Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Some Thoughts About Q

No, not that annoying guy from Star Trek.

And not the gadget guy from James Bond.

In biblical scholarship, Q is a hypothetical source that both Matthew and Luke supposedly used.

The reason people talk about it is that there are about 235 verses in Matthew that are paralleled in Luke but not in Mark or John.

This is a significant number. Matthew has 1071 verses and Luke has 1151. If they both have 235 verses uniquely in common with each other then that’s quite a substantial portion of the two gospels—more than a fifth.

This is a significant enough portion that many have felt it isn’t due to random chance and there must be a reason.

One reason could be that Luke drew upon Matthew for these verses. Alternately, Matthew could have drawn upon Luke for them.

Today most scholars don’t think that either of these was the case, however. Instead, they think that Matthew and Luke wrote independently of each other, which would suggest a different source for this material.

In the 1800s, this source was dubbed “Q,” allegedly from the German word Quelle (“source”), though this is unclear.

Today the most popular view among biblical scholars is that Matthew and Luke both drew upon two main sources in writing their Gospels—Mark and Q. This is known as the “two-source hypothesis.”

Although the Magisterium of the Church initially prohibited Catholic scholars from advocating this view, this was later changed, and, as Pope Benedict XVI noted, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger and the head of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the two-source theory is “accepted today by almost everyone” (source).

What should we make of this view?

From one perspective—the perspective of faith—it doesn’t really matter much what the particular sources of the Gospels were. They are all inspired and give us accurate knowledge of Jesus Christ. That’s the important thing.

How they came to be is an interesting question that may shed light on some individual passages of Scripture, but it is not essential to the Christian Faith.

On the other hand, if you don’t share the perspective of faith then the question can be much more important. Some scholars, engaged in the “quest for the historical Jesus” think that the true, original Jesus has been obscured by layers of tradition and transformed into “the Christ of faith.”

For people of that perspective, it matters very much how the Gospels came to be, because all those layers of tradition need to be scraped away so that we can learn about the historical Jesus. For these folks, identifying the earliest possible sources is a matter of prime importance.

Not everybody takes this view, though. There are many advocates of Q who are thoroughly orthodox in their faith and who believe the Gospels as we have them are a reliable guide to the life and teachings of Christ.

In any event, an idea has to be judged by the evidence for or against it, not by how some of its advocates misuse it.

So what about Q?

What kind of source are we talking about?

The first question we need to ask is what kind of source Q is supposed to be.

Nobody doubts that the Evangelists used sources when they composed the Gospels. Two of the Evangelists—Mark and Luke—weren’t regarded, even in the early Church, as eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry. They had to use sources, and Luke says as much in the prologue to his Gospel, writing:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed [Luke 1:1-4].

Here Luke indicates that his account is based on the things that “were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word”—i.e., those who actually saw the events of Jesus’ life and ministry and those who were authorized bearers of the traditions about Jesus. They were among his sources.

Could Q have been an oral source, derived from one of these eyewitnesses or ministers of the word?

It’s possible, but most scholars today don’t think so. The material in Q is rather extensive—at least the 235 verses paralleled in Matthew and Luke, and possibly more than that (depending on how much of Q each Evangelist left out). What’s more, the material has a narrative structure that proceeds from one event to another. And, if Matthew and Luke wrote independently of each other, it had to be accessible to both.

That’s a lot to ask of an oral source, and so most Q theorists today think that it was a document.

It is very likely that there were documents among Luke’s sources. Although he doesn’t say that he drew upon any, he notes that “many have undertaken to compile a narrative” of what Jesus did, and it is highly likely that he used one or more such documents.

Historically, most scholars thought that he used Matthew. Today, most scholars think that he used Mark. Some scholars even think that he used both.

It is therefore possible that he used a document like Q.

The question is: Did he?

Hypothetical vs. Lost

It is worth noting that Q is a hypothetical document. This is not the same thing as a lost document.

We know about lots of documents in the ancient world that have been lost. In some cases, we may have a few quotations from them, preserved by other authors, but in other cases the entire work has vanished and all we know about it is the title, or even just the subject, and possibly its author.

We know about these things because the book is mentioned by one or more ancient authors. For example, several early Church Fathers mention a work called An Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord that was written by Papias, a bishop of Hierapolis who lived in the first and second centuries.

Scholars would love to have a complete copy of this work, but all we have are a few quotations from it preserved by later authors.

We see lost books referred to in the Bible. For example, St. Paul appears to mention several letters that have not survived (see 1 Cor. 5:9, 2:4, 7:8-9, Col. 4:16). Though the matter is debated, these letters appear to be lost, at least in their original forms.

But there is a difference between a lost document and a hypothetical document.

A lost document is one that we know existed. We have definite references to it.

A hypothetical document is one that we don’t know existed. It’s a document that has been proposed even though we don’t have references to it.

Q falls in the latter category, and so its existence is less certain than the various lost documents we know to have existed.

As we’ll see in a future post, there are further reasons to be skeptical that there ever was a Q document.

Who Will Crush the Serpent’s Head?

In the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible, we read:

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.”

And the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

“I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” [Gen. 3:13-15].

This translation, found also in many older editions of the Latin Vulgate, is the basis for common depictions in Catholic art of Mary with a serpent beneath her feet.

The idea is that Genesis 3:15 foreshadows the gospel, in which the power of the devil is broken through Jesus, Mary’s Son.

The fact that Genesis 3:15 is, on one level, an early announcement of the gospel is agreed by Christians of many persuasions. But what about this specific translation, where it says “she” shall crush the serpent’s head and the serpent shall strike at “her” heel?

You won’t find that in in a lot of Bibles. Instead, they will say things like what we read in the Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel [Gen. 3:15].

Here we have masculine pronouns: “He” shall crush, and “his” heel is in danger.

Why the difference?

According to A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (Bernard Orchard, et al., ed.s):

It can hardly be doubted that the feminine pronoun had its origin in the error of an early copyist of Vg. In his Lib. Quaest. Heb. in Gen. St Jerome quotes the Old Latin version of this text with the masc. (ipse) and translates the Hebrew with the same, PL 23, 943, and ipse is the reading of various Vg MSS. It is therefore highly improbable that he translated ipsa here [comment on Gen. 3:15b].

This is a little dense and uses some abbreviations that may not be familiar, so let me unpack it:

St. Jerome himself quotes the Old Latin (pre-Vulgate) version of the text, in which the masculine pronoun ipse is used.
Elsewhere, he also translates it from the Hebrew with the masculine pronoun ipse.
Various manuscripts of the Vulgate also include ipse.
Therefore, it is improbable that Jerome used the feminine form of the pronoun (ipsa) in his original edition of the Vulgate.
Therefore, the use of the feminine form in some editions of the Vulgate is due to an early copyist’s error.

What does the Hebrew say?

Whether the commentary is correct on how the feminine pronouns got into the Vulgate (and it likely is correct), they are not there in the Hebrew.

In the Hebrew text of Genesis 3:15, the phrase translated “he will strike” is hu’ y’shuph-ka. Similarly, the phrase translated “will strike his heel” is t’shuphe-nu `aqeb, which more literally is “he will strike him on the heel.”

Both of these phrases are unmistakably using the masculine gender:

In the first phrase, hu’ is a third person singular masculine pronoun, meaning “he.” The equivalent feminine pronoun (“she”) would be hiy’, not hu’.
Also in the first phrase, the verb form y’shuph-ka is masculine: “he will strike.” If it were feminine, it would be t’shuph-ka (“she will strike”).
In the second phrase, the pronoun suffix –nu (“him”) is unmistakably masculine. If it were feminine, it would be –ah (“her”).

I’ve heard it suggested that the difference in translation is that, in biblical times, Hebrew did not have written vowels and that these were added later, in medieval times.

It’s true that the text was written using an alphabet of consonants and that points were later added to indicate vowels, but this is not the explanation here.

The relevant gender forms are all indicated in the Hebrew text even if it is written without vowels. The consonants alone tell you that we are using masculine pronouns and verb forms.

An example that is fairly easy to see in English is y’shuph (“he will strike”). In Hebrew, the first letter of that is the consonant yod, and that tells us that it is masculine. If it were feminine (“she will strike”) then it would be t’shuph, and the first letter would be the consonant tav.

And the Greek?

The Septuagint—the Greek version of the Old Testament that was used by the authors of the New Testament and that has always been the standard version of the Old Testament among Greek-speaking Christians—similarly has masculine pronouns.

The “he” in “he shall strike” is autos (masculine), not autē (feminine).

Similarly, the “his” in “his heel” is autou (masculine), not autēs (feminine).

And the Early Church Fathers?

Similarly, we find the Early Church Fathers using the masculine. For example, the second century Father St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote:

God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for your head, and you on the watch for His heel” [Against Heresies 5:21:1].

So the Hebrew original, the Greek version used by the New Testament authors and in Greek-speaking Christianity, the pre-Jerome Old Latin edition, various early Fathers, and even Jerome himself all used the masculine rather than the feminine in this passage.

Contemporary Recognition

If we look at contemporary ecclesiastical sources, we see that they don’t use the feminine in this text.

For example, in the version of the Vulgate that is on the Vatican’s web site, we read:

Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem et semen tuum et semen illius; ipsum conteret caput tuum, et tu conteres calcaneum eius [Gen. 3:15].

This uses ipsum, which is neuter (“it”) rather than feminine. The reason for this gender (which Hebrew lacks) is that the word for “seed” (Latin, semen) is neuter. The idea is that it—the seed of the woman—will strike the serpent’s head.

Similarly, in his encyclical on the Virgin Mary, St. John Paul II wrote:

And so, there comes into the world a Son, “the seed of the woman” who will crush the evil of sin in its very origins: “he will crush the head of the serpent.” As we see from the words of the Protogospel, the victory of the woman’s Son will not take place without a hard struggle, a struggle that is to extend through the whole of human history [Redemptoris Mater 11].

And Benedict XVI stated:

After the original sin, God addresses the serpent, which represents Satan, curses it and adds a promise: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gn 3: 15) [Angelus, Dec. 8, 2009].

Interpreting the Passage

None of this takes away the Marian understanding of the passage, but it does help us take the text on its original terms.

As St. Thomas Aquinas—and the Catechism of the Catholic Church—indicate, “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal” (CCC 116).

In the original context, the woman that is being discussed is Eve. It was she who was deceived by the serpent (Gen. 3:13). Her seed, understood in the original context, is all mankind, for “The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 2:20).

On the literal level, Genesis 3:15 refers—at least in part—to the conflict that men and snakes have historically had between them.

But on a higher, spiritual level, it has other meanings. Since the serpent is also to be understood as the devil (Rev. 12:9), and the “seed” as Christ (cf. Gal. 3:16; the word in Greek is sperma = “seed”), the passage is also to be understood as an annunciation of the gospel, in which Christ defeats the devil.

This does not happen without Mary, and so there is also a Marian dimension to the text.

Thus St. John Paul II stated:

The Father’s plan begins to be revealed in the “Protoevangelium”, when, after the fall of Adam and Eve, God announces that he will put enmity between the serpent and the woman: it will be the woman’s son who will crush the serpent’s head (cf. Gn 3: 15).

The promise begins to be fulfilled at the Annunciation, when Mary is given the proposal to become the Mother of the Savior [General Audience, Jan. 5, 2000].

In the same way, Benedict XVI continued his discussion of the passage by stating:

It [Gen. 3:15] is the announcement of revenge: at the dawn of the Creation, Satan seems to have the upper hand, but the son of a woman is to crush his head. Thus, through the descendence of a woman, God himself will triumph. Goodness will triumph. That woman is the Virgin Mary of whom was born Jesus Christ who, with his sacrifice, defeated the ancient tempter once and for all. This is why in so many paintings and statues of the Virgin Immaculate she is portrayed in the act of crushing a serpent with her foot [ibid.].

So both pontiffs acknowledge a Marian dimension to the text: It is through her Son that Mary crushes the serpent’s head.

There is thus no need to pit the Marian interpretation against the Christological one. They are in harmony.

Indeed, there is even an even broader interpretation, for every Christian has a part to play in defeating the works of the devil. It is likely that St. Paul is thinking of Genesis 3:15 when, in his letter to the Romans, he writes:

For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I would have you wise as to what is good and guileless as to what is evil; then the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you [Rom 16:19-20].

The Feeding of the Four Thousand

In the Gospels, the most famous miracle associated with Jesus—other than the Resurrection—is the Feeding of the Five Thousand. It’s recorded in all four Gospels.

But Matthew and Mark record an additional, similar miracle, known as the Feeding of the Four Thousand. The numbers connected with this miracle are a little different (four thousand people are fed, they use seven loaves and “a few small fish,” and they pick up seven baskets of leftovers), but it’s the same basic type of miracle.

That may be why Luke and John chose not to record it: Given the space limitations on ancient books, which needed to fit comfortably within a scroll, they may have concluded that they would only record one miracle of this type, and they picked the more impressive one.

But even if a miraculous multiplication of food has been done before, and on a somewhat larger scale, it’s still impressive! That may be why Matthew and Mark chose to record it.

There may also be another reason, but it requires a little detective work.

Jesus’ Travels

Matthew, Mark, and Luke record most of Jesus’ ministry as taking place in Galilee, which is an area north of Judea. In these three Gospels, Jesus is in Judea at the very beginning of his ministry, when he is baptized by John, and again at the end of his ministry, when he is crucified in Jerusalem. Between those points, however, he spends most of his time in Galilee.

But not all of it.

He also makes excursions into Gentile territory, such as when he exorcizes the Gerasene/Gadarene demoniac (Mark 5:1-20). That’s why there was a herd of two thousand pigs in that story—because the Gerasenes were Gentiles and ate pork.

It’s interesting that, at the end of the story, Jesus tells the formerly possessed man to spread the word about what God had done for him. This is the opposite of what Jesus frequently did in Galilee, where he often told people to keep what he did for them quiet.

The apparent reason for this was to try to keep from being mobbed or unwillingly declared king as people came to regard him as a political Messiah (John 6:15).

But since he spent most of his time in Galilee, there was less danger of that, and having the demoniac reveal what Jesus had done for him wouldn’t interfere with his ministry. Indeed, it would help Gentiles learn about the God of Israel!

If you read carefully, though, you see that—as Jesus continues to make excursions into Gentile territory—his reputation starts growing among them.

That brings us to the two feeding miracles.

Feeding the Five Thousand

Matthew and Mark say that this miracle occurred in “a lonely place” by the Sea of Galilee, but they don’t say where (Matt. 14:13, Mark 6:32). John is also vague about where it happened (John 6:1), but Luke tells us that it took place near Bethsaida (Luke 9:10).

Bethsaida was the original home of Peter and Andrew (John 1:44). It was a fishing village on the Sea of Galilee. In fact, the name Beth-Tsaida means “House of Fishing.”

It was, in any event, in Jewish territory, and so the Feeding of the Five Thousand involved a predominantly Jewish audience.

What about the other feeding miracle?

“Just Who Is Really Unclean, Here?”

In Mark 7, Jesus is criticized by some scribes and Pharisees because his disciples eat without washing their hands, according to Jewish custom. Jesus defends the disciples by saying that it is what comes out of a man’s heart, not what goes into his mouth, that makes him unclean (7:1-23).

Mark then adds an editorial comment to flesh out the implications of this: “Thus he declared all foods clean” (7:19). This was an important thing, since there was a question in the early Church about whether Gentiles had to keep the Jewish food laws (Rom. 14, Gal. 2:11-14, Col. 2:16).

This sets us up for a series of stories involving Gentiles.

First, Mark records Jesus going on an excursion to Tyre and Sidon, which are in modern-day Lebanon, to the north of Galilee. There he encounters the Syrophoenician woman—a Gentile—and exorcizes her daughter (7:24-30).

Mark then states: “Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis” (7:31).

The Decapolis was a group of ten cities that lay primarily on the east side of the Jordan River, in what is now the country of Jordan.

At the time, they were Greco-Roman cities, so they were Gentile rather than Jewish. In fact, Gerasa and Gadara were two of the ten cities, and so Jesus is going back into the same territory where he exorcized the demoniac.

But his reputation as a miracle-worker has grown, perhaps as a result of that man’s spreading the word, and he is brought a deaf mute, who he also heals (7:32-37).

Then something really interesting happens.

Feeding the Four Thousand

Mark reports:

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him, and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come a long way” [Mark 7:1-3].

So the Feeding of the Four Thousand, which occurs in this same sequence of stories involving Gentiles, after Jesus has journeyed into the Decapolis, appears to involve a Gentile audience.

In other words: It’s the Gentile sequel to the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

Jesus may have encountered trouble at home—such as the conflict with the Pharisees over hand washing—but his reputation in the Decapolis has grown to the point that he can now attract an audience of four thousand Gentiles and hold them for three days until they run out of food, leading to the second feeding miracle.

Matthew’s account is similar. In his version there is the conflict with the Pharisees about hand washing (Matt. 15:1-20), then Jesus goes to Tyre and Sidon and exorcizes the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter (Matthew specifically notes that the woman is “a Canaanite,” Matt 15:22). Afterward, as in Mark, Jesus journeys back and “passed along the Sea of Galilee” (Matt. 15:29), which is what you’d likely do to get to the Decapolis.

Matthew doesn’t make it explicit that Jesus was in the Decapolis when he performed the next set of miracles, which included healing “the lame, the maimed, the blind, the dumb, and many others” (Matt. 15:30), but he does say that, “the throng wondered, when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel” (Matt. 15:31).

This would be a strange thing to say if the audience were Jewish. Jews already glorified the God of Israel. They did it all the time. They worshipped him daily.

What would be more remarkable—worthy of Matthew making a remark on it—is for Gentiles to glorify the God of Israel.

We’ve already from Mark’s account that the Feeding of the Four Thousand likely involved a predominantly Gentile audience, and the crowd that glorifies the God of Israel in Matthew turns out to be the same crowd of four thousand that he immediately proceeds to feed (Matt. 15:32-38).

It thus looks like both Matthew and Mark subtly portray the Feeding of the Four Thousand as the Gentile sequel to the Feeding of the Five Thousand, foreshadowing the including of Jews and Gentiles within his Church.

Bible Study Note: Luke Ends on a Happy Note

Luke, like Matthew and Mark, contains an extensive discourse about the destruction of the Jewish temple. You can read his version in Luke 21:5-36. The parallels are Matthew 24 and Mark 13.

Now here is the way Luke’s Gospel ends:

50 Then he [Jesus] led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple blessing God [Luke 24:50-53].

While it’s true, historically, that the disciples continued to worship in the temple for some time, Luke didn’t have to end his Gospel with a mention of the temple (the other Evangelists didn’t)–and it’s such a positive mention in view of Jesus’ prophecy of its destruction just a few chapters earlier.

If that prophecy had already been fulfilled when Luke wrote his Gospel, it would be a little odd for Luke to end with the image of the disciples happily worshipping in the temple.

After the temple was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70, it was forcefully impressed on Christian consciousness that the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus spelt the end of the temple and its system of worship. That didn’t really sink in until the temple was destroyed, as Acts records the disciples (including Paul) continuing to worship in the temple for decades (until the mid-A.D. 50s, when Paul gets arrested and the story shifts away from Jerusalem for the last time).

Luke’s ending seems more like the way the temple and its services would be portrayed before it was destroyed–when Christians still frequented it and regarded it as the House of God.

This is not a decisive argument for when Luke was written, but it is “a straw in the wind” that points to it being composed before A.D. 70.

Fortunately, we have other, stronger reasons to suppose that. (It was most likely written around A.D. 59, since Acts stops suddenly in A.D. 60.)

Bible Study Note: Mark Gets Ahead of Himself

There are places in the Gospel of Mark where he “gets ahead of himself,” telling us one part of the story and then going back to fill in what we need to understand it.

And example is when he exorcizes the Gerasene demoniac. He writes:

6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped him; 7 and crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”

8 For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” [Mark 5:6-9]

Notice how verse 8 provides the explanation for the material before it. Jesus had already begun to perform the exorcism when the demon cried out.

This is a characteristic of Mark’s style, which is a little breathless. He’s so excited to tell the story that he gets a little ahead and sometimes needs to fill the audience in on the back story. (He also uses the word “immediately” constantly, as well as joining many clauses with “and,” and describes past events in the present tense–all of which create a driving sense of forward momentum in the plot.)

Sometime I should try to catalog all of the places where Mark does this.

Help for Pat and Gretchen Coburn

Recently on Facebook, I let people know about the situation of Gretchen Passantino-Coburn and her husband Pat.

I wrote:

Gretchen Passantino Coburn is an outstanding Evangelical apologist for the Christian Faith. She and her late husband, Bob Passantino, in the spirit of C. S. Lewis, recognize Catholics as brother Christians struggling against the forces arrayed against us.

Gretchen recently and very graciously invited me to guest blog on her site, even though I was expressing a different point of view. That’s how classy she is!

Bob Passantino played a key and supportive role in my conversion to the Catholic Church. It was also a role that led to my coming to work at Catholic Answers.

Now Gretchen is in danger of losing their house.

I value the apologetic ministry that Gretchen and Bob established to promote the Christian Faith, and I recommend that those who have been helped by my own apologetics ministry donate to prevent the loss of their home.

I have!

http://www.gofundme.com/agrtwk

I’d like to extend the same invitation to readers of my blog. If you can help, please do.

Right now–until Monday, June 30th–they have a matching grant so that every dollar donated up to $10,000 will be matched by an anonymous donor.

Virgin Mary Calls Show

If I do say so myself, this is one for the annals of unflappability.

NON-PLAYER LINK.

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Pope Francis Announces He May Renounce the Papacy One Day: 6 Things to Know and Share

Pope Benedict shocked the world in 2013 by announcing his plans to renounce the papacy, becoming the first pope in centuries to do so.

I predicted at the time that it would not be centuries before another pope resigned, and that Benedict may have started a trend.

That prediction is now being borne out. Pope Francis has announced his plans to one day renounce the papacy also.

Here are 6 things to know and share . . .

1) Where did Pope Francis make his remarks?

In an interview with the Spanish-language newspaper La Vanguardia.

You can read the Spanish original here.

And you can read an English translation here.

2) How did the subject come up?

The reporter asked Pope Francis about what he thought of Pope Benedict’s resignation, as follows:

What do you think of the renunciation of Benedict XVI?

Pope Benedict has made a very significant act. He has opened the door, has created an institution, that of the eventual popes emeritus. 70 years ago, there were no emeritus bishops. Today how many are there? Well, as we live longer, we arrive to an age where we cannot go on with things.

Pope Francis thus sees Benedict XVI’s act as setting a precedent for future popes that mirrors the way in which bishops have similarly begun to have retirements in recent decades. Note that Francis refers to Benedict having “created an institution.”

Francis’s use of the plural (“eventual popes emeritus”) may even envision the idea of more than one former pope being alive at the same time. Indeed, in light of what he says next, he may be thinking of himself and Benedict XVI sharing this status at some point.

3) What does he say next?

KEEP READING.

Not My Will, But Yours Be Done: Another View

Recently, Gretchen Passantino-Coburn posted an interesting piece on whether Jesus was trying to avoid the Cross when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The piece very correctly points out that Jesus knew it was his Father’s will for him to die on the Cross and that he lived his life in complete submission to the Father’s will (thus also setting an example for us).

As a result, there was never any conflict between his will and the Father’s, properly speaking.

What are we to make, then, of his prayer, “Not my will by yours be done”?

The article makes a striking proposal:

[W]e argue below that it was not death on the cross that Christ was longing to avoid, but death in the Garden before the cross; and that Christ’s will was not different than the Father’s will, but in harmony with the Fathers’ will. We argue below that Christ, in danger of expiring in the Garden, cried out to the Father for the necessary power either to remain alive through his Garden experience, or, if he expired in the Garden, to be revived by the Father so that he would be alive for his coming crucifixion.

I have a different understanding of this passage, and Gretchen has very graciously invited me to do a follow-up piece for purposes of discussion.

The First Question

The first question we need to address is whether Jesus was about to expire in the garden of Gethsemane. According to the article,

Jesus was in danger of dying in the Garden. Luke says, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Matthew and Mark affirm, “he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matt. 26:37-38, cf. Mark 14:33-34).

[Theologian J. Oliver] Buswell notes that profuse perspiration is a medical sign of life-threatening shock, when the body is so traumatized that it cannot control basic life sustaining functions and instead “shuts down” preparatory to death.

What should we make of this argument?

“I Could Die”

The statement that he is sorrowful “to the point of death” is generally understood as hyperbole (exaggeration to make a point). This is a common mode of expression in the Bible and one that Jesus uses in the Gospels.

We even have similar sayings in English where the possibility of death is raised without it being meant literally (e.g., “I’m so embarrassed I could die”).

The possibility (probability) of hyperbole is so significant in this case that Jesus’ statement about being sorrowful “to the point of death” can’t be relied upon as proof he was literally about to die in the garden.

The argument for the claim thus depends critically on Jesus’ sweat becoming like blood and this being an indication of imminent death.

Is the Text Original?

The statement that his sweat became like blood is found only in Luke 22:44. It is not in Matthew, Mark, or John.

However, there are significant reasons to question whether this material was originally in the text of Luke. Most modern Bibles will carry a footnote on verses 43 and 44, like this one from the New American Bible:

These verses, though very ancient, were probably not part of the original text of Luke. They are absent from the oldest papyrus manuscripts of Luke and from manuscripts of wide geographical distribution.

It is risky to make a dramatic interpretive claim (Jesus was about to die in the garden barring divine intervention) concerning an event found in all three of the Synoptics if the key detail is found only in one Gospel and there is strong reason to think it was not in the original.

Is Bloody Sweat a Sign of Imminent Death?

If we assume that the statement was in the original, there is still a problem, because Buswell appears to have been mistaken about the nature of this phenomenon.

While rare, bloody sweat is a known medical condition. Referred to as hematidrosis (Greek, “blood-sweat”), it is caused when the capillaries rupture into the sweat glands.

When it does occur, hematidrosis frequently is the result of anxiety, and it has been successfully treated with beta-blockers such as propranolol, which are used (among other things) to treat anxiety.

However, it does not appear that hematidrosis is “a medical sign of life-threatening shock, when the body is so traumatized that it cannot control basic life sustaining functions and instead ‘shuts down’ preparatory to death.”

The condition is not on that order of magnitude. While often produced by anxiety, the condition is a dermatological one that involves the capillaries leaking into the sweat glands, not a sign of overall systemic shutdown.

I did a quick review of online medical literature and turned up many cases where hematidrosis was not a sign of impending death. (See, for example, here, where patients are noted to have had repeated instances of hematidrosis.)

Buswell, writing in the early 1960s, may have had less access to medical information about hematidrosis. In fact, the condition is rare enough that it had not been studied as much then as it has been now. As a result, it could be understandable for Buswell to draw inaccurate conclusions.

A Clearer Indication? An Explanation?

It also strikes me that, if the Evangelists meant us to understand that Jesus was about to die on the spot, in contravention of God’s plan for him to die on the Cross, they would have signaled this to the readers in a clearer way.

They also likely would have provided some explanation for why this last-minute crisis was occurring.

For example, was it a final attempt by Satan to foil God’s plan?

If so, how do we explain the Gospels’ insistence that it was Satan who prompted Judas to betray Jesus? Furthermore, Jesus himself describes his arrest (not the agony in the garden) as “the hour of darkness” (Luke 22:53), suggesting that Satan was behind it.

But if it wasn’t the devil that tried to bring about Jesus’ death in the garden, what did? It wasn’t the Father’s plan for him to die there, and so it wouldn’t have been the Father.

That would leave us with either an accident that seems to threaten God’s Providence or Jesus simply having a panic attack so severe that it threatened his life.

Personally, I’d be inclined to resist either of those suggestions.

An Alternative Theory

As an alternative theory of the event, I would propose that Jesus knew in advance that he would die on the Cross and that he was resolute toward this goal. However, it is one thing when death is remote and another when it is staring one in the face.

Thus Christ was able to deal serenely with the prospect of Lazarus’s death—and even remark on how it would bring glory to God—when he was still in Galilee (John 11:1-4), but he nevertheless wept when he was standing at Lazarus’s tomb (John 11:35-36).

This response is rooted in the death aversion that is part of human nature. Being in proximity to death causes aversive feelings in humans (fear, sorrow, revulsion), and that’s a good thing. It is part of God’s plan, and it leads us to try to preserve life.

By virtue of his human nature, Jesus had death aversion also, and—as with the rest of us—it manifested with particular intensity when the hour of his death drew close.

Nevertheless, he was resolute to go through with the climax of his mission.

“Not My Will But Yours Be Done”

Jesus statement “Not my will but yours be done” does not indicate an actual opposition of wills. Indeed, it indicates the opposite—that he is completely submissive to the Father’s will.

The paradoxical nature of this statement is to be understood along the lines of similar paradoxical statements that Jesus’ makes—e.g., “He who saves his life will lose it,” “The first will be last.”

These statements rely on ambiguity of language for their solution (i.e., they rely on the fact that terms like “saving” and “losing” and “first” and “last” can be taken in different senses).

In this case, the term that is subject to ambiguity is “will.” This can indicate a determination, decision, or choice—or it can indicate a wish, preference, desire, or similar emotional rather than volitional state.

One can even recognize that one’s wish is not going to be fulfilled, but still give voice to it as a way of expressing one’s feelings.

That ambiguity seems to be in play here. By making his statement, Jesus is expressing his fundamental submission to the Father’s will while giving voice to the fact that he is experiencing death aversion. His statement could be paraphrased, less paradoxically, as “Not what I might wish, but may what you determine be done.”

Feelings vs. Resolve

This does not imply that Jesus’ will is not united to the Father’s. Indeed, he indicates that it is united to the Father’s.

Rather, it implies that Jesus is feeling something different than what he wills. What he wills is to do what the Father has determined, but he is experiencing the feelings of aversion that are normal for human beings in the presence of their own, imminent demise.

His giving voice to those feelings allows him to achieve an emotional release—just as when he wept or when he cried out in anguish—but his will is still in submission to the Father’s.

This incident thus highlights the dynamics of Jesus’ experience as a man. We also find ourselves in situations, particularly when we are suffering or preparing to die, where we need to say what we’re feeling as part of dealing with our emotions—even though we are resolved in our wills to a particular course of action.

By way of conclusion, I’d like to thank Gretchen and Bob Passantino for defending the fact that Jesus was always resolved to do the Father’s will, and I’d like to thank Gretchen for her gracious invitation to do this post.

Paul Never Quoted Jesus?

A common claim in some skeptical circles is that St. Paul never quoted Jesus.

A second common claim is that, if he had reliable knowledge of Jesus, he would have quoted him.

The conclusion that is drawn from these premises is that St. Paul was not a reliable source on Jesus.

Since St. Paul’s letters are among the earliest works of the New Testament, some proceed from there to argue either that historical knowledge of Jesus is impossible or even that he didn’t exist.

Such arguments are highly problematic.

The Second Premise

First, let’s consider the premise that Paul should have quoted Jesus if he had reliable knowledge of him.

Is that true?

It would be true if, in his letters, Paul was offering detailed catechesis on the life and ministry of Jesus (the way the Gospels do).

However, if Paul is not intending to offer detailed catechesis about the life and ministry of Jesus, he would have much less occasion to quote him.

The fact is that St. Paul’s epistles do not attempt to offer detailed catechesis. He is writing largely in a pastoral vein, dealing, for example, with various problems that have arisen in the churches he has founded or is planning to visit.

As a result, he would have much less occasion to quote Jesus. The only time it would be relevant for him to do so is if Jesus said something directly relevant to the problem he is dealing with.

Even then, he need not do so. Just because Jesus said something relevant does not mean that it must be quoted.

Christians today write on all kinds of subjects without being forced to quote everything Jesus said that might be relevant to the issue at hand.

The First Premise

Then there’s the first premise–that Paul never quoted Jesus.

Um, dude? 1 Corinthians 11?

[23] For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread

[24] and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

[25] In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Is that the only time? Nope. Off the top of my head, there’s also 1 Timothy 6:

[18] for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

That’s a quotation of a saying of Jesus that is also preserved in Luke 10:7.

It should be pointed out that, in the latter case, many skeptics will challenge Paul’s authorship of 1 Timothy, but the arguments that he had no hand in the letter are weak, and in any event 1 Corinthians is of undisputed Pauline authorship.

Then there are cases in which Paul does not directly quote Jesus but does directly allude to his thought.

One of these is in 1 Corinthians 7:

[10] To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband

[11] (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) — and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

This reflects Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage as found, e.g., in Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18.

Note that Paul elsewhere acknowledges when he isn’t able to document something from Jesus’ teachings. Later in the same chapter, he writes:

[25] Now concerning the unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.

And there are places where he alludes to Jesus’ teaching without making the allusion explicit (he’s trusting the reader already to know the source). An example is found in 1 Corinthians 13, where he says:

[2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

The concept of faith moving mountains is an apparent reference to a teaching of Jesus that is preserved in the Gospels (Matt. 17:20, Mark 11:23).

One could go on, but what we’ve already seen is enough to reveal how flawed are the claims that Paul never quoted or was unfamiliar with the teachings of the historical Jesus.