For some time it has been known that the pope was working on a book, and now the book’s publication has been announced:
Pope Benedict XVI has completed the first volume of a major scholarly and spiritual book on Jesus of Nazareth, a work he began several years before being elected pope.
"Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration" is scheduled for a March release in Italian by the Rizzoli publishing house and in German by Herder Verlag.
Announcing the publication Nov. 21, Rizzoli and the Vatican gave reporters copies of the book’s preface and a portion of its introduction.
In the preface, signed "Joseph Ratzinger — Benedict XVI," the pope wrote that for decades he had noticed a growing scholarly distinction between the "historical Jesus" and the "Christ of faith," a distinction that many Christians now accept as accurate.
But, he wrote, if the human Jesus was totally different from the Jesus depicted in the Gospels and proclaimed by the church, what does it mean to have faith in him?
"I trust the Gospels," the pope wrote.
This book is intended to be the first part of a longer work, which apparently would have been published in one volume but is now envisioned for three. The pope wrote:
"Because I do not know how much time and how much strength I will still be given, I have decided to publish the first 10 chapters" as Volume One of "Jesus of Nazareth."
But the book is not an act of the papal magisterium, despite its author’s election to the papal see:
In a Nov. 21 statement, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said, "The pope says clearly, with his usual simplicity and humility, that this is not a ‘magisterial act,’ but a fruit of his personal research and, as such, can be freely discussed and critiqued.
"It is not a long encyclical on Jesus, but a personal presentation of the figure of Jesus by the theologian Joseph Ratzinger," who was elected pope after beginning the work, Father Lombardi said.
This says volumes about the personal humility of the man who is now pope. To have the spiritual authority to mandate that every sentence in the book be believed by Catholics and to refuse to use it–to refuse to put forward one’s own ideas authoritatively–and to instead openly say that people are free to discuss those ideas and critique them–knowing even that they will meet hostility in many scholarly circles–is the mark of an extraordinarily humble man.
Which is one of the things that makes His Most Awesomeness B16 so most awesome.
Which is why B16 was the right man for the job. It shows that he takes the role of being the servant of the servants of God seriously and does not wish to use the position as a platform for merely advancing his personal preferences and ideas.
What I want to know is how soon Ignatius Press will have an English translation out.
In the meantime,
GET THE STORY.
A perfect ChristMass gift for Realist!
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
AMEN!
I only wish it was out for Christmas. Ignatius takes so long to publish B16’s books that 2007 is only a projected date.
“Because I do not know how much time and how much strength I will still be given, I have decided to publish the first 10 chapters” as Volume One of “Jesus of Nazareth.”
God,
Please give strength to this great servant of yours!
Not only do I think he’s an awesome Pope, but, man, I’d love to read the entire series!!!
Ignatius may take a long time, but at least the quality is there! It’s been YEARS since I bought a book from TAN because they don’t even last through reading the first chapter. If I took my vocation as a parent as lightly as they take their vocation as Catholic book publishers I’d land myself in dark, scary places for all of eternity.
Inocencio,
Hmmm,(with respect to your gift) only if B16 addresses the issues of Limbo and the historical Jesus movement to include presenting the true story of X-mas. i.e. There was no trip to Bethlehem (Professor Chilton says the real Bethlehem was right “down” the street from Nazareth). Also there was no slaughter of the Holy Innocents and no flight into Egypt. But if you insist on sending the book, include the hobby horse. I trust some of the books posted at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html are on your Wish list. Hmmm, I wonder if B16 will include these books in his references??
Hmmm,(with respect to your gift) only if B16 addresses the issues of Limbo and the historical Jesus movement to include presenting the true story of X-mas. i.e.
Yeah, the historical Jesus movement has both the authority and power to compose the Gospel the way it should have been written in the first place, dismissing all those alleged sayings of Jesus that he never even said (according to the Jesus Seminar fanatics), plus, excluding all those mythical stories that the Bible actually has within its contents!
There was no trip to Bethlehem (Professor Chilton says the real Bethlehem was right “down” the street from Nazareth).
For those who don’t know, Professor Chilton possesses the divine gift of Infallibility which beats that of Pope B16’s any day!
Also there was no slaughter of the Holy Innocents and no flight into Egypt.
Realist should know since he took the Back-to-the-Future DeLorean out the other day and visited this time period.
But if you insist on sending the book, include the hobby horse. I trust some of the books posted at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html are on your Wish list.
So long as you pay for his shipping and the price of the book!
Hmmm, I wonder if B16 will include these books in his references??
Why not include as reference the works of those who claim to do a better job at writing the Bible than the Holy Spirit himself!
“God, Please give strength to this great servant of yours!
Not only do I think he’s an awesome Pope, but, man, I’d love to read the entire series!!!”
Amen, Esau! I am already making room on the bookshelf for the series! 🙂
How blessed we are to have such a humble, wonderfully awesome, brilliant, and spiritual Pope (B-16) after such a humble, magnificent, wonderfully awesome, brilliant and spiritual Pope (John Paul the Great)!!!
thank you Lord God Amlmighty for taking such care of your Church! Blessed be God, forever!
How blessed we are to have such a humble, wonderfully awesome, brilliant, and spiritual Pope (B-16) after such a humble, magnificent, wonderfully awesome, brilliant and spiritual Pope (John Paul the Great)!!!
AMEN, Brutha Tim M.!
It’s like a “back-to-back” win for us Catholics!
I’m so proud and honored to live during the great papacies of both JPII & B16!
Realist,
Still enjoying life in the wide, smooth, downward fastlane I see. I still pray for your U-turn. But God will accept your decision to reject Him.
And I pray you read the book when it comes out and try and think for yourself.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
I love our Holy Father more and more. He is so good.
Esau,
Actually, many (perhaps most) Catholic exegetes question or deny the historical accuracy of large portions of the infancy narratives (including the birth in Bethlehem, the flight to Egypt, and the slaughter of the innocents). These books are often printed with the imprimateur, so I’m curious what Ratzinger’s views on these matters will be.
Evidence?
Jeb, Realist et al:
You may be surprised to learn it, but the infancy narratives are actually concerned with events prior to Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan river, and thus fall outside the specified scope of B16’s new book.
Jeb: Why are your comments addressed to Esau? What did he say that you were in any way responding to, or that you considered an invitation to opine about “most Catholic exegetes”?
Why is it that you bypass the actual news item at hand, i.e., B16 pointing out the problems of the “historical Jesus/Christ of faith” dichotomy and concluding, “I trust the Gospels”? Can’t you at least muster one cheer for the pope, if not three?
Realist: Putting aside all questions of methodology, presuppositions and climates of opinion, I am flabbergasted that any remotely critically thinking human being would respond to a scholarly book about Jesus by saying, “If it doesn’t deal with limbo, I’m not interested.” Just how long has it been since your legs unwrapped themselves from that hobbyhorse of yours and took a walk around the block?
SDG et al,
My point is that B16 should address the issue of limbo etc. before writing another “hobby” book about Jesus. What possibly new can be said? Even contemporary biblical scholars are running out of Jesus material.
Realist,
I have a real questions for you. Since you seem to regard degrees, doctorates and authorship as the basis for your esteem. Why don’t you hold Pope Benedict XVI at the top of your list?
None of your looney tune professors or theologians can match his scholarly credentials…and then add the title Vicar of Christ, game over.
Is it simply because he does not preach what you practice?
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Realist,
“Even contemporary biblical scholars are running out of Jesus material.”
Ok, one more question how can “contemporary biblical scholars” run out of material when all they do is make it up?
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving all glory to God.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Jeb,
Actually, many (perhaps most) Catholic exegetes question or deny the historical accuracy of large portions of the infancy narratives (including the birth in Bethlehem, the flight to Egypt, and the slaughter of the innocents). These books are often printed with the imprimateur, so I’m curious what Ratzinger’s views on these matters will be.
Please provide citations or examples. Then I’ll have more scholars to add to my ever-expanding List Of Bible Commentators I Completely Ignore And Tell Everyone I Know To Ignore As Well. [I need a better title for that list!]
It’s been a while since I’ve read The Case for Christ, but as I recall the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the Biblical accounts on all points. What you’re stating here plays absolute havoc with inerrancy of Scripture and creates a book that we just can’t trust. If those narratives aren’t true, it raises the question of what else is isn’t true. And that’s a road I want to stay away from.
A road that all Christians should stay away from. Check here for more information.
On a seperate note,
“Because I do not know how much time and how much strength I will still be given, I have decided to publish the first 10 chapters” as Volume One of “Jesus of Nazareth.”
That is awesome! I pray that God will grant him the time to finish the remainder of his treatise so that the world can benefit from those years of B16’s study.
Hmmm… not bad for a ‘transitional’ pope..
Even contemporary biblical scholars are running out of Jesus material.
And that is exactly what the Holy Father speaks to when he describes the genre of such authors in movements as “historical Jesus” et al being limited to simply projecting their own personal desires – IOW, what they personally wish Jesus to be in order to fit conveniently into their own limitations. There are only so many adjacent brain cells to draw from in such human personalities. Whereas, with the Holy Spirit, in the general, universally accepted intentional meanings of God’s holy will within sacred scriptures we have assurance which no mere human interpretation can afford us in stating only doubts and limitations. We are safe and secure for salvation where we can only grope in the same darkness of “prove my personal point” interpretations of the humanly degreed questioners. They seem to wish to mandate the fog of human knowledge and doubt, while the Pope presents the faith based Christ acknowledging in humility that his words are filtered through his human experience, study, and thoughts. Yet, just who has been given the graced position for real instruction of the faithful? And just who fail to acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s faithfulness through such humility of one given that position?
Thanks for clarifying, Realist. I understand your point better now, but it doesn’t work that way.
In the first place, in the hierarchy of truths, Jesus is the center of our faith, while limbo is a far-flung side issue that rightly gets next to no attention by comparison. Focusing on Jesus is never “hobby,” any more than focusing on breathing and eating is “hobby.” “Hobby” connotes an idiosyncratic attachment to a non-crucial pet issue or activity (e.g., stamp collecting).
In the second place, Jesus is inexhaustible. We are not talking about a remote historical figure attested by a static body of historical documents. Jesus is the living Head of the Church, and the Church’s relationship with him in a changing world is a living reality that is always new and always in need of deeper understanding.
Just the brief snippet from the preface, in which B16 throws down the gauntlet to skeptical biblical scholarship vis-a-vis the “Jesus of history/Christ of faith” dichotomy, seems to me to promise an exciting advance in a discussion that I passionately care about, and that is much more important than the status of limbo.
I understand that you have a particular vested interest in the limbo issue, apparently because you have this strange idea that what happens to limbo may have some bearing on the status of the dogma of original sin — sorry, it doesn’t — but I for one am glad to see the Vicar of Christ focusing on, y’know, Christ.
“My point is that B16 should address the issue of limbo etc. before writing another “hobby” book about Jesus. What possibly new can be said?…
See, this is the problem I have with so much of modern Christianity, and with movements that claim to make each individual believer into some kind of expert exegete by virtue of the unfailing guidance of the Holy Spirit… the LAST THING we need is “new material”! What we need is faith and love enough to hold fast to the old, original “material”, the Gospels.
I used to come across a TV Evangelist’s program which touted at the opening of each show that this preacher had “a message unlike any other in the Christian world”… like that was a GOOD thing. Who needs a Christianity so novel that it is unlike any other? This is the logical end result of Sola Scriptura, and it blows.
What we need is to pass on what we have received, not whip up new theologies out of thin air every ten minutes. The latter is easy, the former is hard. Between now and tomorrow’s Turkey and dressing, I could make up my own religion to beat Crossan’s backward, forward and sideways. It would be worthless, but it would be MINE.
PLEASE ALL PRAY FOR THE POPE FOR HIS TURKEY VISIT!
God forbid that anything should happen to him!
TURKS INVADE EX-CHURCH TO PROTEST POPE VISIT
Nationalist Turks protest ahead of pope’s visit
Benedict XVI to make his first trip to the Muslim nation next week
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15851070/
Esau,
We at the Alibrandi Catholic Center at Syracuse University and SUNY ESF have been praying for the Pope’s safety before the Blessed Sacrament. We recommend adding a decade to your daily (or whatever) Rosary for the safety of the Pope. Other college “Newman Centers” as everyone’s but ours seem to be called, and parishes should do the same.
As for Realist, he reminds me sadly this Thanksgiving of my late grandfather, who went from an atheistic socialist to a devout Methodist but then through this liberal sceptical “scholarly” rubbish decended until eventually he became an agnostic. I pray this guy isn’t on the same path.
Realist, simple question, would you say you have the gift of faith?
How the heck did my email jump up into the name section?
Great idea about the extra decade of the rosary for the Holy Father’s safety, JRS. I began doing that today. For the extra decade, I chose the Third Luminous Mystery, The Proclamation of the Gospel, as I thought it was especially appropriate.
On those scholars — they were pegged a long time ago:
Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, Sir, is a cow that will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. Samuel Johnson
Of Our Lord, there is never enough.
Of Mary there isn’t enough.
Jesus is Infinite.
Mary unmeasurable.