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vern_humphrey
Guest
If you reject what the Church says, you reject Catholicism.
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patg
Guest
What did I reject? I stated that there is almost no historical evidence for the gospel events - certainly none that is recognized by any historian. This is not a rejection of anything, it is a statement that Christianity requires faith. The church wisely makes very few docrinal statements on historicity and thus there is no rejection of “what the Church says”.
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vern_humphrey
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Joel_Tunnah
Guest
Which gospel events are you referring to? Because there are no serious historians that doubt that Jesus of Nazareth lived and preached in Judea in the early part of the first century, and then was executed by the Romans by crucifixion.
You’re an odd sort of Catholic, patg.
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patg
Guest
I agree. Unfortunately, that about covers it for statements by serious historians.
The resurrection, infancy narratives, miracles, virgin birth? Those are matters of faith which no serious historian would or has ever considered to be historical events.
I agree - the vast majority of Catholics have never heard of Dei Verbum, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Raymond Brown, “Q”, or any of the other things we have been discussing so we all must be a little odd.
I enjoy discussions on historical analysis and scripture. While I strongly take the minimalist side in regards to historicity, I have not found anything in that approach which is at odds with official Church teaching.
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Neil_Anthony
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Wouldn’t it be just as reasonable to assume that Matthew and Luke based their gospels on Mark’s, and added their own content based on their memory and understanding? Why the need for another source than Mark (i.e. Q)?
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Lion_of_Narnia
Guest
The pre-ponderance of modern New Testament scholars holding to Markan priority and a large sub set of them holding to “Q” (“Quelle”, German for “source”) derives from scholarship that was anti-ethical to Christian claims of historicity from the start–the ideology drove the scholarship, the the scholarship did NOT produce the ideology. Unfortunelty, Markan Priority (with or without “Q”) has permeated Catholic New Testament studies, most egregiously in the NAB translation’s footnotes and book introductions.
Preponderance in academic studies does NOT give credence to an idea–especially when it can be demonstrated the beliefs are founded on something less than demonstrated facts and more on personal emtions and bias–witness prior to 1970 in Geology, the instangint resistence to “plate techtonics”. That theory of geology really gained acceptence because the “old guard” of geology professors either died off or retired.
2 links
churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/authors-gospels-1.htm
churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/farmer
.htm
Preponderance in academic studies does NOT give credence to an idea–especially when it can be demonstrated the beliefs are founded on something less than demonstrated facts and more on personal emtions and bias–witness prior to 1970 in Geology, the instangint resistence to “plate techtonics”. That theory of geology really gained acceptence because the “old guard” of geology professors either died off or retired.
2 links
churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/authors-gospels-1.htm
churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/farmer
.htm
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scottm
Guest
And what biases do they bring to the table?
Seriously, a lot of historians begin with the assumption that nothing in the Bible is true unless it can be confirmed outside the Bible. It’s irrelevant that on, say, the resurrection of Jesus we have what, six different NT writers saying it was so? That doesn’t matter because they all got lumped into one single book, the Bible, and it’s false until something else confirms it.
That’s a bad way of going about things.
As for faith – you might have it backwards. Re-read Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. He equates faith with an affirmation that something happened in real time, in real space, in the real lives of real people, on this real planet Earth. Faith for Peter was an affirmation of actual, true, historical, witnessed events. Re-read the opening verses of 1 Cor 15. The Apostle Paul does the same thing – faith for him was an affirmation of actual, true, historical, witnessed events that occurred in the real lives of real people in real space & time.
A denial that things did not happen or a denial that there is no evidence that things happened is a denial of the faith taught by the Apostles.
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
The prevailing opinion, ( there are counter opinions and some of them are gaining weight), believes that indeed Matthew and Luke used Marks gospel making Mark’s first. The issue with Q has been that although Luke and Matthew shared some work of Mark they also show evidence of having other “shared” material that did not come from Mark (wasn’t in Mark at all). This shared material has not been found. Like certain particle physics, the math says it must exist. That;s the idea here. That a “Q” source must exist.
This is and continues to be a hot topic in biblical exegesis and there are competing theories and there always have been. Some are now gaining a bit more interest as people kinda try to think out of the box on this.
If you would like to see a good cite for further research I would suggest sourcetheory.blogspot.com I actually don’t know which side they come down on, because I havent had the time to go over much of it, but it seems to have a pretty good set of links to the target area. I think catholic-resources.org has some stuff on it too.
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vern_humphrey
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The “Q” document must exist only if we first accept Markan priority.
If Matthew wrote first, then there is no need for a “Q” document.
Which is why I point out that “Q” violates Occam’s Razor – it was invented to make the Markan priority theory work.
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
What I fail to understand again is why this issue ends up being about whether the bible is true or not. The folks who started this discussion certainly were not about that as an issue. We were having a fairly pleasant discussion of exegesis and suddenly we are made mock of like we were some devils attempting to throw the bible out the window.
As has been pointed out again and again, the Church is not opposed to such work. It asks that it be done with due regard to scripture, tradition and dogma. My understanding that in general the Church says that scripture is unerrent as to those matters necessary to either faith or salvation. It has in many ways encouraged and congratulated its scholars in pursuing the deepest and most complete understanding of what Jesus and those around Him said and did.
Nothing in this discussion threatens either faith or salvation.
Perhaps it would be useful, since not all of us are familiar with each other that in future we do as all serious theologians and biblical scholars do when speaking:
Identify who you are in terms of how you relate to scripture at the beginning. We should state our biases up front. Perhaps we will better understand each other.
Mine is simply that I believe the Bible inspired by God. The writers were inspired to write of God as they saw Him interacting in their lives. They recorded faithfully the oral traditions known from time immemorial. They explained the physical world as best they could given almost know knowledge of science. Some (I said some) of those earliest traditions may have been myth, handed down generation after generation as was done virtually everywhere else in the world. We use the tools of all disciplines and attempt honestly and faithfully to learn as much as is humanly possible about what it is and what it means.
As has been pointed out again and again, the Church is not opposed to such work. It asks that it be done with due regard to scripture, tradition and dogma. My understanding that in general the Church says that scripture is unerrent as to those matters necessary to either faith or salvation. It has in many ways encouraged and congratulated its scholars in pursuing the deepest and most complete understanding of what Jesus and those around Him said and did.
Nothing in this discussion threatens either faith or salvation.
Perhaps it would be useful, since not all of us are familiar with each other that in future we do as all serious theologians and biblical scholars do when speaking:
Identify who you are in terms of how you relate to scripture at the beginning. We should state our biases up front. Perhaps we will better understand each other.
Mine is simply that I believe the Bible inspired by God. The writers were inspired to write of God as they saw Him interacting in their lives. They recorded faithfully the oral traditions known from time immemorial. They explained the physical world as best they could given almost know knowledge of science. Some (I said some) of those earliest traditions may have been myth, handed down generation after generation as was done virtually everywhere else in the world. We use the tools of all disciplines and attempt honestly and faithfully to learn as much as is humanly possible about what it is and what it means.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
You are correct – it is not about believing the Bible is correct (or inspired), or not. It’s simply deep study of the Bible For some reason, people who disagree on these matters tend to wind up accusing the other side of heresy.
You should check out the thread on “Did Moses Write Genesis.”
You should check out the thread on “Did Moses Write Genesis.”
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Newbie2
Guest
My friend the best advice I can give you is don’t get too caught up in questions like these. By getting you to question the source of this book or that there is a real danger you may begin to question your faith as well.
QUOTE]
Fides Quarens Intellectum!Blindly accepting your faith without seeking the answers to questions that one has regarding it can lead to the same end.
On the contrary, seek answers to your questions; the more you know, the better, as long as the source(s) are reliable.
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