What? Are the authors blind? It IS Mary. Jesus calls Mary “woman.” Twice. Mary “bore the son who would rule the world with an iron rod,” Jesus.

The Revelation 12 “woman” IS Mary at the plaintext, non-symbolic level. The “woman” is the Church by allusion. The Haydock Bible has it backwards.

The same non-symbolic plaintext level says that the “woman,” Mary, “wailed aloud in pain” as she laboured to give birth. In other words, Mary, though immaculately conceived, suffered enormous labour pains!

The whole business that Mary gave birth without pain appears to be dead wrong.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

BibleReader:

Hi, Gottle.

I try to restrict myself as much as possible to the actual words chosen by the Old and New Testament Committee translators.

OK - but don’t people in the USA talk about donkeys ?​

The Unprintable Word denotes the same thing: a long-muzzled quadruped of the family Equidae, generally deemed to be as thick as ten short planks, commonly of a grey colour, and affectionately referred as “Neddy”. For which the Latin word is asinus, and a diminutive form, is asellus. And the female of which is called a jenny. I know that “jenny” is used in the USA, because it was in an American book that I first found the word.

“Balaam’s jenny” would have the advantages of accuracy and of not being censored.

Apparently the British equivalent of the Unprintable Word, meaning “posterior”, is not censored - it seems that only vulgarities peculiar to the USA are guarded against. ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Catholic2003:

Is there any official Church support for the claim that Fr. Brown’s teachings are contrary to the magisterium? With Pope John Paul II reappointing him to the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1996 (after his first appointment by Pope Paul VI in 1972), and with his works having Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs, I don’t understand how anyone can legitimately make such a claim. (Unless, of course, they are setting themselves up as “super-judges” of the quote-unquote “true” magisterium of the Church, above even the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.)

Apparently Father George Kelly has been known to criticise Father Brown - so I’m told by one of Father Brown’s critics on CAF.​

But then, priests & scholarly are not beyond criticism, no matter how scholarly they may be. For the matter of that, criticism - not ipsedixitism - and mutual correction is how academic work is carried out. So hearing that Priest A has criticised Priest B for perceivec flaws in B’s scholarship is no argument at all that B is incompetent or not worth listening to. Scholarship does not operate in the same way as the Magisterium, so arguments against scholars or scholarship which are built on the assumption that it does, tend to miss the mark.

The really odd thing is that theologians and scholars get jumped on for not being unfailingly free of all error. Man is fallible by nature to start with - & as only certain Catholics are protected from being fallible at certain times for certain purposes; and, as scholars & theologians (qua scholars & theologians) are not among that set of sometimes infallible Catholics - nothing could be less surprising than that fallible scholars and fallible theologians should, sometimes, give evidence of their fallibility. Yet for some reason all hell seems to break loose when they do. Weird, that.

So why some Catholics get all worked-up when people who are confessedly not infallible show that they are not, is anyone’s guess. ##

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Catholic Dude,

When anyone tells you “Fr. X says …” tell them that Fr. X is not vested with Magisterial authority. If it’s Catholic doctrine, you’ll find it in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, as discussed in the Catechism, in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis or the canons and decisions of Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church. What Fr. X says is only official Catholic doctrine insofar as it agrees with these authentic sources of universal Catholic teaching. In times of doubt about what the Church teaches, one can simply ask the living Magisterium to clarify what they teach which binds all Catholics to a religious submission of intellect and will.

 

[Catholic2003]

Gottle of Geer:

But then, priests & scholarly are not beyond criticism, no matter how scholarly they may be. For the matter of that, criticism - not ipsedixitism - and mutual correction is how academic work is carried out. So hearing that Priest A has criticised Priest B for perceivec flaws in B’s scholarship is no argument at all that B is incompetent or not worth listening to. Scholarship does not operate in the same way as the Magisterium, so arguments against scholars or scholarship which are built on the assumption that it does, tend to miss the mark.

This is certainly true. Scholars, masters of apologetics, and other interested parties, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, are certainly free to offer criticism of Fr. Brown’s ideas, even to the point of claiming that these ideas are completely incorrect. It may even be the case that Fr. Brown’s many studies using the historical-critical method could be a crucial contribution in determining the limitations of that method with regard to divine revelation.

(In graduate school, one professor told us about a person who had written his dissertation about mathematical rings having a particular set of properties, but that several years after he graduated, it was proven that there do not exist any rings that satisfy all those properties. However, it turned out that the results in his dissertation were used to prove the non-existence of those rings, so that his work did not at all go to waste.)

My only problem is in regard to people, themselves not members of the magisterium, who claim to judge whether Fr. Brown’s work is faithful to the magisterium.

 

[BibleReader]

## OK - but don’t people in the USA talk about donkeys ?

The Unprintable Word denotes the same thing: a long-muzzled quadruped of the family Equidae, generally deemed to be as thick as ten short planks, commonly of a grey colour, and affectionately referred as “Neddy”. For which the Latin word is asinus, and a diminutive form, is asellus. And the female of which is called a jenny. I know that “jenny” is used in the USA, because it was in an American book that I first found the word.

“Balaam’s jenny” would have the advantages of accuracy and of not being censored.

Apparently the British equivalent of the Unprintable Word, meaning “posterior”, is not censored - it seems that only vulgarities peculiar to the USA are guarded against. ##

Hi, Gottle.

I’d rather not let the forces of obscenity seize control of a sector of the English language.

 

[Lorarose]

interesting.
But… if they had children before then why do we read this right after that?:
"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”
Gen 4:1

By reading “Now Adam knew Eve” makes me understand that they did not know each other before that. Any thoughts?

I wasn’t trying to say they had children before the fall.
What I was trying to say is that God created them a certain way - He intended them to exist a certain way BEFORE the fall.
How do we know what realities existed before the fall?
We really don’t know that women were intended by God to NOT have any pain at all.
In a world without sin…women could have still experienced contractions during birth (and really…how could they not?)…and still not endured the UNBEARABLE AGONY that came later. (sorry…6 births still fresh in my mind )

So what I was getting at is that Eve COULD have undergone less painful births if she hadn’t sinned. The curse of the fall brought on the reality of great pain.

So…if Mary experienced some pain during the birth…I really don’t see a problem with that.

 

[BibleReader]

As I say elsewhere, I think that the whole concept that the Original Sin described in the Adam and Eve story was an event in time, is wrong.

I think that even ancient Hebrew children – LITTLE children – knew that the Original Sin story was a Dr.-Seuss-like piece of fiction which teaches religious truth.

If they could be brought forward in time, those same little children would be ASTONISHED at, and LAUGH at, those Christians who think that the Adam and Eve story is history. They would think the ancient Hebrew version of, “WHAT???!!! THEY THINK THAT THE CAT-IN-THE-HAT REALLY EXISTED???!!!”

 

[PhilVaz]

BibleReader << those same little children would be ASTONISHED at, and LAUGH at, those Christians who think that the Adam and Eve story is history. They would think the ancient Hebrew version of, “WHAT???!!! THEY THINK THAT THE CAT-IN-THE-HAT REALLY EXISTED???!!!” >>

Yes, you mean these Christians who wrote the Catechism:

1. By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.
2. Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called “original sin.”
3. As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”).
4. “We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, “by propagation, not by imitation” and that it is… ‘proper to each’” (Paul VI, CPG § 16).

There are certainly symbolical and figurative elements in the story, but Adam/Eve certainly appear historical according to the Catechism. Although Georgetown theologian John Haught would agree with you (see his Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution, page 80-81).

Phil P