Apologetics – Page 29

My jaw dropped when I read the latest from Benedict XVI . . .

Since Benedict XVI resigned from the papacy and began his retirement in seclusion, he has said nothing publicly.

There’s a very good reason for that, and that’s why the most recent thing he’s written is so amazing.

He’s just publicly weighed in on Cardinal Kasper’s proposal to give Holy Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

Here’s the story . . .

1) Why is Benedict XVI so silent these days?

To give his successor a free hand. If a pope emeritus continued to speak out and play a substantial role as a public figure, it could cause all kinds of problems for his successor.

If the two were perceived as being in opposition to each other, it could be extremely traumatic for the Church. Hypothetically, it could even create a schism.

That’s why, when St. Celestine V resigned, his successor kept him imprisoned in a castle until he died.

By choosing to live in a monastery at the Vatican and staying out of the public eye, Benedict is deliberately staying out of Francis’s way.

He’s also setting a precedent for future popes emeritus.

2) What has Benedict said since retirement?

Very little. We know that he has been writing letters. In one letter, he took an atheist mathematician to the woodshed, and the mathematician later published the letter.

He also wrote a speech that was read at a Roman university by his aide, Archbishop Georg Ganswein.

But, in general, he has written very little that has come to public light.

And none of what he has written has dealt with controversial issues in the Church.

Until now.

3) What does Benedict think of “the Kasper proposal”

Over the last year, the Church has been wracked by a revival of Cardinal Walter Kasper’s proposal to give Holy Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics in some circumstances.

Cardinals have been publicly debating each other in the press.

We don’t need to rehash the whole, sad history of that here.

As we’ve watched that situation play out, I’ve repeatedly wondered what Benedict must be thinking—and doing.

Since Pope Francis allowed public discussion of this subject to continue, and since it’s a source of controversy in the Church, you wouldn’t expect him to speak out publicly on the subject.

That would be precisely the kind of interference in his successor’s affairs that he set out to avoid by going into seclusion.

But this issue is so important, with such high stakes, that it’s also precisely the kind of situation that would test that resolve.

I thought, perhaps, he would play a background role—giving advice to Pope Francis off the record at an opportune moment. We know that kind of thing happens.

But he’s now done much more than that.

He’s told us what he thinks.

And it happened through an unusual chain of events that seems providentially structured.

4) What happened?

Back in 1972, when he was still a theology professor, Joseph Ratzinger wrote an essay on the indissolubility of marriage in which he tentatively floated a variation of the Kasper proposal.

This was one of several ideas that Prof. Ratzinger tried out in the days of theological experimentation after the Council but later abandoned.

Indeed, he became a leader in the opposition to the idea that Holy Communion could be given to the divorced and civilly remarried.

Thus, when Cardinal Kasper and two other German bishops floated the proposal in 1993, Cardinal Ratzinger—as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—wrote a paper forcefully rejecting the idea.

You can read it here.

But that 1972 essay was still out there, and when he revived his proposal last year, Cardinal Kasper started quoting it.

I can only imagine that this deeply displeased Benedict.

Nobody likes having his words thrown back in his face—particularly when they are words that one has disowned.

For Cardinal Kasper to publicly cite the 1972 essay in an effort to associate Benedict’s name with and thus promote a position that Benedict has rejected must really come across as twisting the knife.

And yet it would seem that Benedict’s hands were tied by his seclusion.

Only they weren’t.

5) Why not?

Because, for the last few years, there has been an effort underway to re-publish collected editions of all of Benedict’s theological writings. (His private ones, that is; not his magisterial documents.)

This effort has been led by Cardinal Gerhard Muller.

And now they’ve published—in German—a volume of Benedict’s writings that includes a revised version of the 1972 essay.

The publication of this series of volumes thus allowed Benedict, from one perspective, to yank the rug out from under Cardinal Kasper’s use of the 1972 essay.

From another perspective, it allowed him to weigh in on the present controversy without having to make a new, public statement that could be perceived as deliberately interfering in the affairs of his successor.

The fact that this set of volumes was underway, and that that particular essay had not yet been republished when Cardinal Kasper started using it for his own purposes, is a providential blessing.

And what Benedict said is extremely encouraging.

6) What did he say?

You can read the full text of the part of the essay that changed—and the 1972 original—at Sandro Magister’s site (ht: Fr.Z).

Of course, the initial variation of the Kasper proposal is gone. There is no trace of it.

Benedict says a number of very interesting things, and the section dealing with divorce, remarriage, and Holy Communion reads as follows:

The 1981 apostolic exhortation “Familiaris Consortio” of John Paul II . . . states: “Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church […] Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them in faith and hope.”

This gives pastoral care an important task, which perhaps has not yet been sufficiently incorporated into the Church’s everyday life. Some details are indicated in the exhortation itself. There it is said that these persons, insofar as they are baptized, may participate in the Church’s life, which in fact they must do. The Christian activities that are possible and necessary for them are listed. Perhaps, however, it should be emphasized with greater clarity what the pastors and brethren in the faith can do so that they may truly feel the love of the Church. I think that they should be granted the possibility of participating in ecclesial associations and even of becoming godfathers or godmothers, something that the law does not provide for as of now.

There is another point of view that imposes itself on me. The impossibility of receiving the holy Eucharist is perceived as so painful not last of all because, currently, almost all who participate in the Mass also approach the table of the Lord. In this way the persons affected also appear publicly disqualified as Christians.

I maintain that Saint Paul’s warning about examining oneself and reflecting on the fact that what is at issue is the Body of the Lord should be taken seriously once again: “A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:28 f.). A serious self-examination, which might even lead to forgoing communion, would also help us to feel in a new way the greatness of the gift of the Eucharist and would furthermore represent a form of solidarity with divorced and remarried persons.

I would like to add another practical suggestion. In many countries it has become customary for persons who are not able to receive communion (for example, the members of other confessions) to approach the altar with their hands folded over their chests, making it clear that they are not receiving the sacrament but are asking for a blessing, which is given to them as a sign of the love of Christ and of the Church. This form could certainly be chosen also by persons who are living in a second marriage and therefore are not admitted to the Lord’s table. The fact that this would make possible an intense spiritual communion with the Lord, with his whole Body, with the Church, could be a spiritual experience that would strengthen and help them.

He thus proposes pastoral care for those in this situation and finding ways to further involve them in the life of the Church—including allowing them to serve in church associations and perhaps as godparents.

However, he recommends no change on the question of administering Holy Communion.

Instead, he asks us all to engage in serious self-examination and not to receive Communion unthinkingly.

And he recommends the custom of approaching the minister for a blessing when—as with the divorced and civilly remarried—one is not able to receive Communion.

7) How significant is this?

Benedict’s revision of his 1972 essay is extremely significant.

It makes the general lines of his thought publicly known, and this is bound to be a great encouragement for those who wish to see the Church’s traditional teaching and practice maintained.

It also makes it harder to use Benedict’s name in association with the contrary proposal—as Cardinal Kasper and others have been doing.

It’s a net gain. It’s a gift from God. And, with the former pope weighing in on the issue publicly, it may even be a game-changer.

Do sheep prove that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th?

St. Luke records that when Jesus was born an angel of the Lord directed a group of shepherds to go find him.

Luke introduces this group of shepherds by saying:

And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night [Luke 2:8].

This has led to a common argument that Jesus couldn’t have been born on December 25th.

Why? Because it was supposedly too cold for the shepherds to be pasturing their flocks at night in late December.

Is this true?

Not on your life.

Shepherds’ Fields

Sheep definitely were pastured in the vicinity of Bethlehem. Luke is correct about that. In fact, they are pastured there today.

There are even two fields (one Catholic, one Greek Orthodox) that are known as the “Shepherds’ Field,” where pilgrims go to commemorate the events that Luke records. Both have shrines today.

The Orthodox one is pictured above.

Neither can be established as the site Luke mentions. (Indeed, the site may have been at another nearby location entirely.)

Now about the argument that it was too cold to be grazing sheep on December 25th. . . .

Too Cold?

You know those fashionable fleece jackets that are really popular that people wear to keep from being too cold?

The ones that return between five and six million hits on Google?

Yeah those!

You know where the stuff those fleece jackets are made of comes from?

That’s right! Sheep! (And/or goats.)

It turns out that God decided to have sheep grow this amazing stuff called wool.

This wool stuff not only makes sheep soft and fun for children to touch at petting zoos, it also keeps them warm—just like it keeps us warm once we shear it off them.

In fact, wool is one of the main reasons that we keep sheep in the first place.

Sheep also need us to shear them, because if we don’t then their wool will overgrow and make it very difficult for the sheep to go about its normal sheep business.

Here’s a picture of a sheep whose wool has been allowed to grow to the point that, when it was finally sheared, it produced enough wool for twenty men’s suits . . .

Anybody want to say it was too cold for that sheep to withstand the rigors of a December night in the vicinity of Jerusalem, where the average nightly low for such nights (today) is 43 degrees Fahrenheit?

Of course, average temperature changes over times, but the first century was well after the close of the last Ice Age.

So maybe we want to be a little careful about declaring it “too cold” to keep sheep outdoors in the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area without, y’know, actually checking the facts.

Speaking of which . . .

Let’s Check the Facts!

Whether or not Jesus was born on December 25th, the claim that sheep were not being grazed at this time of year is false. In fact, sheep are still grazed there at this time of year.

In biblical circles, there is a famous letter written in 1967 in which a visiting scholar noted that sheep were, in fact, being pastured in Shepherds’ Field on Christmas Eve itself.

Biblical chronologer Jack Finegan writes:

William Hendriksen quotes a letter dated Jan. 16, 1967, received from the New Testament scholar Harry Mulder, then teaching in Beirut, in which the latter tells of being in Shepherd Field at Bethlehem on the just-passed Christmas Eve, and says: “Right near us a few flocks of sheep were nestled. Even the lambs were not lacking. . . . It is therefore definitely not impossible that the Lord Jesus was born in December” [Jack Finnegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (2nd ed.), no. 569, quoting Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Matthew (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973), 1:182].

So the idea that Jesus couldn’t have been born on December 25th because of Luke’s reference to the pasturing of sheep on this night is false.

What about the shepherds?

Of course, Luke also says the shepherds were out in the fields. Would it have been too cold for them?

After all, shepherds are not naturally covered in wool. (Well, not most of them.)

But they do tend to have access to wool clothing and wool blankets, and they can lie down together to keep warm (Eccles. 4:11; cf. Eccles. 4:9-12) and build fires (John 18:18), etc.

And, y’know, 43 degrees.

So yeah. Not too cold for them, either.

The Dating of Christmas

Was Jesus really born on December 25th?

You’ll find strong opinions on both sides of this question, with some saying definitely yes and some saying definitely no.

I don’t have strong feelings on this question. Although the Church today liturgically celebrates the birth of Our Lord on December 25th, whether this is the exact date of his birth is a question that the Magisterium has not settled. I would be fascinated if it turned out he was born on this date, but it would not upset me if it turned out he wasn’t.

The important thing is that he was born!

Over time, I want to look at some of the arguments (good and bad) about the day of Christ’s birth, and I’ll use this page to keep track of those posts, since the subject is too broad to be dealt with in a single, initial post.

Oh, and before we begin, a note for those who wonder if I’ve seen the Star of Bethlehem documentary (I get asked about this regularly when I talk about Christmas). Yes, I’ve seen it. It has both positive and negative aspects. Some of the things it argues are correct, but not everything it says is perfectly argued. I’ll try to deal with it in the fullness of time.

Here goes . . .

What Year was Jesus Born?

In this sequence of posts I deal with the chronology of the year in which (thought not the day on which) Jesus was born.

The 100-year old *mistake* about the Birth of Jesus

Here I point out the flaws in the argument made by Emil Shurer that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. This argument has skewed New Testament chronology for a century!

Jesus’ birth and when Herod the Great *really* died

Here I describe the reasons that point to the actual date of Herod the Great’s death in 1 B.C.

What year was Jesus born? The answer may surprise you

Now I add up the evidence, which reveals that Jesus was born in the year that the Church Fathers held Jesus was born: 3/2 B.C.

The Infancy Narratives

How the accounts of Jesus’ childhood fit together: 6 things to know and share

Here I argue that, despite claims to the contrary, the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke do not contradict each other. Instead, they fit together amazingly well.

The Enrollment of Quirinius

Does St. Luke contradict himself on when Jesus was born?

Here I deal with an alleged contradiction between Luke’s statements that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, given the connection he makes to the enrollment of Quirinius.

The Star of Bethlehem

Was the Star of Bethlehem a myth? A UFO? Or something else?

Here I argue that the Star of Bethlehem could have been an ordinary, if uncommon, astronomical phenomenon and that we need not suppose that it was a myth or something preternaturally strange.

Responding to the “Go To” Skeptic on the Star of Bethlehem

Here I respond to arguments posed by Dr. Aaron Adair, a skeptic who thinks that the way Matthew describes the Star of Bethlehem aren’t consistent with ordinary astronomical phenomena.

The “Integral Age” Theory

Is the “integral age” theory an apologetics myth?

Here I look at the claim that the date of Christmas and the Annunciation were determined by an alleged Jewish belief that prophets live in whole year units. In it, I point out the lack of clear evidence for this and ask for further help researching the idea.

“Integral Age” update!

Here I record the results of further research that I was able to do with the help of various individuals who responded to the above post. Conclusion: The most that can safely be claimed is that some Jewish sages from approximately this period in history had the idea that some holy men (at least Moses) lived in whole year units and this may or may not have played a role in the thinking of early Christians in fixing certain feast days.

The Sheep Argument

Do sheep prove that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th?

Here I deal with the argument that Jesus couldn’t have been born on December 25th because it was too cold for sheep to be pastured on that night, as Luke records.

“Integral Age” Update!

Recently I blogged about the common apologetics claim that the dates of Christmas and the Annunciation were based on the idea that Jesus lived to an “integral age.”

In other words, that Jesus died on the anniversary of his birth or conception.

According to some authors, it was popularly believed among ancient Jews that prophets and other holy men died on their birthdays.

But my own research into the topic did not back this up.

I therefore asked if others could shed any light on the subject, and they did!

With the generous help of various individuals, mostly on Facebook, I’ve been able to get further information on this subject.

The origin of “integral age”

Jon Sorensen noted that the phrase “integral age” may have been coined by William J. Tighe in this article. Tighe writes:

At this point, we have to introduce a belief that seems to have been widespread in Judaism at the time of Christ, but which, as it is nowhere taught in the Bible, has completely fallen from the awareness of Christians. The idea is that of the “integral age” of the great Jewish prophets: the idea that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception.

Tighe provides no documentation for the claim that the idea of integral age “seems to have been widespread in Judaism at the time of Christ,” though he correctly notes that it is nowhere taught in the Bible.

Duchene’s proposal

Sorensen also pointed out that a variation of the argument was used by Louis Duschene in his book Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution. You can read his discussion of it here, starting on page 263.

Duschene admits that no text from the correct time period states that this is the way the dates of Christmas and the Annunication were determined, and so he says that his theory must be put forward as a hypothesis, although one he thinks can be defended.

It should be noted that Duschene is discussing early Christian sources, not Jewish ones, and so he is not claiming that Christians got this idea from Jews of the period.

His proposal is also picked up by the Catholic Encyclopedia, which attributes the idea to a “popular instinct, demanding an exact number of years in a Divine life” (source). Again, such an instinct would have been on the part of Christians. It is not claimed that this was picked up from Jewish individuals of their day.

A good day to die

One contact pointed to a statement in the Jewish Encyclopedia, which states “It is a good omen to die with a smile on the face, or to die on one’s birthday” (source).

Unfortunately, the text is not clear on the origin of this claim (though it may be Tur Yoreh De’ah 353; I have not been able to locate an online source to check this).

The idea that it’s a good omen to die on one’s birthday, though, does not establish that it was an ancient Jewish belief that the prophets or other men of God typically did so.

Moses’ Birth/Death Day

Several contacts pointed to statements in the Babylonian Talmud that claim that Moses died on the his birthday.

This appears to be stated in at least three places (b. Rosh Hashanah 1 [1:1, VIII.3.X], b. Sotah 12b [1:8, III.38.Q], b. Kiddushin 39a [1:9, II:9:B])

The least informative of these is the reference in Sotah, which simply says that Moses was born and died on the seventh of the month of Adar but does not go into why.

The reference in Rosh Hashanah appears to say that Moses died on his hundred and twentieth birthday, and it may indicate that the same was true of the patriarch Abraham, though this is less clear.

Finally, an argument!

The clearest discussion is found in Kiddushin, where Moses is said to have was born on the seventh of Adar and that he died on his hundred and twentieth birthday.

This passage cites two texts in support of this. The first is a statement Moses makes when he is about to die:

And he said to them, “I am a hundred and twenty years old this day; I am no longer able to go out and come in. The LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan” [Deut. 31:2].

The Talmud argues that if Moses was merely in his hundred and twentieth year, he would not need to say that he was that old “this day,” and it tries to find additional meaning in this statement.

It then proposes another biblical passage, where God is promising blessings on those who obey him, as an explanation:

None shall cast her young or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days [Ex. 23:26].

Bad exegesis

The argument that the Talmud is making is not exegetically sound. The text in Deuteronomy need not be taken as Moses referring to his birthday. The “this day” in his statement that he is a hundred and twenty years old may just be a way of underscoring the impressive age he has achieved.

Even less plausible is the interpretation of the passage in Exodus to mean that those who obey God will live in whole year units. Understood naturally, it just means that those who obey him won’t die young but will live a full life (all things being equal).

What is significant for our purposes, though, is not whether the argument is exegetically sound. What matters is the fact that the Talmud uses the argument to support the idea that Moses died on his birthday.

This provides at least the kernel of something that could be applied more broadly.

Was Moses thought to be unique?

We have already noted that Rosh Hashanah may apply this reasoning to Abraham, however this is unclear. In more recent times, it has been applied to David and perhaps other figures. However, the only person that the Talmud clearly applies this reasoning to is Moses.

Further, while the Talmud dates the claim that Moses was born and died on the seventh of Adar to the period between A.D. 10 and 220 (b. Kiddushin 1:9, II.9.A-B), the argument involving those who obey God living in whole year units may date to a few centuries later.

Apologetic implications

As a result of all this, we should be careful in claiming that there was a widespread belief in ancient Judaism that prophets or other holy men died on their birthdays. The matter is too uncertain for that.

The most that can safely be claimed is that some Jewish sages from approximately this period in history had the idea that some holy men (at least Moses) lived in whole year units and this may or may not have played a role in the thinking of early Christians in fixing certain feast days.

I want to say a special thank you to all who provided assistance in this matter. It helped me carry the issue further than I was able to on my own!

I’ll post any further updates to this page to keep it current.

Is the “integral age” theory an apologetics myth? 9 things to know and share

Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th? Why is the Annunciation on March 25th?

According to some authors, it’s due to something called the “integral age” view that was common among ancient Jews.

But this idea itself might be a myth.

Here are 9 things to know and share . . .

BE SURE TO READ THE UPDATE TO THIS POST BY CLICKING HERE.

1) What is the “integral age” view?

Supposedly, it is a belief that was common in ancient Judaism, and it held that prophets (and other holy men) died on the same day that they were born or—according to some accounts—the day they were conceived.

They thus lived their lives in whole or “integral” years (from the Latin integer = “whole”).

2) What does this have to do with the Annunciation and Christmas?

According to some early Christian authors, Jesus was crucified on March 25th.

If that were true, and if someone held the integral age view, then Jesus would have either been born or conceived on March 25th.

This would provide a rationale for why the Church celebrates the Annunciation of Jesus on March 25, and why it celebrates his birth on December 25th—nine months later.

3) Why is it relevant to apologetics?

If this is the rationale for the dates of Advent and Christmas then it would be clear that they weren’t picked because of pagan holidays. They were picked based on the day Christ was thought to have been crucified.

Thus, apologists sometimes cite the integral age theory.

4) Who said Jesus was crucified on March 25th?

Tertullian (c. A.D. 200) is frequently credited with saying this. He wrote that Jesus was crucified “in the month of March, at the times of the Passover, on the eighth day before the calends of April” (An Answer to the Jews 8).

On the Roman calendar, the calends were the first days of the month.

If Jesus was crucified eight days before the calends of April then he was crucified eight days before April 1st—in other words, on March 25th.

Tertullian seems to have been the earliest author to propose this date for the Crucifixion, though it was later picked up by other Christian authors.

5) Was Tertullian correct?

No. Modern scholars have almost universally concluded that Tertullian was mistaken.

The reason is that the four Gospels agree that Jesus was crucified on a Friday at Passover during the reign of Pontius Pilate (after the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar; see Luke 3:1).

None of the Fridays at Passover during the relevant years fall on March 25th, so Tertullian was mistaken.

Still, if people thought that’s when he was crucified, and if they held to the integral age view, that would still provide a rationale for the Annunciation on March 25 and Christmas on December 25.

6) Did they hold the integral age theory?

This is where it gets interesting. I’ve been doing extensive searching, both online and off, and I can’t find any ancient Jewish source attesting this view.

I can find modern Christian sources talking about it (like the apologetic writings mentioned earlier), but not ancient Jewish ones.

I also don’t find mentions of this in the scholarly literature I’ve checked.

For example, I can’t find any mention of it in Jack Finegan’s outstanding Hanbook of Biblical Chronology (2nd ed.)—and I really would expect to see some reference to it there.

I searched my Verbum library, which is very large. Nothing.

So I started searching on Google.

7) What did you find on Google?

Google shows different people different results, but here’s what I got.

If you search on “integral age”, you get 6,200 results, but most of the top ones have nothing to do with our question. A lot of them seem to have to do with a New Age concept.

If you search for “integral age” prophets, you get 3,070 results, but the top results are almost all about Christmas.

That’s a danger sign.

If this is a well-attested Jewish view then why does it only seem to be bringing up results about Christmas. Could it be an apologetics myth?

I checked several of the results that came up, but none of them cited an ancient Jewish source (or even a scholarly source which would be expected to include a reference to an ancient one). The ones I checked just said it was a Jewish belief.

We might be able to force Jewish references to the surface if we eliminate “Christmas” from the search, so I then searched on “integral age” prophets –Christmas. I got 648 results.

Now the Annunciation held the top spot in the results Google showed me. So I pulled out the Annunciation, too, by searching on “integral age” prophets –Christmas –Annunciation. I got 619 results.

Some New Age references were back. And none of the links I checked provided any ancient Jewish or modern scholarly references.

This was bad.

The search results I was coming up with did not make it look like this was an ancient Jewish belief.

So I decided to include search terms for specific Jewish sources where you might expect such a belief to be mentioned—like the Mishnah, the Talmud, or in a midrash.

The results I got were, respectively, 1 hit, 70 hits, and 10 hits.

Many of these had the term Talmud or midrash struck out because Google was trying to show me additional results even though these terms were not present.

And none of the ones I checked cited an ancient Jewish or modern scholarly source.

8) Is the “integral age” theory just a Christian apologetics myth, then?

From what I’ve been able to find, it could well be.

That’s not to say it’s a modern one. It could have been an idea that some ancient Christians had about what Jews believed. I haven’t tried tracing how far back in Christian history the claim goes.

But I have tried finding it in ancient Jewish and modern scholarly sources and not come up with anything.

As a result, I don’t feel safe citing this argument in my own apologetics at this point, because I can’t back it up. It has the earmarks of an apologetics myth.

So I have a request: Can anybody provide a quotation from an ancient Jewish source that talks about this belief?

How about a modern scholarly source that cites an ancient source (Jewish or otherwise)?

I’d much appreciate anything anyone can come up with! I’d love to have an ancient source for this claim.

9) If it is a myth, what then?

If the integral age theory is a myth then it means we shouldn’t be using it when we talk about the dating of the Annunciation and Christmas.

Of course, if it is a myth, that doesn’t mean these two Christian holidays were ripoffs of pagan ones. That’s a whole different matter.

Also, the difficulty in finding actual ancient references to back up this common contemporary claim should serve as a caution and as an illustration of the value of checking one’s sources and testing their claims.

BE SURE TO READ THE UPDATE TO THIS POST BY CLICKING HERE.

Were the early Christians pacifists?

There is a persistent claim that the early Christians were pacifists—in the strong sense of being opposed to all use of violence—and that it was not until the time of the Emperor Constantine that this began to change.

After Christianity became the official religion of the empire, the Church embraced the use of military force, with St. Augustine playing the part of the enabling villain, who came up with the idea of the just war.

This story plays with well-worn tropes: the fall from original innocence into corruption, the idea that Constantine corrupted the Church, that the Christianization of the empire was a bad thing, etc.

You may notice that these same tropes are often used in anti-Catholic apologetics stemming from the Protestant Reformation. That’s not surprising, since these tropes were needed to justify separation from the Church at the time of the Reformation.

It’s also not surprising that, relying on these same tropes, the denominations that historically have been strongly pacifistic stemmed from the Protestant community.

Most Protestants, of course, are not pacifists and recognize the legitimate use of military force, and there is a good reason for that: Protestants are the majority in many countries, just as Catholics are in others, and so they have been confronted with the task of ensuring the safety of their nations.

No nation can be safe if it is unwilling to use military force to defend itself. If, in the present, fallen state of the world, a nation were to suddenly renounce the use of military force and beat its swords into ploughshares, it would suffer a dire fate.

Either:

It would be conquered by its external enemies,
Its internal, criminal element would overrun it and turn it into a failed state,
Its more sensible-minded citizens would stage a coup and re-establish a government willing to use force to defend the nation, or
It would depend for its defense on another country that is less scrupulous about the use of force, making its safety and freedom dependent on the whims of that foreign state.

Any way you go, pacifism is not a stable, self-sustaining enterprise. It’s a dangerous world out there, and pacifists depend for their safety and security on the generosity and good will of non-pacifists.

Prior to the Christianization of the Roman empire, many Christians were not faced with the responsibility of defending the public and ensuring public order. As a result, some authors of this period had the luxury of entertaining pacifistic ideals without having to worry about keeping people safe.

But were they all in this condition? What about those Christians who were in the military?

What about the era of the New Testament itself? What attitude toward military service did it take?

Is the idea of a uniformly pacifist early Church accurate? Or does it distort what actually happened?

Here’s a video in which I take on the subject.

Click here to watch the video in your browser.

What’s wrong with The Principle?

The Principle is a documentary promoting geocentrism, or the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe.

In a previous post, I looked at how well it worked as a film. (I gave it * * 1/2 stars out of 5.)

What about the content of the film? How well does that stand up?

It depends on the level you are talking about.

At the highest level, the film contains a message that science and faith are not enemies and should not be pitted against each other.

Fine.

But that doesn’t mean that the earth is at the center of the universe, which is what the film wants to suggest.

The summaries that The Principle provides about the history of astronomy also are generally accurate, though I was amazed that the filmmakers let Michio Kaku get away with saying that Giordano Bruno was burned alive “for simply saying that there are other worlds out there.”

This is not true, and the filmmakers should have provided a voice setting the matter straight. Even Wikipedia’s page on Bruno is more accurate than The Principle is on him.

The film’s discussion of recent physics is also largely fine. Even some of the critiques it offers of modern scientific ideas are good (e.g., that we shouldn’t overplay the idea of a multiverse). But again, these don’t prove geocentrism, which is what the film is interested in advocating.

“What If . . . ?” Advocacy

We should note the way in which The Principle advocates geocentrism. It does not come out and say, in a straightforward way, with the full editorial voice of the film, “The earth is at the center of the universe.”

Instead, it uses the kind of breathless “What if . . . ?” style of advocacy that you find in documentaries inviting us to consider whether—just maybe—Jesus Christ might have been married to Mary Magdalene. Or whether—just perhaps—he never rose from the dead. Or even—just maybe perhaps—he was a space alien.

Despite framing their theses in the form of questions, the viewer understands which points of view they’re advocating.

Know what I mean?

Now: What arguments does the film offer concerning geocentrism?

Alternate Interpretations

A good bit of the film just tries to poke holes in current cosmological ideas by proposing alternate interpretations rather than making a positive case for geocentrism.

This happens when they note that you could explain the fact that almost all galaxies appear to be moving away from us either by proposing an expanding universe, in which almost all galaxies are moving away from each other, or by proposing that our galaxy is at the center of the universe and everything is moving away from us.

Fine. Either one of those works.

What the filmmakers don’t point out is that these aren’t the only two options. While you could pick our galaxy as the center and see everything moving away from it, you can equally well pick any random location in the universe and use it as a reference point.

If you did that, the same exact thing would result: Almost all the galaxies would seem to be moving away from that randomly chosen point.

Since there are an infinite number of random points you could choose, you need to give the viewer a reason to pick our galaxy—and, more specifically, our planet—if you want us to suppose that we are at the physical center of things.

A Baby’s Smile? The Finale of a Symphony?

It’s hard to know what to make of some of the things in The Principle. For example, there is an opening montage in which you have multiple figures talking about whether the earth is or is in a “special” place, with many of them denying that it is.

The earth very obviously is a special place (it has life, liquid water, breathable oxygen, and it’s where I keep all my stuff), so when the film talks about the earth being or being in a special place, it seems to be using the word special to mean something like “central” or “at the center.”

But then why is Kate Mulgrew telling us that the earth seems special because nowhere else in the universe do we see a baby’s smile or the finale of a great symphony being performed?

That’s not evidence that the earth is at the center of anything. Indeed, there could be babies smiling everywhere in the galaxy and symphonies finishing all over the universe and we wouldn’t know it because we don’t have telescopes powerful enough to see them. “Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence.”

It’s hard to think that the filmmakers meant this to be taken seriously. Presumably, they put it in to give the viewers a warm fuzzy, without making a serious argument.

Concentric Shells?

The film seems to attempt only two serious arguments in favor of geocentrism. The first is based on the findings of physicist John Hartnett, who claimed to have discovered that there are regularities in the speeds that the galaxies appear to be moving away from us.

According to Hartnett, the galaxies seem to cluster around particular redshifts (i.e., particular speeds at which they are retreating). This can be visualized as a series of concentric shells (see illustration) with a center “somewhere cosmologically near our galaxy’s position,” in Hartnett’s words.

It should be noted that, although Hartnett himself thinks that our galaxy has a central location in the universe, he does not believe in geocentrism, and he believes that the producers of The Principle misrepresented his position in the film.

Further, Hartnett notes that even his galacto-centric interpretation of his data is not the only way of looking at it:

[T]he existence of concentric shells could be interpreted as some sort of oscillation in the expansion rate of the Universe. This view does not place any special significance on the centre of the large-scale structure being found exactly at the observer. This is because if cosmological redshift results from cosmological expansion then we only appear to be at some local centre.

Physicist Alec MacAndrew agrees. After noting that Hartnett’s data has been challenged and may not be accurate, he considers a proposal made by several scientists that the expansion rate of the universe changes over time in a way that makes the galaxies seem to cluster around particular speeds. He states:

In that case, observers will see preferential clustering of galaxies as a function of redshift, in concentric shells exactly centred on themselves from wherever in the universe they make the observation. Just like the recession of galaxies in a uniformly expanding universe always appears to be exactly centred on the observer, so universal oscillations in the expansion rate would leave a signature in the redshift data precisely centred on the observer, wherever he is [italics in original].

The argument based on the apparent speeds of the galaxies thus does not prove geocentrism (or even galacto-centrism).

The Cosmic Microwave Background

The other major argument that The Principle proposes for geocentrism is based on an analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)—a low-level radiation that fills the universe and that is commonly thought to be the “afterglow” of the Big Bang.

The argument that The Principle makes is difficult to summarize concisely and without computer animations, but it can be put this way: If you look at the sky, there are tiny temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background, and if you analyze these, you find features that seem to align with the plane of the solar system and the tilt of the earth’s axis. These seem to suggest that the earth is at the center of the universe.

Physicist Alec MacAndrew has written a technical takedown of the claim, which you can read here.

David Palm provides a somewhat less technical summary here. Here are a couple of takeaway points provided by Palm:

“Although you would never know it by reading geocentrist literature, the alignments which the new geocentrists highlight in the CMB are far from exact – they are only approximate. It is true that any apparent alignments are interesting to physicists if they are expecting randomness. But the inexactness of the alignments certainly does not create anything like a sound foundation upon which to build the extravagant claims of the geocentrists. It is precarious, at best, to argue that the CMB data are actually ‘pointing to’ the earth when those alignments are off by 7, 14, even 16 degrees according to the most recent, most precise measurements. The geocentrists are again playing fast and loose with the facts. They demand we accept that God intentionally made the earth motionless at the exact center of the universe. Yet, they’re content with supposed evidence that God is an extremely sloppy architect and cartographer who can’t manage to ‘point’ to the earth with a margin of error of less than 16 degrees.

“But it’s worse than that for the new geocentrists. Because, as Dr. MacAndrew demonstrates, the CMB data don’t point at anything. As MacAndrew says, ‘the CMB multipole vectors give directional information but no positional information. If you were an astronomical distance away from the Earth, you would not be able to use the CMB multipole vectors to navigate to it.’ The claims of the new geocentrists that somehow the CMB ‘points at the Earth’ is completely fallacious.”

“Nothing Special”?

One of the most frustrating things about The Principle is a fallacy seemingly embraced by both the geocentrists and the non-geocentrists in the film.

Remember the opening montage I mentioned, where the question of whether the earth is or is in a “special” place kept being posed? Parties on both sides of the question seemed to be harboring the idea that if the earth isn’t in a special place then mankind is nothing special.

The geocentrists then seemed to suggest that since mankind is special, the earth must be or be in a “special” place. At one point, apologist Robert Sungenis says: “It’s tremendous to be human, so why wouldn’t we want to be in a special place in the universe, made by a special God?”

One of the problems with this argument is that what we want isn’t relevant. Another is the ambiguity of the word “special.”

The earth is a special place in ways that have already been noted: It has life, it has liquid water and breathable oxygen, etc.

The earth is also in a special place, because it’s in a location where those things are possible. If we were—say—at the distance from the sun that the planet Mercury is, that wouldn’t be the case.

Mankind is special because man has numerous qualities and abilities that are unique among all the living creatures on earth. From a theological point of view, man is also special because of his unique relationship with God.

But what does any of this have to do with being “special” in the sense of being at the center of the universe?

Nothing.

If God put the earth and mankind at the farthest point from the physical center of the universe (assuming the universe even has a physical center), none of the things that are special about them would change.

Just because something is special in one sense (having liquid water, having life, having intelligence) doesn’t mean that it is special in other senses (having liquid methane, having wings, being at the physical center of the universe).

This is simply fallacious reasoning.

As many have recognized.

But it’s the central—and fatal—fallacy of The Principle.

The Principle: A Movie Review

Recently the Register asked me to review The Principle—a documentary that promotes geocentrism, or the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe.

This film is much smaller than most of those the Register reviews. Indeed, at the time of this writing it has only reported $16,826 at the box office—half of which was made in a single theater on its opening weekend.

But the film is being disproportionately discussed in conservative Catholic circles, so I agreed.

Like any documentary, this one can be looked at more than one way. One perspective concerns the production values and how well it is executed. Another concerns the content of the film and how successfully it argues its case.

In this piece, we will look at how well The Principle works as a documentary film. In a subsequent piece, we will look at its content.

So how does it work cinematically?

It’s not the worst documentary I’ve ever seen.

That would be Overlords of the UFO (1976). You can watch it here. It’s hilarious.

While The Principle is better than Overlords of the UFO in many ways, the two have at least one thing in common, which is that they contain footage of people who were profoundly embarrassed by the film and who subsequently disassociated themselves with the project.

In the case of Overlords of the UFO, physicist and UFO researcher Stanton Friedman was horrified by the film’s use of footage from an interview he gave to a television station, making it appear that he was in support of the loony ideas promoted by the producers.

In the case of The Principle, multiple figures distanced themselves, including physicists Lawrence Krauss, Michio Kaku, Julian Barbour, and mathematician George Ellis (see here, for example).

Also disassociating herself from the project was actress Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager), who read the narration for the film (see her comments on her Facebook fan page).

Setting aside the fact that multiple individuals associated with the film feel that they were misled by the producers and misrepresented in the film, how does it hold up cinematically?

Some have said that they were impressed by the production values, and these are not bad.

In addition to the interview segments, a good deal of the film is made up of stock footage and outer space photographs. These days, though, anybody can get some stock footage from Shutterstock and some Hubble telescope images, load them into Final Cut Pro, put pre-existing music under them, and produce montages of the same caliber.

There are some video effects that were produced specially for the film, and many of these do look good.

What looks less good are the two-dimensional animations produced for the film, particularly those depicting historical figures. To produce these, illustrations and photographs of well-known historical figures (Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Albert Einstein, etc.) were redrawn or retouched and then animated in a clunky way that is basically a step above the cutout animations that Terry Gilliam produced for Monty Python.

These animations in The Principle move in ways that are unintentionally comical.

Sometimes, though, the filmmakers attempt comedy with them, but the result is disappointing and, in one case, comes off as juvenile.

This happens in a sequence in which astronomer Edwin Hubble is depicted sitting at a telescope, smoking a pipe. The animation awkwardly leans forward and back, observing distant galaxies. Then the narration indicates that Hubble’s observations were consistent with or suggestive of geocentrism, but he couldn’t accept this fact.

At this point the animation of Hubble gets an absurdly exaggerated expression of shock on its face. It falls over backward in its chair, and the still-smoking pipe spins around in mid air, defying the law of gravity, before it too plummets out of frame.

Classy, guys.

How does the film’s pacing work?

It begins with a general discussion of “the Copernican principle” (the idea that the earth is not the center of the solar system or the universe) and hammers the idea that this theory suggests that there is nothing special about mankind.

It then backs up to give a short history of astronomy and astrophysics and how they moved through different phases, leading up to the present. This segment depicts science and faith initially being in harmony, then diverging, and now possibly moving back together.

In the end it suggests that there are reasons to question (read: reject) the Copernican principle and that science and faith may have a more fruitful encounter than they did following the Galileo incident.

This is the kind of structure that you would expect in a film of this sort, but the timing in the film is problematic. With a run time of about 90 minutes, the film seems simultaneously too short and too long. Many viewers will find it confusing and boring.

It will come across as confusing because it is too short to adequately explain all the concepts it throws at the viewer.

Unless the viewer is a scientist or—at least—someone who reads science books for fun (as I do, including multiple books by Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku, both of whom were interviewed for the film), he will have a hard time keeping up with many of the concepts in the film.

Lots of terms get thrown around—either with no definition at all or with a definition so brief that a normal viewer will not be able to absorb and remember it.

Multipoles? Dipoles? Octopoles? Ecliptic? Isotropic? Anisotropies?

These are not terms that will be familiar to most viewers, and if you want the viewer to understand what is being said, you need to slow things down and really explain these terms so that the viewer can grasp and remember them.

The film doesn’t do that, and so significant sections of the film will come across as confusing and impossible to follow for the normal viewer.

It’s not that they don’t make an effort to explain some of the terms. In fact, there is a goofy holographic-computer-interface-dictionary-lady-who-speaks-with-an-apparent-British-accent who pops up occasionally to define a term for us, but it is not enough for a viewer not already familiar with the jargon used in the film.

With significant sections of the film being unintelligible to a typical viewer and with the film at 90 minutes running time, many will feel parts of it boring.

Thus, in a way, the film seems too long.

It either needed to cut these sections and deliver a shorter, more intelligible film, or it needed to expand its length—explain the concepts involved—and become a more intelligible miniseries.

Artistically, judged simply as an example of documentary filmmaking, The Principle might get * * 1/2 stars out of five.

In the next post, we will look at the content of The Principle and how well it stands up.

Have they discovered a new “lost Gospel” that says Jesus was married?

It’s getting near Christmas, and you know what that means. That’s right! It’s time for another book to be released telling us the sensationalistic “truth” about Christianity.

This time we have The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus’ Marriage to Mary the Magdalene by Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson.

You may remember Jacobovici from his involvement in previous biblical-archeological shenanigans like the discredited “Jesus family tomb” claims of a few years ago—in which Jacobovici similarly claimed that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.

So what do he and sensationalist co-author Barrie Wilson have in store for us this time?

Zecharias Who?

The key text used in their new book is preserved in a set of writings attributed to Zecharias Rhetor (i.e., Zecharias the Rhetorician), also known as Zecharias Scholasticus (i.e., Zecharias the Scholar), also known as Zecharias of Mytilene.

He was a native of Gaza who lived in the late A.D. 400s and early 500s and who became the bishop of Mytilene.

He wrote a number of works in Greek, including a work on Church history that was later translated into Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic), with various editorial changes.

It is this Syriac text, brought to the British Museum in 1847, that Jacobovici and Wilson are using in their new book.

What They’re Claiming

Among other things, Jacobovici and Wilson claim that they have discovered a lost gospel that is written in code and, when properly decoded, states that Jesus was married, likely to Mary Magdalene, and that they had two sons.

None of this is true.

Not Lost.

First, the text in question is not “lost.” It is not some newly discovered work that scholars were previously unaware of.

The particular manuscript that Jacobovici and Wilson rely on was brought to the British Museum for more than a century and a half ago, and the same text has been known through other sources for centuries.

The scholarly community has been well aware of it, and translations of it in English and other languages are common.

To give you an idea of how not-lost this work is, it’s been in print for centuries, I have it in my own library, and here’s a version you can read online from a book printed in 1918.

Not a Gospel.

The work is also not a Gospel. Although some scholars use the term “Gospel” in surprising and misleading ways, a Gospel (in the literary sense) is a book about the life and/or teachings of Jesus.

That is not what this text is. This text is not about Jesus. The story it tells is not even set in the first century, when Jesus lived.

It’s set more than a thousand years before the time of Christ.

Not a Code About Jesus.

The work is also not a coded version of the story of Jesus. Instead, it’s a work of historical fiction about two figures we already know from the Old Testament: Joseph and Asenath.

Who were Joseph and Asenath?

Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob. He angered his brothers, who sold him into slavery.

Eventually, he ended up in Egypt, where he rose to prominence and married an Egyptian woman named Asenath, who was the daughter of an Egyptian priest.

She and Joseph later had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who became the patriarchs of two of the tribes of Israel.

You can read the biblical account of Joseph in Genesis 37-50, and we read about his marriage to Asenath in Genesis 41:45, 50, and 46:20.

Why are these two figures discussed in Zecharias’s writings?

If you go into a Christian bookstore today—be it Protestant or Catholic—you are likely to find novelizations of the lives of various biblical and historical figures.

These may be fictionalized lives of Old Testament saints, like Abraham and Moses, New Testament saints, like Peter or Paul, or saints from later Church history, like Augustine or Francis of Assisi.

Out of the same impulse, a desire to know and imagine more about what famous religious figures’ lives were like, Jews and Christians in the ancient world sometimes wrote fictionalized lives of their forebears, and that’s what the ancient work known as Joseph and Asenath is: It’s a fictionalized account of the lives of the Old Testament patriarch Joseph and his wife.

What happens in the story?

A bunch of things, but basically it falls into two parts. The first part is devoted to Asenath’s conversion to the Hebrew faith.

As the daughter of an Egyptian priest, she was raised a polytheist and an idolater, and in later ages, Jewish men were forbidden from marrying foreign women because of their idolatry and how they would tempt their husbands to worship other gods.

This raised a question: How could the patriarch Joseph have married a foreign woman—an Egyptian, even!

The first part of the novel answers this by proposing that Asenath repented of her idolatry and embraced the worship of the true God, making her a fitting bride for Joseph.

The second part of the novel deals with an adventure in which the son of Pharoah tries to get Asenath for himself, but Asenath prays to God, who intervenes to save the situation. Pharoah and his wicked son die, and Joseph becomes the regent of Egypt until a different son of Pharoah is old enough to reign.

So this isn’t a coded story about Jesus?

No. It’s a straightforward historical novel about two familiar Old Testament figures.

It addresses questions that an ancient Jewish audience would have, like how a pagan priest’s daughter could marry a biblical patriarch.

Its mention of Joseph’s and Asenath’s two sons—Ephraim and Manasseh—is not to tell us about sons of Jesus and Mary Magdalen. They are mentioned because they were the patriarchs of two of the later tribes (or “half-tribes”) that everyone in ancient Israel knew about.

And it contains a thrilling tale of how God answers prayer and will protect those who turn to him from the machinations of others—just like multiple accounts in the Old Testament.

Are there unanswered questions about the work?

Sure. Like a lot of ancient literature, we aren’t sure who wrote it or when. There is even debate about whether Joseph and Asenath was a Jewish or a Christian work, or possibly a Jewish work with Christian edits.

There are also some strange things in it—like material involving bees and a honeycomb—that some have suggested is meant to teach some kind of spiritual lesson, though it is hard to figure out.

However, the idea that Joseph and Asenath is a coded life story of Jesus is without foundation.

Are there particular reasons to think that Jesus was not married?

Yes. Among other things that could be said, Jesus points to celibacy as a spiritual ideal, saying that this gift is not given to everyone but should be accepted by those to whom it is given (Matt. 19:11-12). Since Jesus was considered himself the paragon of spirituality for Christians, it would be strange for him to propose this spiritual ideal if he himself did not meet it.

Further, Jesus depicts himself as a bridegroom (Matt. 9:15, 25:1-10, cf. John 3:27-30), but the marriage he has is a mystical one, not a literal one, for the New Testament portrays the bride of Christ as his Church, not as an individual woman (2 Cor. 11:2, Eph. 5:22-33, Rev. 19:7, 21:2, 9).

It is difficult to see how this understanding of the Church as the bride of Christ could have arisen if there were a literal “Mrs. Jesus.”

By virtue of her marriage to Jesus, she would have instantly become a prominent figure in early Christianity, and her status as the literal bride of Christ would have prevented the understanding of the Church as the mystical bride of Christ from developing.

Where can I read more?

Here’s the Asenath home page, maintained by New Testament scholar Mark Goodacre.

Here are some comments by New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham from when the pair first announced their “lost Gospel” book.

Here are some comments by classicist Bob Cargill that go directly to Jacobovici and Wilson’s claims (brief bad language warning).

If a person commits suicide, is he automatically lost?

Suicide is a delicate and disturbing subject.

After the recent suicide of Brittany Maynard, many people are discussing it, and some are asking perennial questions, like whether those who commit suicide are automatically lost.

While suicide can be a mortal sin, it is not always one, and the Church both prays for those who have committed suicide and encourages us not to despair of their salvation.

Here is a video in which I discuss the subject.

Here are is the Catechism’s discussion of the conditions necessary for mortal sin.

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

And here is the passage from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on suicide:

2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him.

It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life.

We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls.

We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us.

It is not ours to dispose of.

2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life.

It is gravely contrary to the just love of self.

It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations.

Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal.

Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.

Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. the Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

As I said in the video, let’s pray for all those who are tempted to commit suicide, for all those who have committed it, and for all those who have lost someone to suicide.