I don’t know who the author is in the New Oxford Review, but he doesn’t exactly know Church teaching or the best scientific methods.
For example he writes “From a Catholic theologian and exegete such as Hahn, this set of deliverances is startling. The binding force of the early decrees of the Pontifical Biblical Commission are universally acknowledged, even among conservative churchmen, to have entirely lapsed. The 1948 letter specifically retracted the force of the 1906 reply on Mosaic authorship, saying it was “in no way a hindrance to further truly scientific examination” of the question; thus it is impossible to say that the Church “maintains the traditional view of Mosaic authorship” (note Hahn’s present tense). Far from the early decrees “not [beingl strictly or necessarily infallible per se,” they are not infallible at all.”
This is entirely false. The early decrees of the Pontifical Biblical Commission have never “lapsed”. They are still binding Church teaching, by command of Pope Pius X and they have never ever been revoked.
Second, authorship of scriptures is to be scientifically determined. In the secular world, authorship is always determined by giving predominate weight to external evidence. Internal evidence is seldom of value, except to perhaps confirm external evidence.
For example, the authors of the writings of the Church Fathers are determined by external evidence.
The idea that Moses was in no way the author of the Pentatuch is based on a philosophy that internal evidence should be primary. This philosophy was invented by athiests who in order to put doubt in historical certainly of what was related in the scriptures. It is ONLY used by some biblical scholars who have been influenced by these athiests, such as the author of the article in the New Oxford Review. The idea that internal evidence should be primary is NEVER used in the secular world to determine the authorship of any secular books. In other words, it is not scientific method of determining authorship.
I have found Scott Hahn to be extremely orthodox and scientific in his approach to the bible. In fact, I can’t think of anyone better regarding biblical scholarship.
In fact, Scott is very modest in what he has done, but in Romans 9-11, he cleared up some problems that even St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine could not understand, and no biblical scholar has understood until he figured the meaning of these chapters.
He has these on tapes called “All Israel Will be Saved”
I listened to them and they are wonderful.
This web site has small summary of the problem.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/product_detail.cfm?ID=3967”]
http://www.catholiccompany.com/product_detail.cfm?ID=3967
He is positively brilliant.
