Month: August 2014

Did God Deceive Jeremiah?

jeremiahThe readings you heard at Mass on Sunday say that God “duped” Jeremiah.

Wait . . . what?

How could an all-holy God “dupe” or deceive anybody?

What’s going on here?

 

Let’s Start with the Text

The readings for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A), contain a passage from Jeremiah, which reads, in part:

You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped;
you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.
All the day I am an object of laughter;
everyone mocks me [Jer. 20:7].

“Duped”?

Okay, let’s start by noting that “duped” is a tin-eared translation. The word is too colloquial and comes of as jarring in this context.

How does the verse read in other translations? Here it is in the RSV:CE:

O Lord, thou hast deceived me,
and I was deceived;
thou art stronger than I,
and thou hast prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all the day;
every one mocks me.

Hm. It doesn’t have the jarring lurch into the colloquial, but it still has carries the implication of God actively doing something evil by deceiving someone.

 

The Language of Direct Attribution

Now, the Old Testament does have a mode of language in which—sometimes—everything that happens is attributed directly to God.

This happens, for example, when 2 Samuel 24:1 says God moved David to take a census that he shouldn’t have, whereas 1 Chronicles 21:1 says the devil moved him to do it.

2 Samuel is using the language of direct attribution, where the bad thing that happened (David’s census) is attributed directly to God, whereas 1 Chronicles uses a more refined mode of language that recognizes the bad thing that happened was prompted by the devil, with the implication that God allowed it.

The language of direct attribution is an ancient way of showing the fact that everything happens under God’s providence, but this mode of language does not distinguish between things that God intends and actively causes and those things that he merely allows.

When this mode of language is in use, bad things are spoken of in a way that directly attributes them to God.

In reality, God is all-holy and does not do anything evil. He tolerates evil with a view toward bringing good out of it. Thus the Catechism states:

The fact that God permits physical and even moral evil is a mystery that God illuminates by his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose to vanquish evil. Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life [CCC 324].

But, particularly in the Old Testament, they didn’t always make this kind of distinction and had a way of speaking that attributed everything—good or bad—directly to divine agency.

Is that’s what is happening in Jeremiah 20:7? Did Jeremiah get into the role of prophet not knowing what would happen to him and the suffering he would experience, so now he is using that mode of language?

That would be one way of solving the problem, but there are others . . .

 

The Language of Subjective Feeling

Scripture has another mode of language in which a person speaks his feelings without necessarily implying that what he says is to be taken literally. He may be expressing his feelings using hyperbole (i.e., exaggeration to make a point).

A jubilant example of this occurs in Psalm 108:2, where the psalmist cries:

Awake, harp and lyre; I will awaken the dawn!

This means that the psalmist is really jubilant and wants to go on and on praising God with song.

It need not literally mean that he will stay up all night praising God. (Indeed, I don’t have any evidence that Psalm 108 was used exclusively in all-night prayer services.)

It certainly does not mean that the psalmist will sing so long and so loud that he will literally awaken the sun from its slumber and cause it to come up.

We thus might suppose that Jeremiah is doing something similar, only with a negative emotion instead of a positive one.

Perhaps he didn’t realize what he was getting into by becoming a prophet and now he feels like he was deceived. On this theory, he would just be “venting” to get it out of his system, without it being literally the case that God tricked him.

And there is another way of looking at the text . . .

 

Look Closely at the Verb and the Context

The verb being translated as “dupe/deceive” is pathah, and while it can mean these things, it also has other meanings, and in this context it may well have one of those.

Writing in the Word Biblical Commentary (vol. 26, Jeremiah 1-25), Joel Drinkard writes:

The verb pathah is variously translated as “deceive, seduce, persuade.” . . .

[D]espite the common English translation of pathah as deceive (KJV, RSV), the context does not indicate that Yahweh has in any way deceived Jeremiah: from his call experience on, Yahweh has warned Jeremiah of the opposition he would encounter.

The context rather suggests the meaning of persuasion. Clines and Gunn suggest that the word pathah deals especially with attempts, not necessarily success, in persuading, hence the title of their article, “You Tried to Persuade Me.…”

However, in this passage, the context makes clear that Yahweh was quite successful: Yahweh persuaded and Jeremiah was fully, completely persuaded. Yahweh’s persuasion overpowered (khazaq) Jeremiah, and Yahweh overcame (yakol) [comment on 20:7, bibliographic references omitted].

An example of where God warned Jeremiah about the trials he would face as a prophet is found right at the beginning of the book, in Jeremiah 1:18-19:

And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.”

So while it could be that the text is using the language of direct attribution or the language of subjective feeling, we don’t have to go that far. It is also possible—and, in view of God’s warnings to Jeremiah, perhaps even probable—that the verb is just being used in the sense of “persuade” rather than “deceive” or (cringe!) “dupe.”

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email.

I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.

In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict said about the book of Revelation.

He had a lot of interesting things to say!

If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

Just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com if you have any difficulty.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Hah! A Tiny Biblical Mystery Solved

st-paul-baptizingI just realized the solution to a minor biblical mystery.

There is a famous passage in 1 Corinthians, where Paul is rebuking the Corinthian Christians for forming factions around different Church figures, and he writes:

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius; lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name (1 Cor. 1:13-15).

Then he writes:

I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any one else (1 Cor. 1:16).

Paul clearly forgot about having baptized the household of Stephanas, but something jogged his memory.

What was it?

At the very end of the epistle, we read about a group of Corinthians who had come to visit Paul and were with him at the time. He writes:

Now, brethren, you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia [i.e., Greece], and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints; I urge you to be subject to such men and to every fellow worker and laborer. I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence;  for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition to such men (1 Cor. 16:15-18).

A-hah! Stephanas was with Paul at the time the letter was written!

That gives us a very good idea what–or rather, who–jogged Paul’s memory: Stephanas himself!

In all likelihood, Paul was dictating away, he mentioned baptizing Crispus and Gaius and then moved on, and then Stephanas piped up with something like, “Um, you baptized my household as well.”

And so, having been reminded, Paul mentioned them as well and–lest he forgot anyone else–said he didn’t remember if he baptized anyone else.

Heh. I love little discoveries like that–and imagining the human dynamics at play in the event, such as Stephanas’s embarrassment at having to correct Paul and Paul being embarrassed that he forgot Stephanas’s household and possibly others.

It would have been particularly embarrassing for him to realize that he had forgotten that he baptized the household of Stephanas since, as he says in the second passage, they were the very first converts in Greece!

St. Augustine: 10 things to know and share

st-augustine-and-four-states-of-a-fraternityAugust 28th is the memorial of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church.

He’s one of the most influential Church Fathers and theologians in history.

Who was he and why is he so famous?

Here are 10 things to know and share . . .

 

1) When and where was he born?

St. Augustine was born in A.D. 354 in Thagaste, Numidia (modern day Souk Ahras, Algeria) into an upper-class family.

His father—Patricius—was a pagan, though he converted to Christianity on his deathbed.

His mother—St. Monica—was a Christian and raised Augustine in the faith, though he was not baptized until he was an adult.

He was of mixed-race ancestry, with ancestors including Phoenicians, Berbers, and Latins. He considered himself Punic.

Latin seems to have been his first language.

 

2) How did he become aware of sin?

As a boy he became conscious of sin in a special way when he participated in a pointless act of theft. This made a profound impression on him and he later wrote about and regretted it.

In his spiritual autobiography, the Confessions, he described the incident:

In a garden nearby to our vineyard there was a pear tree, loaded with fruit that was desirable neither in appearance nor in taste.

Late one night—to which hour, according to our pestilential custom, we had kept up our street games—a group of very bad youngsters set out to shake down and rob this tree.

We took great loads of fruit from it, not for our own eating, but rather to throw it to the pigs; even if we did eat a little of it, we did this to do what pleased us for the reason that it was forbidden.

Behold my heart, O Lord, behold my heart upon which you had mercy in the depths of the pit.

Behold, now let my heart tell you what it looked for there, that I should be evil without purpose and that there should be no cause for my evil but evil itself.

Foul was the evil, and I loved it [Confessions 2:4:9].

 

3) What other sins did he commit in youth?

St. Augustine participated in what St. Paul delicately calls “youthful passions” (2 Tim. 2:22).

He wrote about this in the Confessions, noting a prayer of his at the time that later became famous and reflects the experience of many people. He said:

I, miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had entreated chastity of You [O God], and said,

“Grant me chastity and continence . . . but not yet.”

For I was afraid lest You should hear me soon, and soon deliver me from the disease of concupiscence, which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished [Confessions 8:7].

When he was 19, he began a long-term affair with a woman. We do not know her name, because Augustine deliberately did not record it, perhaps out of concern for her reputation.

She was not of Augustine’s social class, and he never married her, perhaps because St. Monica objected to him marrying a woman of a lower class.

She did, however, give Augustine a son, who was named Adeodatus (Latin, “By God Given” or, more colloquially, “Gift of God”).

This naming indicates an awareness that, no matter how a child is conceived, and even if the parents did something very wrong, every child is a gift of God.

 

4) How did he develop religiously?

Despite his Christian upbringing, Augustine left abandoned the Faith and became a Manichean, which crushed his mother.

Manicheanism was a Gnostic, dualistic sect founded in the A.D. 200s by an Iranian man named Mani.

 

5) Thus far, Augustine has stolen pears just to be naughty, had a long-term affair, fathered a child outside of wedlock, and abandoned the Christian Faith. Things aren’t going so well for him on the becoming-a-saint front. How did he turn it around?

He took a position teaching rhetoric in Milan, Italy and, with the encouragement of his mother, began to have more contact with Christians and Christian literature.

One day, in the summer of 386, he heard a childlike voice chanting “Tolle, lege” (Latin, “Take, read”).

He took this as a divine command and opened the Bible, randomly, to Romans 13:13-14, which reads:

Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Applying this to his own life, Augustine was cut to the heart, and his conversion now began in earnest.

He was baptized, along with Adeodatus, at the next Easter Vigil.

St. Ambrose of Milan baptized both of them.

Incidentally, St. Ambrose may have the strangest life story of any of the Church Fathers.

 

6) So now he’s a baptized layman. How did he become a Church Father?

In 388, Augustine, Monica, and Adeodatus prepared to return to North Africa.

Unfortunately, Monica only made it as far as Ostia, the port of Rome, where passed on to her heavenly reward.

Back in Africa, Adeodatus passed away also.

This left Augustine alone on the family property. He sold almost all his possessions and gave the money to the poor. He did, however, retain the family house, which he turned into a monastery.

In 391, he was ordained a priest of the diocese of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria).

In 395, he became the city’s coadjutor bishop and then its bishop.

As bishop, he wrote extensively (in fact, he wrote prodigiously), and the value of his writings was such that he became a Church Father.

 

7) How did he die?

Augustine passed to his heavenly reward on August 28, 430 (hence his feast day of August 28).

At the time, Hippo was being sacked by Arian Vandals—meaning actual, historical Vandals (the Germanic tribe), not just people committing the petty crime of vandalism.

Unfortunately, after his death the Vandals burned the city, but they left Augustine’s cathedral and library untouched.

 

8) How did he become a saint?

He was canonized by popular acclaim, as the custom of papal canonization had not yet arisen.

 

9) How did he become a doctor of the Church—and why?

Together with Gregory the Great, Ambrose, and Jerome, Augustine was one of the original four doctors of the Church. He was proclaimed a doctor by Pope Boniface VII in 1298.

He was named a doctor because of the extraordinarily high value of his writings, which include major theological, philosophical, and spiritual works.

Among his most famous works are:

This is just a tiny selection of what he wrote though. The guy could not stop writing!

A large selection of his writing is online here.

 

10) Is it true that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has a special attachment to the thought of St. Augustine?

Yes. In his autobiography, Milestones, he wrote:

[Augustine] in his Confessions had struck me with the power of all his human passion and depth. By contrast, I had difficulties in penetrating the thought of Thomas Aquinas, whose crystal-clear logic seemed to me to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made.

Later, as pope, he said:

As you know, I too am especially attached to certain Saints: among them (in addition to St Joseph and St Benedict, whose names I bear) is St Augustine whom I have had the great gift to know, so to speak, close at hand through study and prayer and who has become a good “travelling companion” in my life and my ministry [General Audience, Aug. 25, 2010].

 

BONUS ITEM:

The name Augustine is a form of the title Augustus, which was given to Roman emperors to indicate their greatness and venerableness. (That’s what “Augustus” means.)

Despite the high-sounding connotations of the name “Augustus,” the name “Augustine” has given us a name with much more colloquial connotations: Gus.

The name of Augustine’s diocese—Hippo—also has interesting resonances. To English speakers, it sounds like a contraction of “hippopotamus,” but in Greek it called to mind a very different animal.

“Hippo” comes from the Greek word for horse.

“Augustine of Hippo” thus can be read as “Gus from Horse.”

That Old West sound seems appropriate, since as one of the Latin Fathers, Augustine was from the really Old West.

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email.

I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.

In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict said about the book of Revelation.

He had a lot of interesting things to say!

If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

 

Just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com if you have any difficulty.

In the meantime, what do you think?

The Weekly Francis – 18 August 2014

Pope Francis waves to crowds as he arrives to his inauguration mass on 19 March 2013.This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 9 to 17 August 2014.

Angelus

Homilies

Letters

Speeches

Papal Tweets

The Assumption of Mary: 12 things to know and share

assumptionAugust 15 is the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary.

In the United States, it is a holy day of obligation.

What is the Assumption of Mary, how did it come to be defined, and what relevance does it have for our lives?

Here are 12 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What is the Assumption of Mary?

The Assumption of Mary is the teaching that:

The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory [Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus 44].

 

2) What level of authority does this teaching have?

This teaching was infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950 in the bull Munificentissimus Deus (Latin, “Most Bountiful God”).

As Pius XII explained, this is “a divinely revealed dogma” (ibid.).

This means that it is a dogma in the proper sense. It is thus a matter of faith that has been divinely revealed by God and that has been infallibly proposed by the Magisterium of the Church as such.

 

3) Does that mean it is an “ex cathedra” statement and that we have to believe it?

Yes. Since it is a dogma defined by the pope (rather than by an ecumenical council, for example), it is also an “ex cathedra” statement (one delivered “from the chair” of Peter).

Because it is infallibly defined, it calls for the definitive assent of the faithful.

Pope John Paul II explained:

The definition of the dogma, in conformity with the universal faith of the People of God, definitively excludes every doubt and calls for the express assent of all Christians [General Audience, July 2, 1997].

Note that all infallibly defined teachings are things we are obliged to believe, even if they aren’t defined “ex cathedra” (by the pope acting on his own).

The bishops of the world teaching in union with the pope (either in an ecumenical council or otherwise) can also infallibly define matters, but these aren’t called “ex cathedra” since that term refers specifically to the exercise of the pope’s authority as the successor of St. Peter. (It’s Peter’s cathedra or “chair” that symbolizes the pope’s authority.)

 

4) Does the dogma require us to believe that Mary died?

It is the common teaching that Mary did die. In his work, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott lists this teaching as sententia communior (Latin, “the more common opinion”).

Although it is the common understanding of that Mary did die, and although her death is referred to in some of the sources Pius XII cited in Munificentissimus Deus, he deliberately refrained from defining this as a truth of the faith.

John Paul II noted:

On 1 November 1950, in defining the dogma of the Assumption, Pius XII avoided using the term “resurrection” and did not take a position on the question of the Blessed Virgin’s death as a truth of faith.

The Bull Munificentissimus Deus limits itself to affirming the elevation of Mary’s body to heavenly glory, declaring this truth a “divinely revealed dogma.”

 

5) Why should Mary die if she was free from Original Sin and its stain?

Being free of Original Sin and its stain is not the same thing as being in a glorified, deathless condition.

Jesus was also free of Original Sin and its stain, but he could—and did—die.

Expressing a common view among theologians, Ludwig Ott writes:

For Mary, death, in consequence of her freedom from original sin and from personal sin, was not a consequence of punishment of sin.

However, it seems fitting that Mary’s body, which was by nature mortal, should be, in conformity with that of her Divine Son, subject to the general law of death.

 

6) What are the earliest surviving references to Mary’s Assumption?

John Paul II noted:

The first trace of belief in the Virgin’s Assumption can be found in the apocryphal accounts entitled Transitus Mariae [Latin, “The Crossing Over of Mary”], whose origin dates to the second and third centuries.

These are popular and sometimes romanticized depictions, which in this case, however, pick up an intuition of faith on the part of God’s People.

 

7) How did the recognition of Mary’s Assumption develop in the East?

John Paul II noted:

There was a long period of growing reflection on Mary’s destiny in the next world.

This gradually led the faithful to believe in the glorious raising of the Mother of Jesus, in body and soul, and to the institution in the East of the liturgical feasts of the Dormition [“falling asleep”—i.e., death] and Assumption of Mary.

 

8) How did Pius XII prepare for the definition of the Assumption?

John Paul II noted:

In May 1946, with the Encyclical Deiparae Virginis Mariae, Pius XII called for a broad consultation, inquiring among the Bishops and, through them, among the clergy and the People of God as to the possibility and opportuneness of defining the bodily assumption of Mary as a dogma of faith.

The result was extremely positive: only six answers out of 1,181 showed any reservations about the revealed character of this truth.

 

9) What Scriptural basis is there for the teaching?

John Paul II noted:

Although the New Testament does not explicitly affirm Mary’s Assumption, it offers a basis for it because it strongly emphasized the Blessed Virgin’s perfect union with Jesus’ destiny.

This union, which is manifested, from the time of the Savior’s miraculous conception, in the Mother’s participation in her Son’s mission and especially in her association with his redemptive sacrifice, cannot fail to require a continuation after death.

Perfectly united with the life and saving work of Jesus, Mary shares his heavenly destiny in body and soul.

There are, thus, passages in Scripture that resonate with the Assumption, even though they do not spell it out.

 

10) What are some specific Old Testament passages?

Pope Pius XII pointed to several passages that have been legitimately used in a “rather free” manner to explain belief in the Assumption (meaning: these passages resonate with it in various ways, but they don’t provide explicit proof):

Often there are theologians and preachers who, following in the footsteps of the holy Fathers, have been rather free in their use of events and expressions taken from Sacred Scripture to explain their belief in the Assumption.

Thus, to mention only a few of the texts rather frequently cited in this fashion, some have employed the words of the psalmist:

“Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified” (Ps. 131:8);

and have looked upon the Ark of the Covenant, built of incorruptible wood and placed in the Lord’s temple, as a type of the most pure body of the Virgin Mary, preserved and exempt from all the corruption of the tomb and raised up to such glory in heaven.

Treating of this subject, they also describe her as the Queen entering triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the right hand of the divine Redeemer(Ps. 44:10-14ff).

Likewise they mention the Spouse of the Canticles “that goes up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense” to be crowned (Song 3:6; cf. also 4:8, 6:9).

These are proposed as depicting that heavenly Queen and heavenly Spouse who has been lifted up to the courts of heaven with the divine Bridegroom [Munificentissimus Deus 26].

11) What are some specific New Testament passages?

Pius XII continued:

Moreover, the scholastic Doctors have recognized the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God as something signified, not only in various figures of the Old Testament, but also in that woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos (Rev. 12:1ff).

Similarly they have given special attention to these words of the New Testament: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women”(Luke 1:28), since they saw, in the mystery of the Assumption, the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve [Munificentissimus Deus 27].

 

12) How can we apply this teaching to our everyday lives?

According to Pope Benedict XVI:

By contemplating Mary in heavenly glory, we understand that the earth is not the definitive homeland for us either, and that if we live with our gaze fixed on eternal goods we will one day share in this same glory and the earth will become more beautiful.

Consequently, we must not lose our serenity and peace even amid the thousands of daily difficulties. The luminous sign of Our Lady taken up into Heaven shines out even more brightly when sad shadows of suffering and violence seem to loom on the horizon.

We may be sure of it: from on high, Mary follows our footsteps with gentle concern, dispels the gloom in moments of darkness and distress, reassures us with her motherly hand.

Supported by awareness of this, let us continue confidently on our path of Christian commitment wherever Providence may lead us. Let us forge ahead in our lives under Mary’s guidance [General Audience, August 16, 2006].

 

 

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email.

I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.

In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict said about the book of Revelation.

He had a lot of interesting things to say!

If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

 

Just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com if you have any difficulty.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Questioning Q

Q fadeIn a previous post, I looked at the hypothetical document Q, which most contemporary Bible scholars think was used by Matthew and Luke when they composed their Gospels.

The reason they think this is that there are 235 verses in Matthew that are paralleled in Luke but not in Mark or John.

The proposal is that there was a document in the early Church that contained (roughly) these 235 verses and that both Matthew and Luke copied from it.

That proposed document is commonly called Q.

 

Hypothetical vs. Lost

Previously, I pointed out that the Q document is not simply lost.

There are lots of documents from the ancient world that we know existed even though they are now lost. We can be confident that these works existed because the ancients talk about them in their surviving writings.

But Q is not in that category. We don’t have any ancient references to it. It isn’t just a lost document; it’s a hypothetical lost document. That means we must be more cautious about its existence than the lost documents that we know existed.

Here’s another reason we should be cautious . . .

 

A Unique Document?

If it existed, Q seems to have been a unique document. We are not aware of other documents of the same kind. In other words, Q does not fall into a recognized literary genre.

You will often hear the opposite. Specifically, you will hear that Q belongs to the same genre as the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which was rediscovered in 1945 in Egypt and published in 1956.

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings that are attributed to “the living Jesus.” A few of these involve a brief dialogue with another character, but there is no story—no narrative—to the Gospel of Thomas.

Many have claimed that Q belongs to the same genre as Thomas because a lot of the verses paralleled in Matthew and Luke are sayings of Jesus.

The difficulty is that, unlike the Gospel of Thomas, the hypothetical Q document is not simply a “sayings gospel.”

 

Narrative in a Sayings Gospel?

If it existed, Q included a large number of narrative elements. These are documented by Mark Goodacre in his book The Case Against Q (pp. 170-185).

There, he shows that the hypothetical Q would go beyond sayings and have a narrative structure as follows:

  1. Q introduces John the Baptist, apparently before it introduces Jesus (Q 3:2), who is located in the region of the Jordan (Q 3:3; note: In contemporary scholarship, citations attributed to Q are based on the verses in Luke, so Q 3:2 is found in Luke 3:2).
  2. There, people come to him to receive his baptism (Q 3:7) and John warns them to bear fruit befitting repentance (Q 3:8).
  3. Then John begins contrasting himself and his baptism with the one who comes after him, who will have a greater baptism (Q 3:16-17).
  4. Jesus is then introduced, there is a reference to the Spirit descending on him, and he is indicated to be God’s Son (Q 3:21-22).
  5. The Spirit then takes Jesus to the wilderness (Q 4:1), where he is tested by the devil with regard to whether he is God’s Son (twice: “if you are the Son of God . . .” Q 4:3, 9).
  6. Then Jesus goes to “Nazara” (Q 4:16).
  7. Jesus then gives a major discourse (Q 6:20-49).
  8. Q then notes that after Jesus finished these sayings he entered Capernaum (Q 7:1). This is a very clear indicator of narrative structure, particularly in an alleged sayings gospel.
  9. We then have the healing of the Centurion’s servant (Q 7:3, 6-10).
  10. Then John the Baptist hears what is going on with Jesus and, apparently unable to come himself, sends messengers to ask if Jesus is the one after all. Jesus responds by pointing to the many miracles he has done and his preaching of the good news and urges John not to disbelieve (Q 7:18-23).
  11. When John’s disciples has left, Jesus speaks to the crowd, he reminds them of when they went out to see John (referenced earlier in Q), and he pays tribute to John (Q 7:24-28).
  12. Afterward, Jesus pronounces woe on Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum for failing to respond to the wonders he did in them (Q 10:13-15).

Goodacre goes into more detail than we can here, but the point is made: This is a narrative; it’s a story. It’s not just a collection of Jesus’ sayings.

It has a geographical progression (Jordan, the wilderness, Nazara, Capernaum); it has elements pointing forward and backward (e.g., the early indication that Jesus is the one to come, followed by the later questioning of whether this is the case); there are narrative transitions between one unit and the next; and it contains at least one miracle account, while referring to many more being done.

It is only after this narrative sequence that Q would have been largely composed of sayings, and that places it in what seems to be a unique category: a work that would start as a narrative and then become a sayings collection.

How does that compare to other ancient sayings collections?

 

Actual Sayings Collections

There were sayings collections in the ancient world—and not just Thomas. Proverbs and Sirach spring readily to mind.

It is common for such collections to have a brief statement at the beginning about who originated the sayings, but in none of these cases is there a big narrative about that person.

Proverbs does not begin with a biography of Solomon but with the simple statement, “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel” (Pr. 1:1).

Sirach does not begin with a biography of Sirach but is prefaced by a brief, non-narrative introduction by his grandson, who translated the book from Hebrew into Greek.

Thomas begins with the statement, “These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.”

In none of these cases do we have anything like the lengthy, complex narrative that can be reconstructed from the Q material.

Ancient Judeo-Christian sayings collections appear to have been just that: sayings collections, not sayings collections preceded with an extensive narrative about the person from whom the sayings came.

 

More Caution on Q

If there was a Q document, it does not appear to have belonged to a known genre of Jewish or Christian writing from the time.

This means that we have extra reason to be cautious about whether it existed. Not only are we talking about a document that is lost and hypothetical, it is also of an otherwise unknown, unattested type.

It would be one thing to propose a lost document that fits a known type—which is why Q advocates frequently appeal to the Gospel of Thomas as a parallel, though the comparison does not hold up. It is another thing to propose a lost document that does not have any parallels in the relevant ancient literature.

We thus have another reason to be cautious about the existence of Q and another reason to look at alternative explanations of the 235 verses Matthew and Luke have in common—like the idea that one Evangelist used material from the other.

The Weekly Francis – 11 August 2014

popefrancisThis version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 3 to 10 August 2014.

Angelus

General Audiences

Messages

Speeches

Papal Tweets

  • “If you hoard material possessions, they will rob you of your soul.” @pontifex, 5 August 2014
  • “The Christian is someone who can decrease so that the Lord may increase, in his heart and in the heart of others.” @pontifex, 7 August 2014
  • “I ask all men and women of goodwill to join me in praying for Iraqi Christians and all vulnerable populations.” @pontifex, 8 August 2014
  • “Please take a moment today to pray for all those who have been forced from their homes in Iraq. #PrayForPeace” @pontifex, 8 August 2014
  • “Lord, we pray that you sustain those who have been deprived of everything in Iraq. #prayforpeace” @pontifex, 8 August 2014
  • “I ask all Catholic parishes and communities to offer a special prayer this weekend for Iraqi Christians.” @pontifex, 9 August 2014
  • “I ask the international community to protect all those suffering violence in Iraq.” @pontifex, 9 August 2014
  • “Violence is not conquered by violence. Lord, send us the gift of peace. #prayforpeace” @pontifex, 9 August 2014
  • “Those driven from their homes in Iraq depend on us. I ask all to pray, and for those who are able, to give material assistance.” @pontifex, 10 August 2014
  • “The news coming from Iraq pains me. Lord, teach us to live in solidarity with all those who suffer.” @pontifex, 10 August 2014
  • “An appeal to all families: when you say your prayers, remember all those forced from their homes in Iraq. #PrayForPeace” @pontifex, 10 August 2014

The Weekly Francis – 4 August 2014

Pope Francis waves to crowds as he arrives to his inauguration mass on 19 March 2013.

The Weekly Francis – 4 August 2014

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 20 July to 2 August 2014.

Angelus

Messages

Speeches

Papal Tweets

  • “Dear young people, do not be mediocre; the Christian life challenges us with great ideals.” @pontifex, 15 April 2014
  • “The Church, by her nature, is missionary. She exists so that every man and woman may encounter Jesus.” @pontifex, 17 April 2014
  • “The Lord loves a cheerful giver. May we learn to be generous in giving, free from the love of material possessions.” @pontifex, 19 April 2014