It’s still laundry that most of us don’t get to see. It’s a little old at this point, but the exchange between Ross Douthat and James Martin, editor at large of America magazine, displayed an honesty that conversations between conservatives and liberals in American Protestantism never revealed. It also exposed us outsiders to a range of views that Jason and the Callers keep under wraps (whether out of duplicity or ignorance is anyone’s guess. Here are a few highlights:
Douthat admits that papal supremacy won’t fix what ails Roman Catholicism (contrary to Jason and the Callers):
. . . to the extent that some conservatives ultimately find themselves in sincere disagreement with statements this pope makes, or experience sincere disappointment with some of his appointments, that experience might help cure them of the unhealthy papolatry that sometimes built up under John Paul II, and help them recognize the truth of a point that more liberal Catholics have often raised—that the Vatican is not the church entire, and that many worthwhile experiments in Catholic history have been undertaken without a stamp of approval (quite the reverse, indeed) from the hierarchy.
But with all of this said, on some of the issues we’re debating right now, I think there’s also an important asymmetry between the position of progressive Catholics and conservative Catholics vis-à-vis a pope who might seem at times to be on the “other team.” By this I mean that for Catholics who desire some kind change in church teaching around sex and marriage and the family, by definition the continuity and integrity of the current teaching isn’t essential to their understanding of what the church is, why it’s worth belonging to, and so on. As much as they may have been disappointed under the last two pontificates, that is, their fundamental reasons for being Catholic were not shaken by what John Paul or Benedict taught or said on divorce or same-sex marriage or other issue, because they had already decided that what any specific pope says about sex or marriage can be taken as provisional, subject to the future revision by the Holy Spirit.
Martin identifies the bottom line for Roman Catholic progressives (would Jason and the Callers agree?):
I can surely understand the frustration of some who feel that what they view as essential is up for grabs. Seeing something that you deem essential being held up for debate would be disturbing indeed. But, for me, the essentials are contained, first, in in the Gospels and, second, in the Nicene Creed. So no pope—no Christian—could say, “There is no need to love your enemy, to forgive, or to care for the poor.” Nor could any Christian say, “Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead.” After the Gospels and the Creed, I look to the whole rest of our church tradition, through the lens of the hierarchy of truths, understanding what has a greater level of authority over us.
That’s a brief answer to a big question, but as for the essentials, I would—and I’m not being metaphorical here—die for them.
One more — Douthat identifies the state of U.S. Roman Catholicism (and makes me wonder whether Jason and the Callers are calling to this communion):
These are all clearly persistent temptations for the church—a version of the commercial temptation helped bring on the Protestant Reformation, after all—and much of what we think of today as liberal Catholicism was forged in reaction to their pre-Vatican II manifestations. The ritualistic spirit of Eat meat on Friday, go straight to hell, do not pass go, the God-as-accountant image inherent in say these seventeen different prayers to thirteen different saints and receive in return exactly 4,544 days off Purgatory, the culture of shame and silence around sexuality, the punitive visions of hell immortalized by James Joyce, the pomp and circumstance embraced by princes of the church…these are stereotypes, of course, of a richer and more complicated reality, but they are grounded in real aspects of the pre-1960s church, which were in need of correction and reform.
But as someone who came of age long, long after the battles of Vatican II, I simply don’t recognize the Catholic culture that many liberal Catholics seem to believe they’re warring against or seeking to undo or overthrow. The “traditionalist” church, the church of lace and legalisms if you will, that the current pontiff is particularly quick to critique, is simply not part of most American Catholics’ everyday experience. It may exist in some parishes and precincts, or among certain bishops or cardinals. But the dominant experience of Catholic life, Catholic liturgy, Catholic preaching, has nothing in common with the stereotype of a Pharisee lecturing people about their (mostly sexual) sins.
What it has more in common with, and I speak from experience, is certain forms of Mainline Protestantism and megachurch evangelicalism: Notwithstanding what still emanates from the Vatican, we’ve become a church of long communion and short confession lines (and you’re more likely to find me in the first than the second), of Jesus-affirms-you sermons and songs, of marriage preparation retreats (like mine) where most of the couples are cohabitating and nobody particularly cares, and of widespread popular attitudes toward the divine and toward church teaching that mostly resemble H. Richard Niebuhr’s vision of a God without wrath, men without sin, and a Kingdom without judgment.
Would that we would ever hear this kind of frankness from Jason and the Callers (and the entire team of apologetical salesmen).
Old Life 
Darryl,
Or there is a third option, one I’ve explained to you a number of times now, namely, that our purpose is not to be either a news site or an encyclopedia, but to serve as a forum for charitable dialogue between Protestants and Catholics in which we exchange and evaluate arguments and evidence that impinges upon what still divides us, for the purpose of resolving that long-standing disagreement. It is uncharitable and misguided to evaluate a work according to standards pertaining to a function other than its actual function, just as it would be uncharitable and misguided for me to accuse your books of duplicity and ignorance for not including Euclids axioms or the history of geology.
See above. Accusing an apostolate of not being “frank,” when it does not fulfill a function other than its actual function, is an easy and crowd-pleasing cheap shot. If you are interested in how Douthat and Martin’s opinions are compatible with what we’ve argued, you can find that in “The “Catholics are Divided Too” Objection.”
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Bryan,
How sure are you that this is what you are actually doing, and whether or not you are being successful? Does anyone other than Darryl critique your work from the outside looking in?
A wise person might even love Darryl for the effort he puts forth, no?
(Proverbs 9:8-9 ESV)
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Also known as cargo cult philosophy.
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sdb, thx.
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Andrew,
Dr. Hart doesnt put forth any effort in critiqueing Ctc. He understands perfect well that his posts are void of substance. He is just pandering to his audience and driving traffic to his site. Here we all are. Im your huckleberry.
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If R.C. can put on a Booze Cruise certainly The Callers can have a retreat at The Magic Kingdom with Douthat as the featured speaker.
I would go.
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Kenneth,
D.G. certainly appears to be getting under their skin.
We’re just here to encourage people to review all the facts before accepting the call.
It appears to be working. No new mounts on the wall for some time now.
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Katniss Kilowatt,
So??
And how do you know that, anyway? Huckleberry?
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Bryan – but to serve as a forum for charitable dialogue between Protestants and Catholics in which we exchange and evaluate arguments and evidence that impinges upon what still divides us, for the purpose of resolving that long-standing disagreement.
Erik – I’ll translate for those who don’t speak Caller:
but to serve as a (highly regulated) forum (in a way that would make the East German Stasi proud) for charitable (i.e. said in a way we approve of) dialogue between (The gullible) Protestants (that we let through) and Catholics (who are friendly to our idiosyncratic approach) in which we exchange and evaluate (mostly Bryan’s lengthy) arguments and (selective) evidence (that Bryan likes) that impinges upon what still divides us (i.e. inconvenient facts about Roman Catholicism), for the purpose of resolving (i.e. Protestants throwing in the towel) that long-standing disagreement (over everyone needing to embrace the Pope and become Roman Catholic in order to maybe go to heaven after who knows how long in Purgatory).
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Maybe susie is your name, Huck?
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That’s a blog post.
http://literatecomments.com/2014/12/12/i-demonstrate-that-i-am-here-to-serve-by-translating-bryan-cross-for-newcomers-who-dont-speak-caller/
Kenneth the Youthful & Bryan the Cross continue to be manure for the fertile fields that are my ever-so-slightly addled brain.
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Huck,
I already told you that, as for me, I have the tee-shirt, already. I know why you and Bryan show up. The question is, is it helping you drive traffic on your sites?
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Bryan, “an easy and crowd-pleasing cheap shot.”
Ad hominem (loving of course).
No Bryan, Called to Communion is a call and the pitch doesn’t include the fine print that Douthat and Martin mentions.
Been there to Catholics are divided. I’ve even read your post about liberalism. It’s all fanciful and duplicitous.
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loser ken, you think Douthat and Martin are void of substance? Way to love your brothers in Christ.
And way to confirm my supposition that you are clueless.
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erik, quadruple ding.
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The Hippie Pope that Keeps on Giving — Or “Let Francis be Francis (of Assisi)
All dogs and every other creature go to have, sez Bergog, despite the fact that Ratzinger said the oppo.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/12/12/pope-francis-dogs-can-go-to-heaven/20296955/
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Darryl,
You are mistaken about CTC’s function as soon as you construe it in terms of a sales “pitch” rather than as that of making and evaluating arguments in a forum for charitable dialogue aimed at resolving disagreements. These are two very different kinds of activities, and the notion of “fine print” applies only to the former. The disagreement between Douthat and Martin is fully compatible with everything we’ve said being true. (If you disagree, please show where their disagreement contradicts something we’ve claimed or argued.) But if the disagreement between Douthat and Martin is fully compatible with everything we’ve said being true, then it is neither relevant to that on which we (CTC) are focused, namely, that which still divides Protestants and Catholics, nor provides any sufficient reason for prolonging that divide. With regard to the Catholic-Protestant task of healing that divide, such in-house, intra-Catholic disagreements are mere red herrings. Again, however, if you disagree, please show where the Douthat-Martin disagreement contradicts or is incompatible with something we’ve claimed or argued at CTC regarding the principles relevant to the resolution of the Catholic-Protestant divide.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Bryan, what about the “call” in Called to Communion don’t you understand? It’s not Dialogue in Disagreement.
More duplicity.
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Bryan, why not take the tried and true method — syncretism? It’s not like it would get you kicked out for saying it’s all good, pull up a chair, no biggie.
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Bryan – The disagreement between Douthat and Martin is fully compatible with everything we’ve said being true.
Erik – But hey, so is everything else apparently, so that’s not news.
Such humility.
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Bryan,
Here’s a way to resolve the Protestant/Catholic divide: Renounce your conversion and return to the Presbyterian or Reformed Church where you made membership vows.
Most of us are faithful to vows we took. You aren’t.
Refute that.
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Same thing with (not to pick on) Jason. He made vows, not just as a member, but as an ordained minister. He forsook them.
Why should he be trusted? Why should Bryan be trusted?
Why not trust Darryl who has been faithful to his for probably 30 years now?
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One more,
This whole “read everything I’ve ever written and point out how it is inconsistent with X” schtick is getting tired and shopworn.
The answer to that is: “No – go jump in the lake”
Either answer the questions raised in Darryl’s article or go away. You waste people’s time by referring them to your 10,000 word articles. The man who actually wants to pick them apart, only to have you reject any potentially cogent arguments against them on some bogus technicality, needs to go play games at the carnival — he’ll face better odds and will maybe at least come home with a big stuffed animal.
Time is a non-renewable resource. Learn to value others’ time.
If you think you have great answers to Darryl’s criticism, cut-and-paste. If your articles are as good as you say you should have something for every conceivable criticism.
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Bryan,
Is this true:
(1 Corinthians 11:19 ESV)
Yes or no?
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Erik, one thing about telling B to go away. I will say he is actually writing words to us (DG in this case) in his convo. Let’s let him speak. I want to hear what he has to say. I say let’s let him have the next word.
What say you, Bryan? Pick and respond to whatever you like.
I’m out.
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sorry, i don’t mean to police. disregard the above.
you know, bryan, i was reviewing some old discussions
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/10/on-religious-liberty-an-objection-considered/#comment-78367
i appreciate learning among you guys at ctc. i follow you on twitter after all. anyway, just trying to help.
see you all tomorrow, if not later. peace.
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New slogan:
Called to Communion: Christian Unity for the Feeble-Minded
Note that Bryan would never sacrifice his paradigm for the sake of ours.
Under our paradigm he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, however, and he knows that we believe that to be the case.
Yet, he persists in inviting us to come and read his pieces for the ostensible sake of seeking Christian unity together.
He’s asking us to betray our paradigm. That in and of itself is wolf-like
Asking someone who you know has made a commitment to Sola Fide to consider the Claims of Rome is akin to asking a married man to come into a strip club — merely for the sake of looking, of course.
So when Bryan comes around we should probably treat him like we would treat a tout for a strip club — no better, no worse.
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Andrew,
My personal opinion is that you play footsie with these guys way more than is healthy for you.
I’m a pretty hard man — I’m up to the task 24/7/365.
I fear that you may not be.
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Erik, I’m past my posting limit. So this will be 140 characters (as close as I can make it), and that’s it. you know me..
I’m fine with your assessment. I’ve been told since I debated with my jewish friends in high school politics and religion that i am a fence sitter. So you’re on to something.
Ultimately, RCCs do come around here to this website instead of other reformed blogs, despite Kenneth’s baseless assertions about what this place is like, and I could go on. I think the reason is the Old School Presby is smart and Machen knew that there was a time for acrimonious debate with those we disagree with to stop, and we must turn to prayer instead. I’ll post the quote if you want. I’ve always enjoyed your presence here, so you’ll get nothing but a high five from me. I want Bryan to keep talking with us, is all. Again, I’m past my posting limit, and this is way more that 140 characters. But I’m not going to start blogging agian, or my mother and tom van dyke will start posting on the same pages. do i really want that?
im out.
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Andrew – I want Bryan to keep talking with us, is all.
Erik – I want Bryan to start talking with us.
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gazillion +1 ding erik. that’s why you are you.
bryan’s (or anyone else’s turn) to the tee, giddy up.
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DGHART,
you think Douthat and Martin are void of substance? Way to love your brothers in Christ.
They are great. I could read Douthat all day. Its your cobbling together of quotes and flinging them at CtC that we both know is nonsense. Just admit it. You are driving traffic.
And way to confirm my supposition that you are clueless
Awwwww….
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Erik,
I’ll translate for those who don’t speak Caller
I wonder… is the problem that they are too strict on their regulating…. or is it that you just have a hard time staying on topic and advancing the conversation? Many of my comments at CtC have been moderated out of existence, but I usually knew and understood why….
The fact that they allowed Brandon Addison to write an enormous post advancing reformed arguments is evidence that they genuinely are interested in dialog. Only, not the kind that you are interested in participating in. If you don’t like their call, dont visit the site. Problem solved.
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Darryl,
First you would need to demonstrate (rather than merely assert) that there is something in it I don’t understand.
Again, if you think the disagreement between Douthat and Martin is not fully compatible with everything we’ve said being true, please show where their disagreement contradicts something we’ve claimed or argued at CTC regarding the principles relevant to the resolution of the Catholic-Protestant divide. If, however, you agree that the disagreement between Douthat and Martin is fully compatible with everything we’ve said being true, then everything we’ve said still stands. So which is it?
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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“fully compatible with everything we’ve said being true, then everything we’ve said still stands”
Bryan, how many times have you typed the above phrases in one form or another? Let me give you a human perspective: It comes of as arrogant, cocksure, exaggerated, and ultimately insecure. It moves the needle on the BS detector. Everything fully compatible, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum. It’s not working. Try something else.
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Bryan, like cw says, consider OldLife your product development advisers. Try a different approach. People who read stuff like Martin and Douthat can’t read you and think you represent the communion to which you call.
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Darryl,
Perhaps you missed what I said just above about our not being in sales.
Perhaps, but the “Which is it?” question I asked above, and which you have not answered, was not directed to other people; it was to you.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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“First you would need to demonstrate (rather than merely assert) that there is something in it I don’t understand.”
You said your site isn’t a sales pitch. Your site’s title says otherwise. Your unseemly boasting of converts who are causing real pain to their families and congregations they betrayed suggests otherwise as well. Enough with the sophistry.
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Kenneth the Youthful – Its your cobbling together of quotes
Erik the Middle Aged translates – Its your cobbling together of (really, really long) quotes (that are practically the whole article).
You’re starting to do a bad Tom Van Dyke impression, KTY.
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Kenneth the Youthful – Many of my comments at CtC have been moderated out of existence, but I usually knew and understood why….
Erik – If you are both in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome, why would they need to moderate your comments out of existence?
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Kenneth the Youthful – The fact that they allowed Brandon Addison to write an enormous post advancing reformed arguments is evidence that they genuinely are interested in dialog.
Erik – Or in having fodder to take several months to have three guys write a response to.
Kenneth the Youthful – If you don’t like their call, dont visit the site. Problem solved.
Erik – I agree with that.
If Bryan doesn’t like how D.G. posts, should he take the same advice?
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I will say that it is to their credit that CTC allowed the post by Brandon Addison.
The constant logic lessons are to their discredit. As is their refusal to even entertain the possibility that the church hierarchy might go bad and it might be up to the laity to put it back on track (a la Douthat, who actually looks at history and the current situation).
It’s also to their discredit that they can’t say “Y’know, Francis really is stirring the waters and saying some confusing things. The fact that people think he’s soft on divorce and homosexuality, given the number and diversity of them, might mean something more than ‘well, they just don’t understand how the system works.'”
It’s also to their discredit that they can’t see how they are controlled by their presuppositions.
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Bryan the Cross (as in increasingly grumpy) – Perhaps you missed what I said just above about our not being in sales.
Erik – And we are thankful for that, as your children would be skinny.
Not to quibble, but is Jason of “Jason and the Callers” not indeed now working in (car) sales?
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sdb – Your unseemly boasting of converts who are causing real pain to their families and congregations they betrayed suggests otherwise as well. Enough with the sophistry.
Erik – Not many converts, though, especially with the slump the Callers are currently mired in.
The ratio of words typed to converts won is getting pretty large which each article written.
And top trophy Jason may not be working out as hoped.
http://www.drunkexpastors.com/
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katniss, dg is not some conjurer of cheap tricks.
We all know your age, and unfortunately, that can work against you. We’re trying to help you, Bilbo.
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Robert,
It’s also to their (at least Bryan’s) discredit that he talks to everyone here like they are 18-22 year old undergraduates who need him to give them a good grade. That’s not how you talk to adult men.
In my experience Tom Brown acts like this on steroids. Casey Chalk will talk to you like a man, but he’s the only one I’ve encountered there who does.
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erik, i listened to about 20 min of 20th podcast. i agree with you, Christian and Jason are intelligent, and it’s an enjoyable podcast. but i’ve listened to the provacative style before, this atheist went to school with my wife, we debated over the internet theology. nice guy, but it’s all been done before. I couldn’t listen anymore, my job is too stressful and bach music is better at such times. but jason and christian do a good job for what they are doing. adios.
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robert, the pope says confusing things? like all dogs go to heaven? I’m sure someone posted this at OL today, you just gotta love this stuff:
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“Perhaps, but the “Which is it?” question I asked above, and which you have not answered, was not directed to other people; it was to you.”
You really can’t think of the answer? You claim that Rome provides greater certainty and a superior way of resolving theological disputes. A faithful priest disputes this basic claim about the superiority of your communion. If someone who has devoted his life to service to and learning about the church can’t get it right, what hope do I have? Why should I believe you (indeed, why should you be so self-confident)? Ross thinks the priest is wrong about this fundamental understanding of the magisterium – who will resolve it for them? Pope “who am I to judge” Francis? The magisterium has proven impotent at resolving this dispute.
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It’s as if B thinks his website is the Bible. Oh the inerrant and infallible CtC. I understand B has invested many years in this project. But I think my point here gets to their misunderstanding of Sola Scriptura, if you catch my point. Oh well, B is extending the call to DG. My call, echoed by EC above is still open, boys.
So which is it, yo?
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Bryan, don’t be discouraged (even if you didn’t make the cut). There’s this.
To be clear, you are calling people to a communion. You do no represent your communion accurately. You say you don’t have to. I judge that to be disingenuous.
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ab, so that’s the communion to which I’m called?
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Darryl, You know it. I’ll try to take an elder’s advice and play less footsie (thx as always EC). I enjoy your reflections over there, so who knows, maybe I’ll still frequent the site on occasion, for old time’s sake. I’ll know I’ve made it when I have BC clearing up my playful digs as he did for you.
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
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So let’s get this straight, Bryan says it’s not his job to point out Rome’s warts and he therefore does not do so on his site.
So we respond by pointing out Rome’s warts and Bryan then claims that he has already accounted for everything we are saying on his site.
How has he accounted for the warts if he explicitly says his site is not about Rome’s warts?
This is why his invitation to go re-read everything he’s written is utterly bogus.
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Erik, and it proves that Bryan (and Kenneth?) are here not to talk to us, but to convert us to their religious cult, as sdb so clearly pointed out. Although I may post one more comment. I still love Zrim’s “shell game.”
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Darryl,
Except we’re not. There’s a bit of the word-concept fallacy going on here. You are taking our title, which is not “Called To *A* Communion,” and treating it as though it means something it does not actually mean, and which we do not mean by it. Yes Christ calls us to unity of some sort. Do we (at CTC) have an opinion about what that unity is? Of course. And do we (CTC) present arguments for our position on that question? Indeed. But as I’ve explained in the the “Virtue and Dialogue” post (see, for example, comment #6, which is a reply to a question by your own Erik Charter), insofar as there is a ‘call’ at CTC, it is only a call to enter into dialogue. That’s not a call to enter the Catholic Church or to become Catholic. The arguments we offer in support of Catholicism, within the context of that dialogue, are not a “call” or a “pitch,” they are arguments. And the making, offering, and evaluating of arguments is a very different kind of activity (different in species) from calling persons to do or become x.
You construe the making and evaluating of arguments within the context of dialogue as though it is equivalent to what the traveling revivalist preacher does in his sermons every night of revival week, or what the traveling encyclopedia salesman does every day door to door. But the two kinds of activity could hardly be more different, in ways I’ve explained here before. A person who doesn’t know logic, and doesn’t know what arguments are and how they are rightly evaluated (and doesn’t know that he doesn’t know this), will not see that difference, and thus will treat all arguments as sales “pitches,” or calls to ‘buy’ a product or convert to something. For such a person, all argumentation will be perceived as and construed as some form of hortatory address aimed at compelling the will to embrace x, through some means other than rationally demonstrating to the interlocutor the truth of x. But that doesn’t make argumentation into hortatory address, just as the sophist’s construal of all speech as what he does, does not mean or entail that there is no species of inquiry or speech aimed at finding the truth and attaining agreement in the truth.
This genre confusion on your part is at the heart of almost all your criticisms of CTC. Almost all your criticisms presuppose the non-existence of argumentation as a kind of activity distinct from exhortation and sales pitches, and thus your criticisms are built on a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what persons engaged in offering and evaluating argumentation are actually doing. That’s why for you, any communicative activity claiming not to be “pitching” and thus subject to what is normative in “pitching,” is “disingenuous,” as you put in your comment above. And that’s also precisely why you are evading my “Which is it?” question, because to you, I’m just sales “pitching,” like you. And evading difficult questions is just what smooth salesmen do. But all of this is built on your presupposition that there is no such thing as argumentation distinct from “pitching.” And that’s essentially the very same presupposition Socrates addresses in Plato’s Gorgias.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Public Service Announcement
http://americamagazine.org/issue/james-martin-and-ross-douthat-pope-francis-synod-and-demands-law-and-mercy
Things said by Ross Douthat and James Martin for which Bryan and the Callers have not fully accounted in their Call:
1. Martin quotes Douthat as saying that “the church is stained by scandal.”
2. Martin quotes Douthat as saying that Catholics have suffered “moral betrayals by their leaders.”
3. Martin quotes Douthat as saying that Catholics are in danger of suffering “a theological betrayal.”
4. Douthat says that the Church has changed its teachings on Limbo.
5. Martin locates authority in the whole church (including the laity) and stresses several times that we must look at how the Holy Spirit is working in the church today — no mention of any superior paradigm centered on an infallible Pope.
6. Douthat says that the “conservative/progressive binary” can be “disastrous for the faith.”
7. Douthat says “just saying ‘the magisterium has spoken, the case is closed’ is not generally an argument that suffices to persuade, within the church or outside it.”
8. Douthat refers to “the unhealthy papolatry that sometimes built up under John Paul II” and suggests that such “papolatry” needs to be “cured”.
9. Douthat expresses sympathy with the notion that “the Vatican is not the church entire.”
10. Douthat expresses sympathy with the notion that “many worthwhile experiments in Catholic history have been undertaken without a stamp of approval (quite the reverse, indeed) from the hierarchy.”
11. Douthat says of progressives that “they had already decided that what any specific pope says about sex or marriage can be taken as provisional, subject to the future revision by the Holy Spirit.”
12. Douthat says that conservatives “believe there are things the church can’t change, can’t teach, without effacing its basic claims to authority, continuity and faithfulness to Christ.”
13, Douthat says that many “bishops and theologians think that the proposal to allow divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist absent an annulment isn’t just ‘pastoral’…but essentially changes the church’s view of marriage’s indissolubility in ways that don’t just conflict with natural law but with divine law, with the words of Jesus himself.”
14. Douthat says that “the direction that Pope Francis may be pushing (are) fraught with a distinctive kind of peril for the church.”
15. Douthat says that “on rare occasions, the cause of Catholic truth may need to be served by resisting Peter, perhaps even to his face.”
16. Martin reminds us (referring to Vatican II) that the church is not simply the hierarchy, it is the entire “People of God.”
17. Martin talks about how it is important for “council fathers” to be able to read the “signs of the times” as they did at Vatican II.
18. Martin quotes “Nostra Aetate” in saying that “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in (religions other than Catholicism),”
19. Martin notes that “That (Nostra Aetate) stands in stark contrast to statements from popes and councils in other parts of the magisterium, over the centuries, too numerous to mention.”
20. Martin notes that “‘Dignitatus Humanae’, the document that guaranteed the ‘right to religious freedom’, that is, to worship and believe as each person desires…is also in stark contrast to the former church dictum, ‘Error has no rights.'”
21. Martin notes how, at Vatican II, “there were several documents written by preparatory commissions that essentially restated church teaching as it then stood. Once the council was convened, however, and the bishops began their discussions, and saw that they could speak freely, those original documents were heavily revised and often scrapped entirely.”
22. Martin continues, “Had there been no discussion, there would have been no change. And, at the time, many of these issues were almost too shocking to consider. Now they are church teaching.”
23. Martin cites John Noonan describing how “various teachings have changed (and) how these changes have helped the church.”
24. Martin notes how Jesuits owned slaves in colonial Maryland.
25. Douthat says that some matters can absolutely be too dangerous to discuss “when the person encouraging the discussion has supreme teaching authority in the church.”
26. Douthat notes that Catholics have debated “(in the) not at all distant past”, “whether to integrate theories of racial and eugenic hierarchy into Catholic moral teaching.”
27. Douthat notes that “every power and principality of our age – every establishment, political and judicial and cultural – is on the side of change in these internal church debates.”
28. Martin suggests a hierarchy of authority (from lowest to highest):
(A) a pastor proclaiming from the pulpit his opinion on a political matter in the community
(B) a papal encyclical
(C) a document from an ecumenical council
(D) the words of Jesus in the Gospels
Note no mention of a pope speaking ex-cathedra (i.e. infallibly)
29. Martin says that for him “the essentials are contained, first, in the Gospels and, second, in the Nicene Creed.”
30. Martin says that “tradition is holy” and “change can be holy too.”
31. Martin reiterates that the church is “we, the entire People of God.”
32. Douthat questions the validity of several aspect of pre-Vatican II Catholicism :
(A) “The ritualistic spirit of Eat meat on Friday, go straight to hell, do not pass go.”
(B) “The God-as-accountant image inherent in say these seventeen different prayers to thirteen different saints and receive in return exactly 4,544 days off Purgatory.”
(C) “The culture of shame and silence around sexuality.”
(D) “The punitive visions of hell immortalized by James Joyce.”
(E) “The pomp and circumstance embraced by the princes of the church.”
He says that all these things are “grounded in real aspects of the pre-1960s church, which were in need of correction and reform.”
33. Douthat speaks of the “traditionalist” church as “the church of lace and legalisms…that the current pontiff is particularly quick to critique.”
34. Douthat says that today’s Catholic Church “has more in common with, and I speak from experience, certain forms of Mainline Protestantism and megachurch evangelicalism.”
35. Douthat says that “we’ve become a church of long communion and short confession lines.”
36. Douthat says that “(we’ve become a church of) Jesus-affirms-you sermons.”
37, Douthat says that “(we’ve become a church of) marriage preparation retreats (like mine) where most of the couples are cohabiting and nobody particularly cares.”
38. Douthat says that “(we’ve become a church of) widespread popular attitudes toward the divine and toward church teaching that mostly resemble H. Richard Niebuhr’s vision of a God without wrath, men without sin, and a Kingdom without judgment.”
39. Douthat suggests that admonition is no longer given in the church.
40. Douthat suggests that “not only individual pastors but the church itself promises absolution irrespective of amendment.”
41. Douthat quotes Cardinal Kasper’s remark that certain forms of moral heroism are “not for the average Christian.”
42. Douthat says that “conservative Catholics inhabit a kind of sociological bubble, in which we don’t see the burdens the church imposes clearly.”
43. Douthat believes that there is a “clear and pressing danger of a church that no longer even tries to teach the truth.”
44. Martin says that “too many Catholics, at least in this country, feel…that the church no longer speaks to some important parts of their lives.”
45. Martin says that American Catholics sense “a shift from a teaching church to a listening church.”
46, Martin says that “we must listen to the workings of the Holy Spirit among the People of God, which includes the bishops and the pope. And by trusting in that Spirit, we will not be led astray.”
On most of these statements, points, and assertions we get from the Callers…crickets.
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ab,
The difference between Kenneth & Bryan is that Kenneth will actually come here and duke it out. I respect that, although I do not find his arguments very compelling.
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Bryan, do I have to call you again to clear all this up?
Here, I’m bored.
If I blog on all this nonsense, will you pay me a visit and post a comment, telling me nothing I wrote contradicts what you wrote at the oh so infallible, inspired, and innerant word of Bryan?
I think you are trying to hard, my friend. Peace.
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Erik, careful — your list may overheat the mechanism. Which exists, of course.
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OUTRAGE!
http://www.eyeofthetiber.com/2014/12/12/pope-francis-confirms-cats-still-going-to-hell/
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That is a blog post:
http://literatecomments.com/2014/12/13/a-public-service-announcement-inconvenient-facts-about-21st-century-roman-catholicism-for-which-bryan-cross-his-friends-at-called-to-communion-have-not-fully-accounted-for-in-their-call/
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Erik, I’ll stick with your word over mine. You’re the elder, I’m the deacon (duh). My only question is, what do you do when your mom shows up at your blog, alongside TVD’s shite.
Sigh..
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And if Bryan says he’s fully accounted for all that without proving it he’s merely handwaving.
Let’s see the direct quotes from CTC articles, point-by-point.
Not references to the whole site or whole articles. I want sentences & paragraphs.
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Bryan, more deceit.
I’m not doing what you do. A blog is for kvetching, aggregating, and (worst) posting logical or philosophical reflections. But you deceive yourself and others by describing CTC the way you do. If it’s not recruitment, then why so many testimonies (except that you guys still have all the affect of Protestantism — think conversion stories and doctrine as the test of all genuine experience).
Also, you deceive by claiming that Erik is mine. Even his wife knows no one owns him.
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Erik, to be fair, all we get is “gee golly isn’t Roman Catholicism a great theory.”
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cw, no peace, no justice, no CTC logical precision.
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I’ll say this Erik. I’ve appreciated whenever a cat hangs around here. Cyncial AB says I enjoy the benefit our propo (may Philip Seymour Hoffman rest in peace) gets when it’s made clear that catholics are willing to talk with us. And again, with Machen, we must be propogandists, as we expect from our rad trad RC’s who hang with us. Look, locutus of borg never relented, nor did ahab with his whale.
So however they want to interact with us, I don’t care. Whether they show us point by point or not. Again, I think Machen got that we put our guns down, and just get back to prayer. We can’t dictate how they talk with us, no more than we can stop any one of us from posting a gazillion comments, or 10,000 word tomes about movies designed for tween girls. It’s the wild west out here. Let’s see if Bryan can try to enjoy it. I get he’s invested, and even his career is about it. I make no judgments out here. I just let my fingers type type type.
Who’s next?
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who am i to judge, yo?
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Bryan, btw, it’s not much of a dialogue when interlocutors constantly receive instruction, as if an 8-year old at the dinner table, on how to speak.
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If what Bryan is saying here is true, the name “Called to Communion” is disingenuous.
If what they are issuing is a call to good-faith discussion about the things that separate us, call the site “Called to Discussion”.
Ask yourself, how do you have “communion” with a Roman Catholic?
There is only one way — become a Roman Catholic. They practice closed Communion.
Yet another example of their dishonesty.
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@Bryan
There are 3 positions in the Douthat-Martin dialogue that disagree with CtC theology:
1) An acknowledgement of the Catholic position that the hierarchy is an aspect of the church rather than the definition of the church. That is Football is an aspect of American culture while, “the culture of the people living within the country called ‘The United States of America'” is a definition for the culture. That’s an absolutely key distinction they make, most Catholics make. There is no such thing as “the rules of professional football” outside of what the NFL says the rules of professional football are. OTOH one can distinguish between the rules of Poker in the Borgota in New Jersey and rules at say Commerce Casino in Los Angeles as being equally legitimate.
2) The distinction between the church being guided by the Holy Spirit and the hierarchy being guided by the Holy Spirit. In particular this is one of the big distinctions between Eastern and Western rite Catholicism. One you tend to blow right past.
3) It demonstrates the church as reacting to historical circumstances rather than neutrally and faithfully repeated a deposit of faith generation after generation.
So there are 3 not differences in emphasis but clear cut contradictions between their theology (which is IMHO much more in keeping with the theology of actual Catholics) and the CtC theology.
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@Bryan
Bryan that’s the same thing. One of the jobs in running a company is writing sales decks. A sales deck is essentially a long logical argument which helps the prospect think through the issue and whose conclusion directly or indirectly is why they should buy stuff from me. That’s what a pitch is.
___
That being said I agree with your next two paragraphs. I think your clarification on issues of logic and epistemology do credit to the debate. To pick for example the Brandon debate which Robert mentioned above I think you made a bunch of errors in those 4 points but his not attacking the argument there is why he lost so thoroughly. At the root many arguments are epistemological not factual.
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D.G. – Even his wife knows no one owns him.
Erik – No, she thinks she owns me, and what with the alimony & child support I would have to pay, she does. (ha, ha if you’re reading honey).
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Erik, she can’t be bought.
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CD, always glad to see you show up. You bring back my Tillichian days.
I appreciate your roping this conversation back in. I’m always sad to see these threads at OL reach the 100+ comment amount. I would encourage readers of this blog to stop reading this comment here, as this will further take the convo into the weeds. What follows are my random thoughts, down by river so to speak..
A verse comes to mind:
(Luke 16:8 ESV)
Why must I post a bible verse and a link? I argued against liberal xtianity for years. Years. Until someone (an op pastor, imagine that) told me, chill out, and use Scripture against the lib. The convo goes like this:
Lib prot: Hi andrew, let’s talk about this wonderful RCR article i read, it reminds me of Tillich….
Andrew: Hi Lib prot. Wow, how provacative. I don’t mind being taken away from my children and job, and instead have to wade through whatever little nugget of wisdom the internet uncovered for you today. by the way, are you reading your bible today? how’s that going?
Lib prot: nah, the bible is boring. I’d much rather read lib prot. Isn’t it awesome?
(end of convo).
You see, the Lord speaks to us in scripture ( ❗ ) and that means something. I’ve evaluated the claims of lib prots and found them wanting. Like usual, this comment is all over the place, and does not advance the convo. But to me, Jace and Bry have joined the liberal institution that is doubling down on Vat 2 (oh, it’s only pastoral right? didn’t change anything? cue the RC rad trad response, where’s my RC rad trad blog when I need it, talking about BB warfield calling their offices, stat!, to clear my head from all this..)
If you got through this and read anyway, again, nothing to add here, nothing to see here. Darryl wants Bryan’s call to catholicism to be qualified, so he writes blog posts doing BC’s qualificaiton for him, since BC won’t do it. Anyway, toodles folks. I have a family to attend to.
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And as for cats and dogs, it appears we were all duped. Back to my bible reading..
http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/12/13/pope-francis-says-all-dogs-go-to-heaven-not-so-fast/
Carry on.
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Darryl,
That’s precisely my point.
There’s a fourth option, which I described in my previous comment. If you have an argument showing why that fourth option cannot take place on a website, feel free to present it. Merely stipulating that web sites can be used only for the three things you list, however, does not establish the truth of that stipulation.
That assertion presupposes that what I said in describing CTC as I did is not true, which is precisely what remains to be shown, and is thus a question-begging criticism.
A personal story can be a kind of argument, especially if it includes the reasoning that was involved in working through these questions. Your notion that if a site includes personal stories of persons changing their position, then it must be engaged in a “pitch” or “recruitment,” and not argumentation, is an unsubstantiated and question-begging presupposition. In addition, your implied claim that we think conversion stories are the “test of all genuine experience” is not true, and thus criticizes a straw man.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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my bad: (HT: ilovesciencesexually.
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Bryan, like I say, it’s not all that much of a dialogue if one party keeps correcting the other party about the right way to speak.
Are you for real?
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Darryl,
Of course this is not dialogue. For the reasons I explained in the “Virtue and Dialogue” post, there are certain minimal conditions necessary for dialogue, and having at least a modicum of concern for and understanding of logic is one of them. You want the ‘freedom’ to wallow repeatedly in logical fallacies (e.g. straw men, begging the question, etc.), and then complain about the unpleasantness of the ‘dialogue’ when someone points out to you that these are fallacies. But you can’t have it both ways, for precisely the reason I explained in the post just cited.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Bryan,
Viewing all of life through the lens of philosophy must be a hoot.
It may not result in many invitations to parties.
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“But you deceive yourself and others by describing CTC the way you do. If it’s not recruitment, then why so many testimonies (except that you guys still have all the affect of Protestantism — think conversion stories and doctrine as the test of all genuine experience).”
Darryl,
I, for one, started reading CtC precisely because Protestantism began to crumble underneath me. Thank God they were there, able to deal with the philosophical undergirding of the respective systems.
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We’re witnessing Bryan the Cross morph into Bryan the Extremely Grumpy right before our eyes.
He is at least morphing in the Peace of Christ, though.
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logic isn’t everything.
Are you sure your heart is in this?
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Lots of guys listened to the pitches of Army recruiters over the past decade, merely believing it was not a pitch, just a conversation.
Many of them came home from Iraq or Afghanistan in boxes or with missing legs.
Be careful who you have conversations with, in other words.
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Susan – Darryl,
I, for one, started reading CtC precisely because Protestantism began to crumble underneath me.
Erik – Couldn’t that just be a Susan problem as opposed to a problem with “Protestantism”?
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Susan,
And why did you put your trust in the writings on that website?
How’s The Hobbit going?
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The most significant problem for CTC is that it never asks whether its expectations are legitimate. What if they’re looking for something Christ never promised to give? If Christ is the way but He never promised to give what they think he should promise, isn’t it a mark of faithlessness to demand it of them?
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@AB
First off I’m not and have never been a liberal Christian. A example I like to use because it is so simple is handling 2Cor 12:2. I address the issue with the verse here: http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/2009/07/venus-translation-vs-transculturation.html . How should a modern Christian read that verse? Conservative Christianity has no reasonable to answer to that kind of basic question other than pretending the problem doesn’t exist.
Rudolf Bultmann most certainly read the bible. He couldn’t possibly have written an analysis of Gospel of John so powerful that no serious analysis since then doesn’t address his critique without having been rather familiar with Gospel of John. But what he did was unflinchingly read Gospel of John. Take the author seriously on his own terms and try and present how best to bring this book into our culture.
Then you move onto more complex issues like the the germ theory of disease. The bible unequivocally presents the demon theory of disease which is a belief that conservatives don’t even hold. What is the conservative response to that? As far as I can tell the way conservatives relate to the bible is by ignoring most of it, and then torturing what’s left to conform to their theology even when the text obviously means something different.
To pick something that’s no so atheistically based as those two examples: http://anti-federalvisionstudybible.blogspot.com
Liberal Christianity doesn’t ignore the bible, but rather respects it enough not to pretend that what is written isn’t there and tries to work out how to formulate a religion that still holds to the bible as important even when it is no longer possible to believe it is “true” in a naive sense.
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@AB
My last comment ended up in moderation jail. Here is it again with the links redacted:
@AB
You see, the Lord speaks to us in scripture ( ❗ ) and that means something. I’ve evaluated the claims of lib prots and found them wanting.
First off I’m not and have never been a liberal Christian. A example I like to use because it is so simple is handling 2Cor 12:2. I address the issue with the verse here: church-discipline.blogspot DOT com2009/07/venus-translation-vs-transculturation DOT html . How should a modern Christian read that verse? Conservative Christianity has no reasonable to answer to that kind of basic question other than pretending the problem doesn’t exist.
Rudolf Bultmann most certainly read the bible. He couldn’t possibly have written an analysis of Gospel of John so powerful that no serious analysis since then doesn’t address his critique without having been rather familiar with Gospel of John. But what he did was unflinchingly read Gospel of John. Take the author seriously on his own terms and try and present how best to bring this book into our culture.
Then you move onto more complex issues like the the germ theory of disease. The bible unequivocally presents the demon theory of disease which is a belief that conservatives don’t even hold. What is the conservative response to that? As far as I can tell the way conservatives relate to the bible is by ignoring most of it, and then torturing what’s left to conform to their theology even when the text obviously means something different.
To pick something that’s no so atheistically based as those two examples: anti-federalvisionstudybible.blogspot DOT com
Liberal Christianity doesn’t ignore the bible, but rather respects it enough not to pretend that what is written isn’t there and tries to work out how to formulate a religion that still holds to the bible as important even when it is no longer possible to believe it is “true” in a naive sense.
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@Susan
And not that CtC’s claims crumbles beneath you you do a good job of sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LA-LA-LA at the top of your lungs. So which worked out better for you hopping trains fast or just pretending you don’t know what you do?
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CD, thanks. We may need to switch to your blog or email. The Bible is the Word of God. That’s how, in simple terms, we deal with it. We flesh that out in chapter one of WCF. Also in the membership vows of the OPC. I know you are not a lib xtian, you hold to Theosophy as I recall.
More later. Peace.
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@AB
This isn’t a deep issue. If Paul’s friend was on Venus from whom did he If he “hear things too sacred to be put into words”. How did those speakers handle the sulfuric acid atmosphere? The crushing pressure? The heat that could melt metal? And how would a first century person have associated the environment he was looking at (forgetting about what it means to hear and see out of body) with “the 3rd heaven”? Sure we can speculate that Paul by “out of body” means he had a vision. Which is probably what the author did mean. But it isn’t the plain meaning of the text. The plain meaning of the text is he in some sense went there and heard some really exalted stuff.
At some point you have to deal with a hermeneutic that goes beyond base platitudes in the WCF. It didn’t happen in accord with the plain meaning of the text because it couldn’t have happened. The plain meaning of the text is completely invalidated by what we know of the world. The WCF doesn’t resolve those hermeneutical problems it ducks them. It pretends they don’t exist when the moment anyone picks up a bible and looks carefully they see these issues on every page. In other places that aren’t so clear cut the WCF directly tortures the meaning of the text.
The WCF hands down a rule of interpretation that is pretty clear, “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly by asserting that the plain meaning of the bible.”
It then proceeds to the precisely the opposite interpreting scripture in complete contradiction to the plain meaning and ignoring context. The authors of the WCF couldn’t get through the WCF itself without ignoring the text of scripture. Heck they couldn’t get through the very next first sentence of Chapter II of the WCF without ignoring scripture. They didn’t make it one sentence in the WCF using the very means they outlined in chapter 1! Is there any reason that your liberal shouldn’t consider your method wanting if your own confession can’t apply the rules it outlines for even one sentence while it is being written?
You are accusing Liberals of not reading the bible. They moment they start reading the bible, you say “well ignore the bible actually says and read the WCF instead”. Let me point you back to your 11:54am post today where you address that.
So I’m not asking for a solution in simple terms. I’m asking for it in quite specific terms. Starting with 2Cor12:2. And then onto the germ theory of disease. And then maybe we hit the 1st sentence of chapter 2, why we should ignore the bible unambiguous preaching henotheism if our theology is to be monotheism.
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CD I read a few if your articles and I’m mulling over my response. They may be easy, low hanging fruit, just not suitable for this thread IMHO. It’s me alone with my 3 year old, I’ve not forgotten you, friend. Again, more later. Peace.
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“demand it of Him”
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CD-Host,
If you think that I didn’t get well thought and explained answers to my up- against-a- wall-predicament, and that I simply chose Catholicism because I didn’t have the mind or the strength to investigate more, then you think wrong. But you are an atheist, so I really don’t understand what you are after when you come to this site. As far as the Protestant vs. Catholic question goes, I can answer how it is that Catholicism had answers to, not only mine, but every seeker of truth’s questions when the holes of Protestantism quickly open up underneath. Would you rather that my questionings led to atheism? Maybe that is your goal, I don’t know, but be assured that since I am certain that God exists and that Christianity is the religion that reveals the God that is real, I am not wavering between what you might see as competing denominations as if scripture isn’t clear that Jesus founded a church. Further, if you think that Catholicism is just a sect as equally as unenlightened as the rest of Christendom, then it doesn’t make any sense why you are choosing to side with Protestantism. In your eyes every Christian sect is chasing a myth anyways. Why do you think Protestantism is a better answer? I’m surprised the Darryl and the others haven’t spotted their real foe yet.
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Bryan, Douthat and Martin had a dialogue without calling into question the other person’s speaking. Dialogue happens all the time. Heck, I suspect it even happens in your home.
But on-line you are a creep.
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Susan, no offense, but I’m given to think based on your comments that a lot in your life has been crumbling beneath you.
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ec, beat me to it.
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I’m still baffled by Susan and Bryan. My only solace is that so is the pope. And while that’s a quip and worthwhile all by itself, it’s also true. Shouldn’t that observation, alone, give great pause to the whole enterprise at CtC? The pope, your guy, your principled means personified-persons not text, audacity, etc. is convinced you (CtC, Burkeian, Scott Hahn Acolytes) are THE problem. I know I’m just a multi-generational, cradle Irish (former) RC. But the pope and I read from the same RC playbook. Who the H-E-L-L are you impostors? So, bizarre. No wonder Pachence was distressed.
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Darryl,
May you have a blessed, restful, and joyful Lord’s Day. Tomorrow my family will celebrate Gaudete Sunday.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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No one does the piety juke like The Hat.
Here’s my own: Hope your 2nd Commandment violations aren’t too egregious.
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cw, for Called to Creep, it’s the first commandment. They merge our 1 and 2, and break up our 10 into 9 and 10.
But not taking the Lord’s or Mary’s name would still be a worthwhile caution.
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Bryan, what will you be doing while your family celebrates?
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Susan – If you think that I didn’t get well thought and explained answers to my up- against-a- wall-predicament
Erik – Where’s a euphemism when we need one?
I would avoid that phrasing where the RCC is involved.
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Junior high must have been absolute hell for Bryan.
He learned none of the lessons there that the rest of us did.
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“You are taking our title, which is not “Called To *A* Communion,” and treating it as though it means something it does not actually mean…”
ROFLOL. BC would make a terrific Mormon. His comments remind me of all the explanations now offered for JS’ translation of the Egyptian papyrus or the KJV Bible.
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Right there with you JM. Its like every time we fire a shot back, their shields adapt.
I’ve read and commented on B’s Virtue and Dialogue piece that he linked to. That was around the time I gave up.
Still glad he opens his hailing frequencies and shows up here tho..I knew he reads every post and combox here. He’s on a mission after all..
Toodles
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Quotes about logic:
1) Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.
Joseph Wood Krutch
2) Logic: an instrument used for bolstering a prejudice.
Elbert Hubbard
3) It is always better to say right out what you think without trying to prove anything much: for all our proofs are only variations of our opinions, and the contrary-minded listen neither to one nor the other.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
4) Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.
James Harvey Robinson
5) Logic is neither a science nor an art, but a dodge.
Benjamin Jowett
6) Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities.
Lord Dunsany
7) He was in Logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill’d in Analytic;
He could distinguish, and divide
A hair ‘twixt south and south-west side.
Samuel Butler, Hudibras.
8) We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.
Sir Winston Churchill, Reply, House of Commons, Dec. 17, 1942.
…logic, the refuge of fools. The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians—and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse.
H. L. Mencken. The American Mercury. p. 75.
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The source:
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSimanek/logic.htm
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John, good stuff.
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Yeah, excellent collection of quotes, John. #6 is my favorite.
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@Susan
No they don’t as you well know. You’ve seen the Catholic “answers” get torn to shreds here and Jason’s blog. Heck I’ve had several go rounds with you where the Catholic answer fell apart to my rather simple questions. Let’s take our most recent one I hit you with one just last month on this site: if the church fathers are reliable about the history of the biblical books and in particular Polycarp is reliable about Matthew being written in Hebrew why are there 0 examples of unusual Greek grammatical structures like you see in a translation while at the same time Matthew has a plethora of wordplay that would make no sense if translated back into Hebrew? As a seeker of truth, you and your church had no answer. You know that, I know that.
You can do the “Polycarp says it, I believe it, that settles it” routine but you know how empty that claim is. If you were interested in truth you would have looked at Matthew. I know you like to search the web so you probably did and ran into a dozen websites that tear apart the theory of Hebrew Matthew. And that left you with a problem the next logical step to having no answer was something like:
a) Polycarp didn’t know the origin of Matthew and was relying on legends. Which likely implies it originated with another Christian sect he had only a light knowledge of not a hierarchy bureaucracy he was a part of. Which of course gets to the heart of the matter.
b) Irenaeus was mistaken / lying about what Polycarp said. But he does that in the exact same paragraph where he makes the case there were only 4 apostolic gospels. So that one is not so good.
You didn’t like options (a) or (b) so you stopped responding. Faced with truth, you ran back to the comfort of lies.
I ran the Baptist apologetic against CtC’s founder and leader 5 years ago. Protestantism held up fine. As I saw this repeated again and again and again I concluded the Catholic apologetic (or CtC apologetic) doesn’t work against the doctrines that the vast majority of Protestants subscribe to.
http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/2012/01/rock-paper-scissors-of-apologetics.html
So clear that when you ask basic questions about where this church: Where were the properties located? Who owned them? What was the chain of command? When was paid staff introduced? How did the bureaucracy operate at various decades? How introduced policy changes?
If you ask me these questions about IBM I can answer because Charles Ranlett Flint really did found a company. If you ask these sorts of questions about the Catholic church a few centuries later there are answers. “Jesus founded a church” is a slogan a statement of belief like the Son redeems us from sin. It isn’t a statement of fact. “I believe in the church that Jesus founded” is no different than believing in the city Romulus and Remus founded.
There was no shewolf that kept Romulus and Remus alive and there was no Catholic church in the 1st century. You can’t answer those questions because the institution did not exist. That’s what the seeker of truth is confronted with. And you know it. You may not be willing to admit but you know it by now.
A better answer to what? What question do you think I’m asking? But to step aside for a second I do side with you all when you are right I side with them when they are right. When Protestants for example argue the Marian doctrines are late or physical presence wasn’t a doctrine from as far back as we can possibly go I point to the evidence the same way I do with you. I call ‘em like I see ‘em.
Now in a broader sense I think an ahistorical Christianity has to do less violence to historical truth than a Christianity whose claim to authority is based on historical lies. So I do think that in some sense is a better answer. Protestantism because it is not tied to history has also been able to do better work on 1st century Christianity. Walter Schmithals’ (a direct student of Rudolf Bultmann) The Office of the Apostle in the Early Church is a work of genius. He solved many of the historical problems regarding the apostles: how apostolic succession emerged, why the legends regarding the apostles are so confused, how the theology of apostolic martyrdom emerged…
Conversely Catholicism since it is far less tied in knots by biblical issues tend to do better work on translation and exegesis. Fr. Raymond Brown is well regarded as the world’s leading scholar on the Johanne literature for a reason. I’m not biased.
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John, thanks.
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I thought I lost the love at oldlife. I’m still open to a good tongue-lashing or correction when needed. I’ve grown fond of the characters at oldlife- for better or worse.
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This is a good discussion. Many thanks to the many who are participating. I really appreciate it, as an orthodox presbyterian, seeing the many different viewpoints expressed.
Earlier, I posted a link to a CTC convo I had, on the thread about religious liberty. If you read the few comments after that one, you’ll see I am asking whether or not they want to convert us (me). When I talked with Bryan on the phone, that’s precisely what I wanted to hear HIS HUMAN VOICE explain to me. I also emailed him quite a bit over this (i’ve purged all emails between myself and bryan, I’m sure he can find them if he wants).
He told me over the phone he has no reservations about wanting to convert people, for don’t I feel the same way, as a reformed protestant. Well, personally, yes and no. Sure I want him and Jason back in the fold of our religion. But these things are between them and God. I will fight however I can for their souls, using what silly tactics I imagine up. But the fact is, the Call To Communion is a disingenous operation PERIOD. I don’t care how many times Bryan comes here to OL or we go over there. It’s a shell game (thx erik for posting that). There’s really nothing more to be said, in my opinion.
I like Bryan. I think he has a good heart, I re-read his Virtue and Dialogue article. Unfortunately, he’s being disingenous, and John Y’s great post makes clear much better what I could with my reference earlier to feynman, or my continued star trek refs.
Thanks folks, on to 2015 and beyond. Peace.
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*disingenuous
Come get me.
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JY, but don’t forget Luther’s suggestion of philosophy as the devil’s whore. Ouch. Watch out, PLM is Protestantism’s aggressive Cross and may pile drive you for helping to take logic down a few pegs.
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Zrim, I laughed at that. Had to research a little the OL Nemesis..(not star trek (they used to be good..sigh…))
Ducking a pile driver, who’s next?
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Zrim,
Last I heard of PLM (if I am right in thinking who you are referring to) he was pounding iron and up to about 300 lbs on the bench press. He reminds me of some I used to come across on the street. I avoided them like a plague.
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Of course this is not dialogue. For the reasons I explained in the “Virtue and Dialogue” post, there are certain minimal conditions necessary for dialogue, and having at least a modicum of concern for and understanding of logic is one of them. You want the ‘freedom’ to wallow repeatedly in logical fallacies (e.g. straw men, begging the question, etc.), and then complain about the unpleasantness of the ‘dialogue’ when someone points out to you that these are fallacies. But you can’t have it both ways, for precisely the reason I explained in the post just cited.
So there, you anarchic anabaptist bosom burning separated sheep.
But perhaps Dr. Pangloss could smoke some of his own medicine and heel (sic) hisself.
Which is to say, contra Kenneth, we have yet to see Hahn, Stellman or even Cross do an adequate expository walk through of WCF 1 Of Holy Scripture and to be perfectly blunt, we don’t think it will ever happen. Because then the straw dog will disappear into thin air and some kind of objective appeal to Scripture, reason and history will be necessary. We doesn’t think they are up to it. The paradigmatic blinders have inured them to any errors on their part, if not Is. 6:9:
And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
Likewise any stick will do, to beat a logical fallacy.
But the problem is not logic per se, but its abuse.
One of CtC’s stock in trade is valid arguments with the false or disputed premises.
After all, if all dogs are black, and Fido is a dog, Fido is obviously not a protestant.
But so what?
To presume as Mr. Cross does, that the early church is the Roman church is to put the cart before the horsefeathers. Or yet another canard, the true church can only be the Roman church because of the unanimous
dissentconsent of the early church fathers, which come to find out is divided between Peter/his confession/Christ as the rock upon which that church is founded – the last of which Peter himself witnesses to in 1 Pet.2.There are more than enough assumptions that need to be proved, but cannot be falsified according to our logical tyro and novice for whom, only an arcane expedition into the catacombs of patristic literature subject to a lost apostolic oral tradition/Vatican interpretation, can enable one to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Nevertheless, Cross persuades himself that we are genuinely called to communion in all this, to a religio-political empire headed by member of the Society of Jesus for whom time and time again the Golden Rule has proved to be Ignatius’s 13th.
IOW zealots, that, if they don’t suppress their own knowledge of Scripture, reason and history, at least wish to keep others in the dark, are therefore not to be trusted when it comes to pleading ecumenicism or even their own self professed motives for the same. While Mr. Cross’s diligence and industry, even damage control, is to be appreciated, his goal is deceitful and his favorite communion is a despicable whore.
It’s time for a paradigm do over. Maybe that’s what Jase figured out. Let Bryan claim the bones, Stellman will settle for the bottle.
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CD Host,
Perhaps you mean me rather than Susan (I had a wee chat with you about Hebrew Matthew, although Susan brought it up) and perhaps you mean Papias rather than Polycarp. I haven’t visited Old Life much in the last few weeks so apologies if I’m going over discussions others have already had.
I don’t know anyone whose faith depends on the existence of a Hebrew version of Matthew, and to me it matters not a particle, but I still don’t accept your reasons for ruling it out (with all due respect). I don’t think you are allowing much freedom or skill to the putative translator. A sentence doesn’t have to sound like ‘Confucius say much chocolate give many pimple’ to be an authentic translation from Chinese. Matthew (or the redactor, I know) may have produced a Hebrew version because that was the language in which important Jewish theology should be written. And then he may have produced a version of the same material in the Greek without it necessarily being a translation in the strict sense. We don’t know. To me, it doesn’t matter. I take it, though, that discrediting the ECFs may seem like a point gained to you. (Sorry if I’m impugning any unworthy motives).
There is always the slim possibility that Papias knew something about the history of his own faith community.
However, I did find your comments about the WCF interesting. Wonder if anyone will take you up on those?
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Token Woman,
That’s Susan’s role. You can be Deputy Token Woman, though.
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Token, yes, I’m glad his WCF questions arose. I’m waiting for the proper time, animus imponentis, yo.
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Erik, agreed. T-dub needs an avatar to compete with out Susie.
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*our
T-dub,
Want to take him on? Here are the cliff notes. Hint, you need to learn the words Reformed Ecclesiology. Pay close attention to John Fesko, and never mind the badly written questions from the guy who says his second daughter was just born. He had no idea he would me immortalized (like all of us in cybernetic space..sigh….). Toodles.
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Whoops, Megan wasn’t born yet:
Closing hailing frequencies, I’m out.
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@Token
Howdy. No I meant Susan. She brought it up, went a few rounds and then you jumped in with her jumping off. You weren’t able to come up with a single piece of evidence for it other nor deal with the counter evidence. As for Papias you are right on that one. The Eusebius quote references him the Irenaeus quote never mentions anyone.
Well first off neither of them says then. Second, Hebrew isn’t the dialect of Jews in the 1st century anymore than Anglo-Saxon is the dialect of the Americans in 2014. So you are still contradicting Irenaeus. Also that isn’t what Eusebius says. Eusebius gives the order quite explicitly:
For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence…. So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.
There is no possibility of a Greek book by him because after Matthew’s death people are still interpreting the Hebrew as they were able rather than relying on the Greek version.
But let’s ignore that in terms that your theory also makes the church fathers unreliable and just address the theory of two versions as an entirely new theory. You can see immediately while that theory still doesn’t work. Take for example Matthew 1:23. There is nothing in the Hebrew bible about a virgin. The Hebrew just reads “young woman” (almah) Isaiah himself uses a different word when he wants indicate a woman who hasn’t had sex. And the word almah is in fact used in another Hebrew works to applied to a young prostitute.
Masoretic Text(hopefully this works on this blog): לָכֵן יִתֵּן אֲדֹנָי הוּא, לָכֶם–אוֹת: הִנֵּה הָעַלְמָה (bold is almah = young woman), הָרָה וְיֹלֶדֶת בֵּן, וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ, עִמָּנוּ אֵל.
try 2 (same text repeated just different HTML): לָכֵן יִתֵּן אֲדֹנָי הוּא, לָכֶם–אוֹת: הִנֵּה הָעַלְמָה (bold 4 letters on the left are almah = young woman), הָרָה וְיֹלֶדֶת בֵּן, וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ, עִמָּנוּ אֵל.
The Greek/LXX however: δια τουτο δωσει κυριος αυτος υμιν σημειον ιδου η παρθενος (paryenov=virgin) εν γαστρι εξει και τεξεται υιον και καλεσεις το ονομα αυτου Εμμανουηλ says virgin. Which means that Matthew is accurately quoting the Greek in preference to the Hebrew. Now Matthew’s Jesus is born of a virgin as a fulfillment of prophecy. In your version of events when does this theology get injected? If is injected in the Hebrew version you would have a Matthew who in your own words above believes that Hebrew is the only proper language for Jewish theology not just quoting a Greek text (which for him would be bastardinazaton of the Hebrew that was leading people astray the way you might view the New World Translation) but using it to derive his theology about the savior. If it is injected later into the completely rewritten Greek version then the books markedly differ from one another in terms of content. How do you want to fix that?
This BTW this problem is not unique to this passage. Gospel of Matthew prefers the LXX over the Hebrew several dozen more times. That’s a serious problem with your theory from a literary standpoint.
Then here is another. Where does the word for word agreement come from with Luke and Matthew if the version of Matthew that “lays the foundation for the church” (Against Heresies Book III, Chapter 1) is the Hebrew? Why would they not choose to be in agreement with the Hebrew version not the Greek and thus we would have two very different translations? Where does Irenaeus’ version of how the Gospels were constructed allow for the extensive quoting?
I could keep going, and when we discussed this last time I did. You can’t come up with a plausible theory for a translation. Now could there have been a much earlier work, which is not Matthews Gospel but rather a source text on which Matthew’s Hebrew depends; could that work have been in Aramaic and could the church fathers who mostly didn’t know either language have been sloppy between Aramaic and Hebrew? Sure! Absolutely! That’s the theory that some of the Q material was in Aramaic and independently quoted. That’s part of the argument (I don’t agree with but at least is not completely contradicted by the evidence) for Luke being independent of Matthew. Matthew 12:22-32 vs. Luke 11:14-23 is the classic example where assuming an Aramaic original for this story works better.
So it is entirely possible that a few passages maybe even from an apostle (note I’m using this term in the Jewish not Christian sense to just mean an itinerant preacher with a cultic following) Matthew in Aramaic a generation or more later made it into an anonymous Greek Gospel we have today which the fathers called “Matthew” . But that’s a far cry from “Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Hebrew”.
None of this is original to me. My guess is this is what Susan hit when she started Googling her theory. The best one can say is that Irenaeus grossly exaggerated and distorted while Eusebius misunderstood when they laid down their theories which is what we find over and over from those authors. Yes that’s a real problem for someone who wants them to be reliable witnesses to the deposit of faith.
I don’t either. But that’s not the crucial question. The crucial question is not that they got the history of the Gospel of Matthew wrong. The crucial question is why did the Catholic church get this question wrong in a way that shows rampant ignorance of the origins of Matthew? The question is not whether Irenaeus lied. The question is why does he lie? Because this is not an unusual case you see this sort of obvious distortion from him on virtually every issue he addresses in Adversus Haereses. Almost everyplace we can check he is exaggerating, lying and covering something up. That something is that the Catholic Church didn’t exist when early Christianity emerged it is a 2nd century sect. It has at best indirect ties to any of the apostles including Paul. Irenaeus isn’t passing on a preexistent Catholic theology he’s inventing it in Adversus Haereses to resolve a political problem.
The Catholic Church cannot be “the church that Jesus founded”. And that is what she cares about.
As for the WCF… ok what did you want to know?
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I think its interesting that you all just came out and pooped on logic. Reminds me of the young earth creationist guy I know that does the same with science. Im not bashing it…. I just find that attitude fascinating. What principle of logic do you all loathe so much? The principle of non contradiction? Do you deny some fallacy is fallacious? What is the beef? Specifically.
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Kenneth, it’s not logic so much as its wielders, who on top of smashing dissenters with it tend to reduce faith to the sum of its logical parts in the process. The similarity is how some wield science and others the Bible in the creation debate.
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Zrim, you are a zen master of succint and apropros thought. My commendation. A few of your comments that you told me while out here have stuck. Kenneth, we don’t want OL’s Nemesis back, unless you do. If so, how do you like pile drivers?
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It was a complaint about the misuses of formal logic. You don’t make faith decisions based on formal logic- there are other factors involved. Jason Stellman implied throughout his reasons for converting to the Catholic faith that they were not logical. He tried to use logic to explain his reasons but you can’t call them logical. Nor does anyone come to beliefs about what the Gospel is through logic alone. Humans make decisions through a variety of means, ie., revelation, intuition and even as a result of strangers outside of us who exert an influence on us.
Jason claimed that his autonomy was challenged more by the Catholic church. He made a leap of faith because he became convinced that authority resides in the Catholic church and that doctrinal matters can only be settled by the church when disagreements and differing interpretations of Scripture ensue. He used logic to support this claim but was it logic that made him make this leap of faith? Obviously there were other factors involved. He also implied that he was being more heroic and less relying on certitude and assurance (a jab at the imputation of righteousness that he came to have doubts about) by joining the Catholic church. The following is the conclusion he came to about how one gets justified before a Holy God- hint: he became seduced by a Gospel that was contrary to what he was taught at Westminster West:
“As a Protestant minister, I had always operated under the assumption that the fullest treatment of the gospel, and of justification in particular, came from the apostle Paul, and that the rest of what the New Testament had to say on these issues should be filtered through him. But as I began to investigate again things that I had thought were long-settled for me, I began to discover just how problematic that hermeneutical approach really was. If justification by faith alone was indeed “the article on which the church stands or falls,” as Reformed theology claimed, then wouldn’t we expect it to have been taught by Jesus himself, somewhere? Moreover, wouldn’t John have taught it, too? And Peter, and James? Shoot, wouldn’t Paul himself have taught the imputation of alien righteousness somewhere outside of just two of his thirteen epistles?
Having realized that I was using a few select (and hermeneutically debatable) passages from Romans and Galatians as the filter through which I understood everything else the New Testament had to say about salvation, I began to conclude that such an approach was as arbitrary as it was irresponsible. I then sought to identify a paradigm, or simple statement of the gospel, that provided more explanatory value than Sola Fide did. As I hope to unpack in more detail eventually, I have come to understand the gospel in terms of the New Covenant gift of the Spirit, procured through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, who causes fruit to be borne in our lives by reproducing the image of the Son in the adopted children of the Father. If love of God and neighbor fulfills the law, and if the fruit of the Spirit is love, having been shed abroad by the Spirit in our hearts, then it seems to follow that the promise of the gospel is equivalent with the promise of the New Covenant that God’s law will no longer be external to the believer, but will be written upon his mind and heart, such that its righteous demands are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And again unsurprisingly, when I turned to the early Church fathers, and especially Augustine, it was this very understanding of the gospel that I encountered over and over again.”
John Y: I don’t know what anyone else thinks about that but whenever anyone starts trusting in the Spirit’s work inside rather than what Christ accomplished on the cross and how that gets transferred, declared, accounted to or imputed, then you have created an idol out of the work of the Spirit. It seems as plain as day to me that Jason got seduced somehow by this false Gospel.
I am sure many of you have already read the following account already.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/i-fought-the-church-and-the-church-won/
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Or for another point of view, Jason has almost 10k people listening to each podcast as he stumps for the Catholic church…much to my chagrin. Maybe he’s not doing so bad after all.
P.S. Erik, commission check is in the mail. 🙂
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Christian,
Not so nice to Mayer (name pronuciation guy, right?)…but who am I to judge.
Thanks for frequenting oldlife. Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Andrew
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Ha, thanks, Andrew! In my defense, it was spelled “Maier.” 🙂
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I plan to keep listening, you guys are a hoot.
Peace, friend.
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CD-Host,
You’re right about everything. I know that the Catholic Church is just another denomination, I just like the cathedrals, incense, and the history( that began sometime after the first century)when it essentially became a business hierarchy and very unlike it’s pure and humble beginnings. Any kind of liturgy even in a Protestant services, who adopted it from the already fractured Catholic Church, is the invention of men and worthless. I know all of this, I just like the magical beauty, especially this time of year when the creche appears with idols of the the Virgin and God himself, even in Protestant churches and homes.
The Gospel of Matthew was translated from some other Semitic language, since it wasn’t originally written in Greek, I guess. I mean it did come from another language right, and Greek isn’t the original I take it? Anyways,like Token Women, I am not concerned about it. I will just keep with my little illusion, thank you and believe in the impossible/supernatural like a child believes in Santa.
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susan, you upset?
let Sola Scriptura guide you, my friend.
Peace.
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Oh Andy, don’t be silly. 🙂
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susan, there’s only one andy accountant I’m aware of, and he isn’t real.
Emoticons are for PCA blogs, susan..don’t let me catch you again 😐
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I can’t speak for anyone else here, and I’m pretty sure no one here would want me to even try. My problems with Bryan’s schtick are:
1) The schoolmarm approach to policing discussions is a conversation stopper. He likes to assert that this is the only way for real dialog to proceed. I see lots of evidence to the contrary. It is more a cudgel with which to control the “dialog”.
2) I don’t have any problem with formal logic per se. In fact, I think logically consistency is crucial. He routinely misuses applies accusations of begging the question when he means, “disagree with your premise”. Rather than moving the conversation forward by discussing the premise, he goes into schoolmarm mode and the conversation stalls. That might be an effective high school debate team tactic, but it certainly hasn’t won any friends here. The more substantive problem with Bryan’s approach is that I don’t think deductive reasoning is a valid way of establishing new knowledge. Once we allow for inductive or (more properly for discussions involving historical inferences) abduction, many of Bryan’s criticisms fall apart. When you ignore inconvenient facts and rely on the “validity” of your premises and logical soundness, you are engaged in cargo cult apologetics. This is what slimy used car salesmen and Scientologists do. Bryan should know better.
3) Bryan doesn’t play straight. He said CTC is not a sale’s pitch. Really?!?!?! The testimonials are really just another form of argument? This is just intellectually dishonest. It’s the triumphalism and arrogance he exudes that is so incredibly off-putting. There is no book, essay, or interview that leads him to say, “Hmmm that’s interesting, I’ll have to think about that.” I point out Dreher’s ongoing thread about what Dante taught him about the dangers of an overly intellectualized faith particularly when it confronts the rot of clericalism intrinsic to RC ecclesiology, and Bryan claimed to have read that. As if there is a single that to have been read. It is almost as bad as you accusing me of making up facts whose source I cited for you. Taking on the pose of the arrogant intellectual doesn’t make you come across more intellectual. It makes you come across like a poser.
4) Bryan’s essays are littered with mistakes such as the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, misunderstanding of the nature of a paradigm, and attacks on straw men. I found his “Sola/Solo” and “Catholics are divided too” posts particularly weak in this regard. This comment is already too long — I certainly don’t have time to write a point by point rebuttal of 5000 word essays with 500 comments. Insofar as he requires such for DIALOG, he is filibustering and working against what he claims to support.
5) Bryan’s arguments are reductionist. He infers causality from logical connections. So Sola Scriptura supposedly led to the explosion of protestant sects while the RC ecclesiology restricts such fracturing… a nice hypothesis, but it fails to explain the evolution of other religions of the book. Islam and Judaism both lack the kind of organization that the RCC has – they are much more “protestant” in terms of the role the individual and the text plays in authority. They didn’t see the kind of sectarian growth that protestantism did in the US until they came to the US where entrepreneurialism, leisure time, wealth, and religious tolerance enable sectarianism. There are broader trends that need to be explained and he doesn’t do that. Incompleteness is a major shortcoming of his apologetic – he brushes it off by requiring that we demonstrate how these new facts invalidate his syllogism in order for dialog to proceed. Logically it is possible that Sola Scriptura did what he said, but it is also possible that there is a different cause that is not logically inconsistent with his syllogism. However, it may be a more accurate causal agent. The problem isn’t logic, it is the incompleteness of his data. He is working the wrong direction. His retorts are conversation killers.
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sdb,
You begin your analysis with the presupposition that what is taking place over at CtC is a schtick. Right from the start, you prevent any further conversation when you do that, by believing and trying to persuade others that rational dialog isn’t something that the authors at CTC are uninterested in. That kind of suspicion can’t advance the communication, and while it is meant to dissuade people from trusting Bryan Cross, it really only tells the reader that all apologetics potentially has traps and tricks hidden underneath, and so it destroys your critique because you too could be committing fallacies, like poisoning the well and so forth.
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@susan,
My humblest apologies. I didn’t think anyone would take schtick to be a pejorative. I certainly don’t think it is a presupposition in any meaningful sense. How about this,
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@Susan —
I’m not sexist. The “pity poor me” sarcasm is beneath you. I wouldn’t put up with it from a man and you shouldn’t use it if you want your opinion to be taken seriously.
You are the one who came forward with the claim that the church can answer questions that Protestant raise. I immediate point out an example of how quickly the argument falls apart. And let me just remind you when you first raised Hebrew Matthew it I cautioned you that you were using a theory even the Catholic church doesn’t believe in because it is such a minefield. You started whipping out the 100 year old encyclopedia entries and then bang you run right into several mines. That was you not me. I was trying to give you a comparatively much easier case.
You want to enjoy the art, music, incense of the Catholic church. Have it. Musically, artistically, liturgically fantastic church. Intellectually pretty good. Historically better than average but there are some big gapping holes. I didn’t put them there your church fathers did when instead of claiming to be the natural successor to Encratite Christianity they decided to create the fiction that they were the original Christianity.
To use your analogy:
You want to practice Christmas as if Santa Claus have at it this is a free country.
You want to believe in Santa Claus have at.
You want to come on a public forum filled with people who think Santa Claus is childish nonsense and challenge them by asserting that you can prove his existence then don’t get pouty when people start pointing out how fast he would have to flying to hit every roof in one night.
I think you are smarter than that. Don’t prove me wrong.
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@susan
I’m not sure I understand the rest of your comment… Maybe you can clarify:
I’m quite sure that Bryan is not interested in dialog as dialog is commonly understood. Dialog is about give and take. His approach at CTC is lecturing. It’s a fine approach for a lot of things – when I lecture to my students it is decidedly not a dialog. I’m the authority and I’m telling them what they should do. When I write a scientific paper, it is not a dialog. It is a presentation to other experts. I don’t care what non-experts think about it, and I have no intention of discussing with folks who lack the competence to join in. That’s a valid form of disseminating ideas, but it isn’t a dialog.
I don’t know what this means. I don’t see why my criticism of Bryan Cross entails mistrust of all apologetics. My criticisms are of his
schtickm.o., not apologetics generally. Why on earth would the failure of CTC imply that “all apologetics potentially has traps and tricks hidden underneath”? Apologetics done well need not have have traps and tricks hidden underneath (though I suppose the potential is always there).LikeLike
Christian,
Thanks. Every little bit helps.
Not sure that’s Bryan’s Catholic Church that Jason is stumping for.
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Kenneth – What is the beef? Specifically.
Erik – I’ve known too many uber-logicians in my college town who drive around town in tattered clothes, their car filled to the brim with garage sale books and miscellaneous dreck to think logic is all that.
The best part is when they start wearing women’s clothing and accessories in their late 50s.
You’ll get this once you hit 35 or so.
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Susan, finish The Hobbit and go see it with your daughter.
Tricksy, you.
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CD,
How is it that you “know” what I discovered or ran up against or, for that matter, that I started reading 100 yr encyclopedia entries? I assure you, CD, that I never pursued it any further. I’m sorry, because I think that you are extremely smart but why is it that no one else has detected what you say you have? If Matthew was written in the language of the Hebrew people during the 1st century that would be Aramaic, or if it was recording the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew languange, it doesn’t disprove that the Disciple called Matthew wrote it. Seriously, I don’t know enough about it to need to put my fingers in my ears and say “la-la-la-la-la”.
Why would you be so selective with the evidence, and why is this the topic that interests you so much? The Protestants who visit this site, aren’t worried about the authorship of Matthew’s Gospel, and as far as I can tell, neither do the Catholics or EO.
If I’ve lead you to believe that I am learned on this subject, I apologize, but honestly, I haven’t given it another thought and is the reason I backed out of the conversation when Jeff and Token Woman( who knows a lot more than I), came into it.
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sdb,
It’s perjorative because it implies a game or a show. Others here have called it a shell game.
When you say things like Bryan is behaving like a schoolmarm, not playing straight, doesn’t know the nature of a paradigm, uses the No True Scotsman Fallacy and so forth, without showing that any of these things are true, you hurt you’re own case. Again, why should anyone listen to your critique when you are the only one to have detected so many blunders and deceptions? What about the other contributors; do they know what you do? and what about their articles, are they all in kahoots? Don’t you see that your critique is so far-fetched that it’s absurd?
Poisoning the well means that you prejudice any reader/onlooker to the person or the arguement of another by discrediting him before he or his arguement is heard. To be fair you should take some aspect of that article that you mentioned and “show” how it doesn’t work, or is not logical or accurate. I’m listening, go ahead.
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Again, my humblest apologies. Is m.o. less poisonous?
I’m not others, though I have to say that I agree with this critique.
The evidence is there for all of us to evaluate. Do you see any truth in any of these? In other threads I’ve provided pretty long explanations of why I think the nature of a paradigm is inconsistent with Bryan’s use of the word. I’ve also showed how his CADT essay falls pray to the NTS Fallacy. Evidently you don’t agree (or you didn’t read those critiques…whatev…life is short I don’t blame you).
Am I the only one to detect these things. I only speak for myself of course, but I think my criticisms are more or less in line with others here.
DGH, Erik, Sean, Robert, etc…? I more or less agree with their critiques. They probably all know more than me. Or perhaps you mean the other CTC folks. In my most humblest opinion, the CTC group has attracted a certain common temperament that has contributed to a certain level of group think (kinda like here). Thus they have gaping blindspots (kinda like here).
Busted…
I’m not so interested in “fairness”. I’m not even sure what that means in this context, but I’ll see if I can’t dig up my critique of the sola/solo or CADT and repost here. Stay tuned!
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kool aid Susan, most of the readers here agree with sdb about CTC. Surprise!
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CD-Host,
One of the factors I think you’re overlooking is that language choice in a multilingual context is in itself an assertion of something. If you are in a position to choose a language to work in, that very choice in itself is going to communicate either solidarity, or distance, or power, or authority, or reflect a context such as education or religion where that language is what people expect to hear. It’s hard for those of us who live monolingual lives to grasp that. But if you speak more than one language you already know that there are all sorts of implications to language choice. In Matthew’s Gospel, you have a highly intelligent author making deliberate and principled choices in structuring his narrative. I’m not necessarily asserting that he did choose Hebrew for that narrative, but I think it’s entirely possible, because such a choice could have been a powerful assertion of theological authority as well as connection with the sacred writings which obviously interested him greatly. (However I think it’s absurd to imply that he must consequently have despised the LXX).
I don’t get your issue with ‘ha-alma’ – your fonts work enviably well by the way, although there could be a wobble in the transliteration. The term is a fairly neutral one and certainly is not known for any scurrilous implication.The explicit emphasis on virginity was added by the LXX (and no doubt with compelling reasons), Matthew knows both terms and makes selections according to his particular purposes, as all writers do. You don’t care, for the purposes of this discussion, what Isaiah’s expectation was, do you?
And why, if the passages were written in Aramaic, would people be reduced to ‘interpreting them as they are able’? None of the Old Lifers living in the USA interpret English ‘as they are able’, do they?
The WCF discussion is pointless with me because I’m aware it has problems. I’d like to see it defended by those who don’t see those problems.
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Token Woman,
Of course WCF has problems. It’s a human document. It’s not the Word of God. If it’s pointless to you, why do you want to hear it defended? What’s your bias (hint: CD has one too, even if he says he doesn’t (but I understand his meaning in this context, and am OK with that), so watch out) here? Are you a Xtian, for example? Peace.
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AB, no Zen involved–simplicity is a Reformed virtue.
But one more to add to JY’s list. Ken, if Paul himself was skeptical of the powers of philosophy then why aren’t you?
“For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
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Zrim, I know. But still, If Trueman can syncretize, and he’s an OPC minister..I better stop right there (phew).
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Susan – It’s perjorative because it implies a game or a show
http://www.thegameshowtemple.com/interviews/thomas.htm
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Ran across this last night. Who does it remind you of?
“After The New Yorker publishes a piece by Mr. Mehta about modern English philosophers, for example, Mr. Shawn and Mr. Mehta consider publishing some letters of objection by those philosophers, in the rarely used Department of Amplification or Department of Correction:
‘We spent considerable time going over the letters together, but realized that much of the thinking in them was so loose and the ideas so convoluted and contradictory that printing them would serve only to show the philosophers in an unflattering light.’
Refusing to publish letters of objection out of concern for the writers of them seems at best an unexamined paternalism, at worst a form of self-righteous, even mildly Dickensian, villainy.”
– Renata Adler, “Gone – The Last Days of The New Yorker”, pp. 27-28
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@Susan
Well for one thing, you started the discussion by quoting directly from the online Catholic Encyclopedia. For another had you read anything modern you would have never seen that theory. It was way out of date in 1909-1914 when the Catholic Encyclopedia was being released it is more so now. It isn’t hard given the evidence.
Actually everyone who has looked at the question had detected what I have. My view here is boring mainstream, let’s just estimate 90% of traditionalist Christians and 99% of those to their left. I know of 0 people in the last 150 years who have seriously attempted to defend the view you were presenting. And it isn’t like people don’t write a lot about the Gospel of Matthew. For one thing Matthew is by virtually all scholars seen as a derived work from Mark, another Greek book which wouldn’t have happened had Matthew originated in Aramaic or Hebrew.
There are times where I am saying stuff that is interesting or creative this isn’t one of them. There is a consensus among modern scholars that the continent of Australia exists, there is a consensus that the ECFs were dead wrong or lying about the origins of Matthew.
You are getting confused here:
1) The native contemporary language spoken in Judaea and the surrounding area, where the Gospel of Matthew takes places, is Aramaic. Hebrew was to the 1st century Judeans an ancient language which was associated with religious events. It was not spoken by anyone, it is a dead language.
2) Many Judeans had absorbed Greek culture and there were many, especially those living in other countries that no longer even spoke Aramaic.
An analogy would be a novel written in Belgium 100 years ago. The contemporary languages are Flemish and French the religious language is Latin. A book about the French community that quotes them in their native tongue would be written partially in French not Latin. A Belgian author 100 years ago writing a book written in Latin is telling you a lot about his politics by that very choice.
What do you think you just did in your last post?
The theory of Matthew in Hebrew doesn’t interest me that much. You and Token are the first people I’ve ever discussed it with. This topic came from you not me. I brought it up again because it was the last time that finding that the ECFs were full of it, you decided to pretend you can’t remember. The 2nd and 3rd century history of the Catholic church:how the Catholic Church took control of Christianity, what the alternatives were and how we as contemporary people can respond to historically correct early Christianity that does interest me. But to have that conversation we have to get passed the silly Santa Clause type myth (to use your very fitting analogy) of a 1st century Catholic Church.
Our debate wasn’t about authorship it was about original language. You are absolutely correct that the OldLifer Protestants would stand with you in arguing that the apostle Matthew wrote the contemporary Gospel of Matthew. They would stand against you in arguing that he originally wrote it in Hebrew. They believe that we have more or less the “original autographs” in our version of Greek Matthew.
FWIW there is a totally separate argument that in the sense you mean “the apostle Matthew” I don’t believe that person existed so he didn’t write anything. I do believe it is possible that there was a historical itinerant preacher named Matthew who may have had a proto-Christian sect associated with him and/or a body of sayings and that when the Gospel of Matthew when it was constructed was attributed to him, and it might even contain some few materials original to him. But that’s the degree of the tie. Absolutely the Old Lifers would disagree with that. Quite simply I don’t believe that by the time any of the Gospels older than Mark (and likely in a substantially more primitive form than canonical Mark) were constructed that Christianity had apostles.
Some of the books: 1John, Jude might date to the time of the apostles but the New Testament is post apostolic. It is obviously written in reaction to the issues the Christian community faced after the apostolic era for one thing when there is a Christian community. Heck quite a few of the books like Luke/Acts and the Pastoral Epistles are obviously Catholic so well after the apostolic era. And the Old Lifers would disagree with me classifying any of the New Testament as being obviously Catholic.
Authorship of the Gospel isn’t relevant for the Catholic / Protestant debate. The history of the church is. If the ECFs are reliable Protestant theology is false. If the Pauline epistles are reliable Catholic theology is false. One of the reasons I stopped being Christian was discovering how far back the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration went, there is no one who believes in anything like Ordinances all the way back to the time of proto-Christianity. There was no way to believe that anything like the Baptist faith was the faith of the early church.
You didn’t give me the impression of someone who was knowledgeable about this. No one knowledgeable would have picked this point to defend the ECFs on. Most of the CtCers would have tried to change the subject because they know there are land mines there. The fact you walked blindly into it, even after I told you you there was a land mines there was pretty clear. What you did do was give me the impression though of someone who was naively assuming that what she read in the Catholic encyclopedia was defendable as historical fact. You did give me the impression that would stick around to work through this issue like you said you would.
You are hanging around lots of boards with Catholic apologetics. You have to decide for yourself as more and more of these Catholic apologetics collapse like a house of cards when blown upon how to react. So far your reaction is to make assertions that are obviously false and then not stick around to wait for details as to why they are obviously false. Then come back and make the same assertions.
As you do apologetics you have to decide if you want to shift from being naive to be liar, stop this little hobby all together or start to actually engage in the desire for truth that you claim to be interested in.
As an aside FWIW Jeff didn’t debate that point with me ever. AFAIK Jeff and myself mostly agree on lower criticism. I’m sure there are small areas of disagreements but no large ones that I know of. We have disagreements on higher criticism.
Token Women I don’t know well. This is the only thing she’s ever discussed with me. But she doesn’t have a theory of Matthew. IMHO I think has been more influenced by Van Til’s intellectual nihilism that is popular among the Reformed. Saying that Christian history is not a question of choosing presuppositions but rather is objectively knowable fact I think what she was mostly reacting to.
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@Token
I think you may have forgotten this discussion a month ago.
I didn’t forget that at all. We know a great deal about the people who wrote religious literature in Hebrew in 1st century Judaea. There were Hasmonean loyalists who despised the Roman occupation, considered the Greek assimilated Jews to be “the godless and the apostates” that should be expelled from the country, often practiced forced circumcision, and considered the current Herodian dynasty to be a disgrace. Those are not the sorts of people who would have been attracted to the Christianity described in the gospel of Matthew. They adored the traditions, hated the people trying to weaken them, they certainly didn’t want to see them overthrown. If something like Catholicism existed with its message of a universal humanity they would have hated it to the core of their being.
It is not hard to understand what they are like. Al Qaeda or ISIS might be a good modern analogy. So no I’m not forgetting about it. It is yet one more piece of evidence why Gospel of Matthew simply could not have been written in Hebrew. In exactly the same reason if I run into a Syrian lingerie magazine I can be pretty sure an ISIS didn’t publish it.
That’s because you are thinking completely a-historically, that anything can mean anything, as if we know nothing about 1st century Judaea’s politics and what those symbols did mean. When people use symbols in a historical context they have specific meanings.
I agree. It is neutral. It says nothing about the woman’s sexual state only her age.
Let’s turn this around. How do you know the author of Gospel of Matthew knows both terms? What evidence does he give that he can read or understand Hebrew?
I’m not arguing for Aramaic, I’m arguing for a Greek original. That being said, if one supposed that there was an Aramaic Matthew as the book moved beyond Judaea to countries where people’s Aramaic was weaker i.e. their 3rd or 4th language it would equally make sense. But Eusebius does say Hebrew, “So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.” You are right it makes no sense if he is talking about Judaea though. The people who don’t speak Aramaic at all in Judaea would have little interest in the local religious culture.
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Cd-h, and we would stand athwart Jason and the Callers who insist Matthew wrote in Latin.
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@DgH
Jason would argue Matthew was in Latin, and that’s what all Christians believe because he decided it was true yesterday.
Bryan would ask you when you point out that the first few centuries of Christian literature was almost all in Greek with very little in Latin how you aren’t begging the question in using that fact to determine that Latin wasn’t originally the language of Christianity and thus changed occurred. Clearly Catholic criteria for determining what language Christian literature is written in, shouldn’t be confused with the language the Christian literature is written in. 🙂 That would be the point of debate.
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‘Our biggest supporter award’- It’s a close run thing but… Daryl Hart for his unstinting support, particularly in encouraging Mark Jones in so many ways. Daryl is the epitome of a warm hearted Calvinist in all his dealing with others. We, and many many others, are so grateful for his catholicism. – See more at: http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2014/12/the-2014-reformation-21-awards.php#sthash.uebjtMLl.dpuf
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Mark, and our biggest supporter award should go to Cdh, those smileys notwithstanding.
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Cd-h, Arabic?
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susan
Posted December 16, 2014 at 12:28 am | Permalink
sdb,
It’s perjorative because it implies a game or a show. Others here have called it a shell game.
When you say things like Bryan is behaving like a schoolmarm, not playing straight, doesn’t know the nature of a paradigm, uses the No True Scotsman Fallacy and so forth, without showing that any of these things are true, you hurt you’re own case.
Yes, b-b-b-but Edgardo Mortaro! The Inquisition! Vatican II!
D. G. Hart
Posted December 16, 2014 at 6:50 am | Permalink
kool aid Susan, most of the readers here agree with sdb about CTC. Surprise!
Kool Aid Old Life, more like. You get your asses kicked when you leave your little Jonestown.
Erik Charter
Posted December 16, 2014 at 9:53 am | Permalink
Susan – It’s perjorative because it implies a game or a show
http://www.thegameshowtemple.com/interviews/thomas.htm
Ah, no Old Life farce is complete without a gratuitous irrelevancy from Darryl’s attack chihuahua. All is in order. Rock on, Geneva. Or Philadelphia, whathaveyou.
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@DgH
That would be James: any two things that both happened more than 100 years in the past happened at the same time…. Since Judeo-Arabic emerged from Arabic in the middle ages among middle eastern Jews and Matthew was a middle eastern Jew who also lived in the distant past Q.E.D.
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sdb,
” I’m not so interested in “fairness”. I’m not even sure what that means in this context, but I’ll see if I can’t dig up my critique of the sola/solo or CADT and repost here. Stay tuned!”
Okay, well listening to your critique is what the men at CtC will do. I’d like to see you engage there too, so I hope that you will. I’m going to bet that you’ll even want them to listen fairly to your strong critique since I’m sure that you are interested in being fairly heard. Seriously, if dialog is even possible when truth is on the line, then I know we can do this together. 😉 http://phamilton.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/socrates-on-misology/
CD,
I read what you said and am reading some condenced explanations since it would take me several months to read the newest scholarship. When I have questions, I will bring them to you one by one so we can hash them out together; or since you are light years ahead of me, I will tell you what new thing I’ve learned( what “they’re saying) and find out where and why you differ. Give me some time.
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@Susan
Fair enough regarding the questions I’m open. A few pieces of advice then if you are doing the whole modern origins of Matthew.
1) The theory of the origins of the gospels (Mark/Q) emerged in Liberal Christianity. My advice for a first pass would be to read this theory in its native home. Burton Mack’s stuff from the 80’s early 90’s like The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins or his earlier Who Wrote the New Testament are both quick reads and do a good simple job of presenting the theory of Mark/Q.
There is excellent conservative and atheist scholarship that makes use of it. But the thrust isn’t on the theory.
For conservatives they have accepted that liberals won the debate about Gospel origins. What they are focused on is minimize the theological impact. Which means they often are doing a much more careful and nuanced balancing act between conflicting impulses and this often leads to them presenting a response to an issue without presenting the issue.
For atheists Mark/Q just gets you back one more step. There is no authentic Jesus material. Plus I imagine the often snide contempt for Christianity in their literature you would fine distracting. Great stuff, where I ultimately believe the best analysis lies but not for you on a first pass.
2) After you know the basics there are tons of good online resources for specific details as they come up. Then you are mostly done in less you want to delve into the details of lower criticism or the actual Greek text. This doesn’t take months it isn’t that large an endeavor.
3) You likely are going to be more interested in the origins of the church than the origins of gospels.
a) How did the individual books emerge
b) How did the individual books come to become canon
c) How did the Catholic church emerge and/or how did Christianity emerge as a religion
Are 3 very different questions. They tend to get conflated for example in our discussion. I think you are much more interested in (c) than (a). Our conversation regarding Matthew has been about (a) but (c) is the usual theme of these discussion and I suspect what you are really interested in.
Liberals whom I’m recommending for (a) are often incoherent on (c). Mack is going to have some of that stuff. It pays to familiarize yourself with it but you’ll quickly see holes because Liberal Christianity has is chock full of them on (c).
On (b) there is surprising little disagreement between Conservatives, Liberals and Atheist scholars. There is a scholarly consensus on all the major points with some minor disagreements because they diverge a bit on dates for individual books. But that scholarly consensus is somewhat ignored by the respective laity.
i) atheists and liberals are often prone to bizarre conspiracy theories regarding the evolution of the canon.
ii) traditionalists often have fabricated a history which implies far more certainty and less politics and historical chance than what actually happened.
So while I think (b) is a great topic. My advice to you is don’t confuse “the bible” with individual books. Just remember that’s two separate conversations.
Have fun!
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Tom – Ah, no Old Life farce is complete without a gratuitous irrelevancy from Darryl’s attack chihuahua.
Erik – But can a chihuahua grow a mullet?
http://theberry.com/2013/09/18/lets-sit-back-and-ponder-the-mullet-mullet-over-if-you-will-19-photos/
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Thanks CD.
I was wondering if you’ve read Fr. Jean Carmignac?
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CD-Host
……or Tresmontant?
http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Of-Matthew-Translation-Notes/dp/0931888654/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=19YR912JGDHBY5AC03DK
If you have or if you haven’t yet, but have a reason to not take his scholarship into your consideration, I would like to to spell out the reasons for me. Thanks in advance!
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@Susan
You probably are not going to take advice from someone you view as an intellectual advisory. But familiarize yourself with the regular boring theory so you know it before you go in search of crackpots. It will go much much faster.
Nope. The only literature I read directly in French was math, and that was when my brain was less foggy. But it is funny that you immediate go back to Hebrew Matthew.
OK so let’s deal with Carmignac. He solves the problem of dependence on Mark by having Mark having been originally in Hebrew. So he’s agreeing with the two source hypothesis but in his theory Hebrew Matthew is a reworking of Hebrew Mark. Which doesn’t answer the question why the dependence on the Greek Old Testament? Same question I asked Token above: what prophecy in the Hebrew bible is Jesus’ birth fulfilling? Matt 4:7, Matt 4:10…
And now you run into that problem with Mark as well. Why is Mark 1:3 quoting LXX’s Isaiah 40:3-5 over the Hebrew? Same thing with Mark 4:12 and Isaiah 6:9,10.
You also have other problems. Mark is written in conversational Greek. Why would a translator introduce a conversational style to a holybook? There wouldn’t have existed in Mark’s time a conversational Hebrew because Hebrew was a dead language, no conversations took place in it. So for example in Mark you all the time have εὐθύς (right then or immediately). Both Matthew and Luke in trying to make it more formal have drop that word frequently. Now the whole basis of Mark also uses a Greek parentheticals which don’t exist in Hebrew.
If you want my assessment I think Carmignac finds a few interesting points. His big one is Luke 1:68-79 working better in Hebrew (and thus likely in Aramaic). But even Carmignac is going to agree that that Luke was written originally in Greek. So we have some sort of prayer / prophecy not in Luke’s style that might be a bad translation. That is the kind of material that scholars suspect might be from Q — though of course it isn’t in Q proper because Matthew doesn’t contain it — might have had Aramaic originals. Well OK but that doesn’t conflict with the traditional theory at all. We suspect lots of Q (though not all of it) might be in Aramaic. Q being in Aramaic doesn’t mean Matthew ever was.
So in terms of the broader argument the evidence Carmignac finds doesn’t refute the dominant theory at all. And from that he comes up with a theory which is both unsupported by the evidence we do have and contradicted by other more critical pieces. He wants to assure an early date for the gospels, grasped at straws and came up with a bad argument. Which is why he disappeared from the intellectual scene with barely any notice and only Catholic apologetics books even mention him. Institut Catholique de Paris considers him an embarrassment.
___
Now Trestemont is a bit trickier. Because he uses the LXX translation as the basis for his translation from Greek back into Hebrew. Which of course kills the whole biblical argument. So in his theory you have a group of Jews writing in Hebrew but using the Greek bible’s theology somehow becoming Christians.
You don’t run into literary problems here. What you do run into is a this makes no sense question. Let me give you an analogy. In Canada they have French Canadians who speak French and English Canadians who speak English. For Trestemont’s theory to be true we have Canadians writing in Latin but using a theology that’s only part of English Canada, Protestantism would work as an analogy.
Now Mark in his theory translates them both, Gospel of Mark what he translates it he introduces the conversational style since Protestant religious works tend to be less formal. But then when he gets to Matthew (because remember for Trestemont) this guy objects to Protestant theology and translates stuff back Catholicism example Matthew 21:7.
So I can’t make a literary objection his tortured theory checkmates me there. I’m stuck with an appeal to intuition that this explanation is getting too tortured to be viable.
1) There are no groups of Jews who ever existed with anything remotely like the theology needed for Trestemont’s theory to work.
2) Even if we ignore that and just create an incredibly tortured theology we have a translator who has totally conflicting techniques.
3) Even if we ignore that his translator’s theology disagrees with the underlying author’s.
If you really want to try and defend Trestemont I’m pretty sure that I can come up with a better argument than the intuitive one about the unlikelihood of a more or less dissociative identity disorder translator working on documents from an impossible to exist sect. But frankly my gut is that is likely enough.
Your call, where do you want to go from here?
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(because remember for Trestemont)
Sorry this got clipped. Should be because remember for Trestemont the translator or Mark and Matthew and is the same person
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Andrew,
To answer your question, I am a Christian. My background is Presbyterian.
CD-Host,
I understand all your assertions about the users of Hebrew in the first century but, as a whole, I don’t see why they eliminate the possibility of Matthew writing in Hebrew. (I understand why we wouldn’t predict that such a group would produce what would later be labelled as Christian scripture – sure, that would not be their trajectory – assuming they sailed on untouched by religious upheaval, but there’s a lot of upheaval in the NT. Don’t you love the restraint of Matthew’s 9:9 – ‘and he got up and followed him’. Complete and entire individual upheaval in one act.) But getting back to your example, if a small group within ISIS became convinced that God required them to become (say) vegetarian and a spokesperson wrote down the new vegetarian principles, he would either use his everyday language or, if he was capable, some more classical form of Arabic to possibly reflect a little Koranesque cachet.
An interesting little point I was thinking of earlier in relation to the status of Hebrew is in Acts 21-22. Paul is facing a ferocious mob who ‘when they head him speak to them in Aramaic, became very quiet’ (that’s the NIV). The AV had translated it ‘Hebrew’, and apart from the NET, it looks like most of the other versions are going with Hebrew again, including the ESV. The interesting thing is that the mob don’t quieten down because they recognise a countryman (‘oh, he’s speaking Aramaic, he’s one of us’) because they already know for sure he is a Jew – they’ve dragged him out of the temple because they think he’s been taking Gentiles into it. But his language choice is definitely the reason they’re (temporarily) placated. Which may be consistent with Hebrew being a good choice if you’re in the first century and want to demonstrate religious credibility to a Jewish audience. (The fury returns when he mention taking God’s message to the Gentiles, consistent with the first paragraph of your comment).
So it’s a Greek original you’re arguing for, not Aramaic? I may have misunderstood you earlier then. My impression was that you were arguing for Aramaic in favour of a putative Hebrew version.
Can I prove Matthew understood Hebrew? Of course not. Given that he had enough education to be employed as a functionary for the Romans, and given his religious and cultural affiliations, it’s not an unreasonable assumption though.
I think, btw, you are over-simplifying and flattening the NT landscape in your syllabus for Susan.
That’s it for me and Hebrew Matthew for a few days, with lots of Christmas happenings.
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Tom – Ah, no Old Life farce is complete without a gratuitous irrelevancy from Darryl’s attack chihuahua.
Yes… it’s his website… he can do what he wants with it….
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@Token
In you ISIS example the Quran unequivocally supports eating halal (lawful) meats. Basically something similar to Jewish ideas of Kosher. If an ISIS member became convinced that vegetarianism was right he is fighting against tradition not for it. He knows that. Writing in Koranic Arabic is going to restrict his message to those people who are least likely to be interested in hearing any of his revelations since they are the ones most likely to believe they already have a message from the Angel Gabriel which unequivocally says the opposite. So I’m already pushing into the ridiculous. But then in that same book we have a bunch of stories taken from Forbidden Love (a Syrian soap opera the ISIS guys hate). That’s going to complete undermine the point of using Quranic Arabic because he is now appealing to the modern.
Or let’s choose an American example take Catholics post vatican II. Latin rites doesn’t just the classical music because of the traditionalist movement it also means hardcore conservative. There are roughly 0 members of Catholic for Choice that are also in SSPX. These people don’t exist. If I know a Catholic book quotes Nancy Pelosi’s theology on the church fathers and traducianism then I know it isn’t in Latin. If it is in Latin it doesn’t quote Nancy Pelosi.
Symbols have meanings in a cultural context. Your cultural association with Hebrew is the old bible. Their cultural context, because they are in a period when the language of ritual is shifting is different and has a political cultural context. Your theory doesn’t answer why is quoting the LXX, you have to work that in at the same time. The LXX has precisely the opposite symbolism, it is tightly tied to Hellenistic Judaism. And you still haven’t addressed that. Why does this author if he trying to appeal to the authority invested in Hebrew use theology from the Greek bible? He cannot on the one hand use Hebrew in that way you are suggesting while being the sort of Hellenistic who considers the Greek superior to the Hebrew and thus feels free to derive theology from the Greek that’s not present in the Hebrew.
The politics of your author of Matthew makes no sense. He has such great respect for the Hebrew that he writes his book in such a way that many people including those most likely to be drawn to his message can’t read, while at the same time casually ignoring the Hebrew in favor of the Greek in his entire theology. No that is not plausible. Not remotely.
The associations you between Hebrew and the Old Testament are as I mentioned above completely decontextualized from the political context of the time. That’s probably also the case for the church fathers who once the theory had really developed were several centuries and remote and 1000 miles remote but that doesn’t change what the symbolism meant at that time. If you want Matthew to have any connection with Judaism, which he obviously does then he doesn’t have that decontextualization. Heck Jews in 2014 still associate Hellenistic literature with Roman era Jewish liberalism.
And in your theory you still need to work Mark in there someway, how does the quotes from Mark appear? And the other 1/2 a dozen problems I keep mentioning. A plausible theory has to take all that into account. You are getting frustrated because there is no plausible theory that can exist which does take that all into account. Which is another way way of saying Hebrew Matthew is contradicted by the facts. You conduct an investigation, look at the evidence and make a determination.
I get that you want the ECFs to know something about the origins or Christianity and to be faithfully reproducing it. I’m not sure why since you are Protestant but you do. Sorry, they really are ignorant lying propagandists. There are ways of explaining Irenaeus statement that are consistent with a misunderstanding. For example it is possible that Irenaeus was getting Matthew confused with Ebionite gospel that Epipahanius discusses that is derived from Matthew. That Gospel may very well have had Aramaic materials from Palestinian Gnosticism. So if you allow for a few point of ignorance and Irenaeus repeated tendency towards exaggeration in the service of propaganda (he really really does not want The Gospel of Truth accepted) then your fine.
Sorry not clear what you mean. I just gave her advice on how best to attack the synoptic problem, learn the basics in a few hours. Mack does a nice job discussing his theory of the theology of early Christianity in Rome, Asia Minor, N Syria, S Syria, Galilee, Judaea. That’s not too flat. I think his trajectory is muddled but he is presenting the standard liberal Christian modern view. If she is going to argue these points she needs to know the normal stuff that everyone expects you to be familiar with.
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Token Woman,
Thank you for that. I see you like debating with CD-Host. That’s cool, remind me the next time we meet out here to link to my post Golf and Theology, which has Barthian quotes such as The best theology would need no advocates, it would defend itself, and uses scripture references such as Isaiah 55:8-9 and Deut. 29:29. It’s rad.
Peace.
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This post has fallen off the front page so flag me if you all respond here.
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