Fr. Barron on Pope Benedict's Book and How to Read the Bible

Fr. Barron offers a clear explanation of the historical-critical method, its benefits and limitations.

Leading by example

Finally, my own review:

Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection
by Pope Benedict XVI

It is not Pope Benedict's way, to the disappointment of some traditionalists, to issue anathemas denouncing the kind of biblical scholarship that seeks to explain away the Christian story in secular terms - Jesus as a great teacher (only) whose followers built legends around him, and so forth. He gives due recognition to the exegetical fruits yielded by historical-critical method, but also sees the method as limited and essentially exhausted. Instead, he advocates a different approach, one that reads the Bible in the spirit in which it was written and read, as the early Church Fathers read it, with an eye to the future as well as the past, with the eyes of faith as well as with full critical intelligence.

Rather than simply calling for a certain kind of approach to biblical scholarship, Benedict leads by example. He has produced a work of stunning scholarship and deep faith, that nevertheless amply repays careful reading and re-reading by Christians of all kinds and levels of scholarly expertise.

At the same time, with its careful consideration of the views of (especially) German scholars and exegetes, this is not a quick read. But hang in there, it gets more personally engaging in the second half. I read it right after reading Brant Pitre's stunning book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper, which turns out to be a great preparation for reading this work. Both books situate the Christian story in its historical Jewish context and show how almost every recorded word and action of Jesus of Nazareth draws on, quotes, or is foreshadowed by Scripture - the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets - as well as by Jewish custom and tradition.

I have also been reading a very different work by another great theologian of whom Benedict has spoken with enormous admiration - Hans Urs von Balthasar's Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter. The two books could not be more different. Balthasar was not a biblical scholar like Ratzinger and on the other hand he gives great theological weight to Christ's going to the dead ("He descended into hell") between his death and Resurrection - something that the pope, surprisingly, does not mention. In any case, the pope's book is by contrast simply written, historically grounded, and accessible (with a little effort) to Christian readers of all kinds.

A reader who has watched how Pope Benedict has come under hostile fire from the media and denunciation from anti-Christians, anti-Catholics, and dissident Catholics for most of his career, cannot but marvel at the tone of this book. As Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger at age 84 now leads a Church of more than a billion members that is undergoing in the West twin crises of secularizing ("beige Catholicism" or "cafeteria Catholicism") and scandal. His field of scholarship, biblical exegesis, has been beset for more than a century by attempts to question and discredit every tenet of Christian faith as taught by the Church.

So it seems a small miracle that the book was written at all in the midst of these storms. Even more extraordinary is the serenity and humility that suffuse every page. Even the most outrageous exegesis is discussed calmly and the most dismissive objections to the Christian narrative are fairly stated and discussed. Benedict is a man of intellectual brilliance and deep faith and on both accounts is not easily rattled. He shows by example, not only how biblical scholars should move forward on a sounder basis than in recent centuries, but also how faithful Christians can engage their critics charitably and without defensiveness.

The book ends in a way that goes some way to explain how he does it. Its final word is surely at the heart of the New Testament as well as in the hearts of the Church's great saints and martyrs. In that final paragraph, the pope addresses the question of why the disciples are joyful rather than sad at the Risen Lord's leaving them. Discussing Luke's account of the Ascension, which has Jesus stretching out his hands over the disciples in blessing as he departs from them, the pope comments:

"In departing, he comes to us, in order to raise us up above ourselves and to open up the world to God. That is why the disciples could return home from Bethany rejoicing. In faith we know that Jesus holds his hands stretched out in blessing over us. That is the lasting motive of Christian joy" (p. 293).

Culture & Heresy: Fr. Barron on the YouTube Heresies Pt 2

It seems that biblical fundamentalists and atheists agree on one thing - reading the Bible literalistically, without respect to historical or cultural context or even literary genre. They read what is not really a book but a library of books, written at different times by different hands in different genres - song and poetry, history, saga, wisdom literature, prophetic and apocalyptic utterance, as if it were all the same. As if when a friend writes in a Facebook post that it is raining cats and dogs here that we are to imagine that animals are falling from the sky. Or as if assembly instructions for a piece of furniture (assembly required), a Shakespeare play, Homer's Odyssey, A Harry Potter book, and the New York Times were all to be read the same way.

It is a strikingly modernist rejection of context and tradition. Those who wrote and read the Bible at the time millennia ago did not do so in that literalistic way. They were well able to discern the difference between the report of an event, to be understood as an accurate description of what happened and a love poem or an apocalyptic vision. Both fundamentalism and atheism - and the literalism with which they read the Bible - seem to be peculiarly products of the 19th century, notwithstanding their precursors.



As for how to read the Bible as a Christian with one's full intelligence, reason and faith, there is no better example than Benedict XVI's new Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection, a great book by a great pope.

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist - Brant Pitre's thrilling book

Brant Pitre, a young Catholic theologian - a professor of sacred scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans - has produced a minor publishing sensation. His book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, is currently ranked #1 on three Amazon.com bestseller lists:

#1 in Books on Catholicism
#1 in Books on Judaism
#1 in Books on Ritual

Elizabeth Scalia has an interesting interview with Pitre at her Patheos site http://www.patheos.com/community/theanchoress. And Hebrew Catholic (her term) Simcha Fisher reviews it there too (http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Behold-The-Manna-the-Bread-from-Heaven-that-Ever-Was-Simcha-Fisher-02-18-2011.html?print=1).

Scalia, who strongly recommends the book as Lenten reading this year, cites a couple of other reviews as well as quoting from her interview:

. . .my personal favorite is the chapter on the Bread of the Presence. This mysterious bread, which was kept in the Tabernacle of Moses and later in the Jerusalem Temple, is consistently overlooked by Christians, because it’s tucked away in the dreaded book of Leviticus! Yet it is easily one of the most transparent foreshadowings of the Eucharist in the Bible. I will never forget the day when I was reading the Jewish Talmud and discovered that the priests in the Temple used to take out the Bread of the Presence at the festivals, elevate it in the sight of the pilgrims, and proclaim: “Behold, God’s love for you”! Could you ask for a clearer parallel with the elevation of the Eucharist in the Mass, what Pope Benedict has called the “Sacrament of Charity”?

Yeah, that gave me a thrill of recognition, too! In fact it reminds me both of the elevation of the Blessed Sacrament at mass, and of this picture of John Paul II, holding aloft the monstrance for adoration and for the blessing of the people, during Benediction:

Longtime readers may recall that back in 2009 Rick at Brutally Honest and I got into a minor tussle about receiving Communion while one is not a Catholic. Since then, Rick has written now and then on his blog about the slow, sometimes painful journey he and his wife are making to become fully received into the church and he has been, yes, brutally honest about it. He has written a review of Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist that is very affecting:

I’ve been away from the Catholic faith for 40 years, in essence wandering in the wilderness as the Jews who were led out of Egypt. My trek toward belief in the Real Presence has been slow and methodical, perhaps even too cerebral; my struggles have been, well . . . real and present. Pitre’s book has helped fill the intellectual gaps and in that sense is an enormous assist. [. . .] I have longed and do long for the presence of God. I am comforted, consoled, strengthened, encouraged, chastened, made aware of my sinfulness, healed and forgiven by His nearness. I have lately been able to experience these things and more during Holy Communion, during Adoration and recently, during a moving and most holy Eucharistic Healing service offered by The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.

I’ve entered into these things with imperfect faith, with flawed belief, with too many doubts and yet each time, I’ve been granted release. Each time I have left a Eucharistic encounter believing more strongly than before that something mystical and something holy and something real had been before me and experienced by me. My faith has been strengthened.

In Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Brant Pitre has provided a firm foundation on which I can literally build my faith, and wrap my brain around the Scriptural basis for Christ’s Presence in the breaking of the bread. This is, frankly, an answer to my prayer and my desiring.

As I said, it’s affecting.

Julie Davis at Happy Catholic, meanwhile, is even “happier” since reading Pitre’s book, and her review is very smart:

There is a thrill of discovery at seeing the pieces fall into place, and that makes the book a surprising page-turner; the reader eagerly wonders where the next revelation will take them. Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist makes it crystal clear why ancient Jews and early Christians alike understood Jesus’ outrageous claims about the Eucharist, that he is truly present in it now and forever.

This book made me look at the Eucharist and Jesus’ promises with new eyes and new appreciation for the truth hidden in plain sight in the Catholic Church. It answers the question that Brant Pitre encountered so long ago as a college student, “How can you Catholics teach that bread and wine actually become Jesus’ body and blood? Do you really believe that?”

It occurs to me that the word “thrill” keeps popping up. Yes, it is an absolute thrill to watch Pitre connect all the dots. And a little humbling when he reveals that, in much more casual ways, this is almost all in the brilliant Catechism that nobody reads enough (myself included).

Retrieved February 19, 2011 from http://www.patheos.com/community/theanchoress/2011/02/16/lenten-reading-jesus-and-jewish-roots-of-the-eucharist/

a good review of David Bentley Hart

It's at:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/07/the-face-of-civilization

Like me (see below), he regards Hart's "Atheist Delusions" as a brilliant book, more accurately described by its subtitle, "The Christian Revolution and Its Enemies." Like me, too, the reviewer, Paul Griffiths, sees a rhetorical contradiction (if that's the word--inconsistency, discrepancy?) between the book's emphasis on how Christian joy replaced pagan gloom and the author's own gloom.

He also brings up a point that I agree with but did not include in my review. Hart stresses the novelty of Christianity, how it changed completely the worldview of pagan Rome and Greece. True, but he makes it look as if Christianity came out of nowhere by downplaying its prehistory in Jewish scripture and religion. The Incarnation was, according to Christian tradition and scripture, prepared over centuries in the history of God's special relationship with the Jewish people, with their long internal and external struggle toward monotheism. The Hebrew Bible is an essential part of the Christian narrative. The novelty in Jewish terms was not the coming of a Messiah--that was expected and there were several contenders--but the entirely unexpected form he took--the God-man as an unassuming member of a family that was not socially or economically distinguished--not to mention the manner of his death and subsequent resurrection.

Still, an extraordinary and brilliant book, very different from the other critiques of Ditchkins (Dawkins+Hitchens), in Eagleton's happy term. If nothing else, people raised with, and unquestioning of the standard Enlightenment narrative (how the darkness and superstition of the Middle Ages were dispelled by secular reason and science) should read the book for a compelling and accurate counter-narrative.