Bible History – Page 17

Sola Scriptura & the Bereans

One of the distinctive Protestant principles is expressed in the slogan sola scriptura, which is Latin for “by Scripture only.” The idea is that every teaching on faith or morals must be directly or indirectly based on the Scriptures.

That leads to the common question, “Where’s that in the Bible?”

It’s an important question. In fact, it’s a question that needs to be asked about the doctrine of sola scriptura itself. Because if every teaching on faith or morals has to be based on the Bible then sola scriptura must be based on the Bible.

If it’s not, then it is a self-refuting claim and is false.

So what passages do Protestant Christians appeal to in support of sola scriptura?

Berean Christianity!

One that is sometimes cited is Acts 17, which deals with an incident that happened when St. Paul preached in the Jewish synagogue in the Greek city of Berea.

St. Luke writes:

Acts 17

[11] Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Many in the Protestant community have found this an inspiring story, and some have even named their ministries after the Berean Jews. If you go online you can find all kinds of Berean churches, schools, ministries, and bookstores.

The idea is that we should imitate the Berean Jews and take a skeptical attitude of theological ideas we are presented with. Instead of just accepting them, we should search the Scriptures daily to see if what we are being told is true or not. If it’s not, then we should not accept it.

If that’s what the passage means—if it is commending the Bereans for their skeptical attitude and refusal to believe a teaching unless it can be found in Scripture—then this would be good evidence for sola scriptura.

But that’s not what it means, and it’s easy to show that.

What About Thessalonica?

You’ll notice that Acts 17:11 says that the Berean Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, which raises an immediate question: “What were the Thessalonian Jews like?”

If they are less noble in contrast to the skeptical Bereans, presumably they were credulous individuals who accepted what they were told without Scriptural proof.

That’s not what they were like at all. To see this, let’s back up to the beginning of the chapter, where we read:

Acts 17

[1] Now when [Paul and his companions] had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

[2] And Paul went in, as was his custom, and for three weeks he argued with them from the scriptures,

[3] explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”

[4] And some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas; as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

[5] But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked fellows of the rabble, they gathered a crowd, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the people.

[6] And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren before the city authorities, crying, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

[7] and Jason has received them; and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”

[8] And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard this.

[9] And when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

[10] The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea; and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue.

It’s in that context that we now return to the verse where we started:

[11] Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

**The Real Reason the Bereans Were Praised?**

So the contrast isn’t between the skeptical Bereans, who insisted on Scriptural proof of what Paul was saying, and the credulous Thessalonians, who accepted it without question.

Instead, the contrast is between the open-minded Bereans, who were willing and eager to examine the Scriptures and see if what Paul was saying was true, versus the hostile Thessalonians, who started a riot and got Paul in trouble with the authorities, even though he had proved from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.

This understanding is confirmed by the following verses, where we read:

[12] Many of [the Bereans] therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.

[13] But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also, they came there too, stirring up and inciting the crowds.

[14] Then the brethren immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there.

So the Thessalonians forced Paul to flee Berea, just as they had forced him to flee from their own town.

Thus it wasn’t the Bereans who were skeptical. It was the Thessalonians.

“By the Old Testament Alone?”

There is also another reason why this passage isn’t a good proof text for sola scriptura, which is this: The Christian faith contains doctrines that aren’t found in the Old Testament.

What’s why even those who favor doing theology “by Scripture alone” don’t favor doing it “by the Old Testament alone.”

While the Old Testament does contain prophecies that point forward to Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, it doesn’t contain the whole of the Christian faith.

What the Berean Jews were willing to do, therefore, was to open-mindedly look at the Old Testament Scriptures, see if they confirmed Paul’s preaching that Jesus was the Messiah, and then go on to accept the new, Christian revelation that Paul also imparted.

And he imparted it by preaching, because the books of the New Testament were not all written yet.

The True Attitude of Berean and Thessalonian Christians

If we were to follow the example of the Bereans, we would look at whether the Scriptures we do have support a particular message and, if they do, then be willing to accept further revelation not found in those Scriptures.

We would, ironically, embrace the attitude of those at Thessalonica who did accept the Christian faith, for in 2 Thessalonians 2, St. Paul told them:

2 Thessialonians 2

[15] So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

In other words, we would recognize the authority of all of the traditions passed on from Christ and the apostles, whether they were written or not.

And this is what the Catholic Church says we should do.

Learning More

If you’d like to learn more about these and other matters, I’d like to invite you to join my Secret Information Club at www.SecretInfoClub.com.

It’s a service I operate by email which is absolutely free. I send out fascinating information on a variety of topics connected with the Catholic faith.

The very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is an “interview” I did with Pope Benedict on the book of Revelation. What I did was compose questions about the book of Revelation and take the answers from his writings.

He has a lot of interesting things to say!

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

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

If you’d like to listen to or download this in audio format, just use the player and links below!

Herod the Baby-Killer

Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents—the baby boys that Matthew records were slain on the orders of Herod the Great in his attempt to kill the infant Jesus.

Did he really?

Sometimes we hear skeptics dismiss the idea by saying that we have no record of him doing so.

But it’s not exactly like we have the complete records of what Herod did in his reign. So much has been lost that this kind of argument from silence is the logical fallacy they teach it to be in beginning philosophy classes. Just because we don’t have a record of Herod doing something doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.

And, after all, don’t we have a record in this case? Matthew mentions him doing it. That’s a record, right? Only if Matthew were a systematically untrustworthy source would one be warranted in summarily dismissing what he says, and judged by the ordinary standards applied to evaluating other first century historical works—even apart from the perspective of faith—Matthew must surely be reckoned as far more trustworthy than that.

Further, what Matthew says fits with what we know about Herod’s character. The man was ruthless, from the beginning of his reign to the end. As he got closer to the end, he became intensely paranoid and cruel, and even if we don’t have a second record of the slaughter of the innocents, anyone who has studied Herod’s life recognizes how in keeping this is with what we know of him.

Consider these excerpts from his biography in the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary:

Herod’s conquest of Jerusalem in 37 did not bring his problems to an end. Inheriting a divided city, he moved swiftly and decisively to thwart all opposition. Forty-five leaders of the pro-Antigonus faction in the city were executed (Ant 15 §5) and others were forced into hiding (Ant 15 §264). The wealthy were despoiled, and the revenue gained was used to pay Herod’s debts to his Roman patrons and his army.

In the years following his ascension, Herod was almost obsessively concerned about the security of his rule.

Little time elapsed before he realized the extent of Aristobulus’ popularity and the potential danger he posed (Ant 15 §52). Herod ordered the young man drowned in a swimming pool at his Jericho palace (Ant 15 §54–56).

Herod’s moves to forestall any Jewish uprising are noted by Josephus on a number of occasions. It was for this reason that Antigonus was beheaded in Antioch (Ant 15 §8–9) and that the king kept the young Aristobulus homebound despite Antony’s request, at one point, for the lad to join him (Ant 15 §28–30). Even as late as the year 30, before leaving for a fateful rendezvous with Octavius, Herod executed Hyrcanus II and placed Alexandra in a fortress under guard. He feared that in his absence either of them might foment a rebellion or assert his right to leadership (Ant 15 §174–78, 183–86). Similarly, Herod justified the execution of his wife Mariamme two years later, claiming that a popular disturbance might have broken out had she lived (Ant 15 §231).

Having already eliminated Hyrcanus II just prior to his journey to Rhodes, Herod then executed Alexandra: the king had fallen ill, and Alexandra, finding this to be a propitious opportunity for insurrection, moved to capture the Jerusalem fortress. Apprised of the situation, and having recovered from his illness, Herod immediately ordered her execution (Ant 15 §247–51). A year or so later Herod’s sister Salome sought to divorce Costobar who, together with others, was plotting a revolt. She also told Herod that Costobar had provided refuge for his enemy, the Baba family, during the conquest of Jerusalem a decade earlier. Already aware of Costobar’s seditious proclivities, Herod now moved quickly to execute him and his companions (Ant 15 §253–66).

All this was but a prelude to the most tragic—and, in the long run, the most significant—execution of all. Despite the extraordinary love he felt for his wife, Mariamme, Herod’s relationship with her had seriously deteriorated. Precisely owing to his passionate attachment, and dreading the thought that his beloved might be wedded to another, Herod on two separate occasions had ordered her death should he fail to return from a fateful encounter. Mariamme, however, misjudged his intentions and was incensed at such plans. Salome’s machinations against her only added fuel to the fire, as did Mariamme’s own intemperate remarks and actions vis-à-vis the king. Imbued with a sense of familial superiority because of her Hasmonean lineage, she often treated her husband and sister-in-law with contempt and arrogance. In 29, under the incessant prodding of Salome, Herod finally ordered her execution (Ant 15 §222–39).

Herod exercised complete control over his realm by dominating all key institutions. No matter was beyond his scrutiny. The highest tribunal (Sanhedrin), whatever its composition and authority in the previous era, was now merely a rubber stamp for the king’s wishes.

However, the brothers [Herod’s sons Alexander and Aristobulus] carried a heavy burden of antagonism vis-à-vis their father. They left no doubt that they did not forgive those responsible for their mother’s death and that in due time they would seek revenge.

Matters degenerated in the following years, and the brothers’ fate was sealed by the discovery of a number of alleged plots to murder the king. Herod believed the evidence presented by Antipater, Salome, and Pheroras, and following a trial in Berytus with the participation of Roman officials, Alexander and Aristobulus were executed in 7 B.C.E.

Realizing his end was imminent, Herod ordered that upon his death the men whom he had locked up in the Jericho hippodrome should be executed, thus ensuring general mourning at the time of his death (Ant 17 §173–75). He ordered [another of his sons,] Antipater killed and once again altered his will by naming Archelaus, the older son of Malthace, successor to the throne, Antipas tetrarch of the Galilee and Perea, and Philip, son of Cleopatra, tetrarch of Gaulanitis, Trachonitis, Batanaea, and Panaeas (Ant 17 §188–90).

Got all that? And that’s just a fraction of the people who lost their lives to Herod.

Note in particular: Herod had his wife killed, more than one of his own sons killed, and (although circumstances prevented it from happening) he ordered the death of a bunch of dignitaries just so there would be wailing among Jewish families at the time of his own death.

Is there any reason to think that Herod would scruple at killing the baby boys in Bethlehem to try and eliminate another potential rival for power?

The people of Jerusalem, of course, knew Herod’s character, and it is small wonder that St. Matthew records:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.”

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

It is also small wonder, given that Herod was an observant Jew (though his family had only converted to Judaism a generation or so earlier), and thus not someone supposed to eat pork, that Augustus Caesar is reputed to have quipped:

It is better to be Herod’s pig than to be his son.

Did Jesus Quote the Deuterocanonicals? Receiving the Holy Spirit in Acts. Should I Quit My Job at Hospital?

You often hear that Jesus and the apostles quoted from the deuterocanonical books of the Bible–those that aren’t in the Protestant Old Testament. Did they? If not, what does the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament tell us about the canonicity of those books?

In Acts 8 Luke describes a situation where a group of people have been baptized, but he says that the Holy Spirit hasn’t fallen on them yet. If we receive the Holy Spirit in baptism, how can we explain this?

What if you work in a hospital that performs In Vitro Fertilization or other immoral procedures. If your own work is doesn’t involve those, do you still have to quit your job?

These are among the questions we explore in this week’s episode of the Jimmy Akin Podcast!

Click Play to listen . . .

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SHOW NOTES:
JIMMY AKIN PODCAST EPISODE 022 (11/26/11)

* WHIT FROM FLORIDA ASKS ABOUT QUOTATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW

Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: A Complete SurveyBy Gleason Leonard, Jr. Archer and Gregory Chirichigno
http://astore.amazon.com/jimmyakincom-20/detail/1597520403

NOTE: “Septuagint” is abbreviated LXX

Categories:

A (straightforward LXX): 268
B (LXX where it slightly deviates from MT): 50
C (Masoretic Text): 33
D (LXX where it deviates more from the MT): 22
E (Other): 13
F (Allusions that aren’t quotations): 32

Total using LXX as primary text: 340
Total using MT as primary text: 33

Deuterocanonical References in the New Testament
http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/deutero3.htm

* WESLEY FROM BROOKLYN ASKS RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT IN ACTS

CCC 1288-1290

* “CONFLICTED” ASKS ABOUT QUITTING HER JOB AT A HOSPITAL THAT DOES IMMORAL PROCEDURES

WHAT’S YOUR QUESTION? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO ASK?

Call me at 512-222-3389!
jimmyakinpodcast@gmail.com
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Today’s Music: Groove It Now (JewelBeat.Com)
Copyright © 2011 by Jimmy Akin

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“It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us”

A reader writes:

"For it has 'seemed' good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and froom blood and fromw what is strangled and froum unchastity" (Acts 15: 28-29).

This is taken from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Second Edition.

An older Bible I have says, "It IS the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us…"

My question is why has it been modified from "is" to "seems?" When it is translated "seems," I think that adds ammunition to Protestants who would say, "See, the Church is not infallible when it makes doctrines because it only "seems" to be good to them."

Do you share my concern here? Could you address this and why on earth this current translation exists instead of the older, and I believe, more accurate one?

I understand the reader's concern, but I don't think it's necessary.

In particular, we (all of us, Catholics and Protestants alike) need to guard against preferring a particular translation because it's more useful. "More apologetically useful" does not equal "more accurate."

Our approach should be to try to figure out what the most accurate understanding of the text is and then assess what apologetic value it has. (And that's when we're trying to do biblical apologetics. If that's not our task at the moment then we may assess it in other terms–e.g., what it says about God [theology proper] or what moral lesson it carries [moral theology] or what we can learn for our own spriritual lives [spiritual theology].)

So what about Acts 15:28?

In Greek the phrase "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" is edoksen gar tO pneumati tO hagiO kai hEmin. Broken out word by word, that's edoksen (it seemed good) gar (for) tO pneumati tO hagiO ([to] the Holy Spirit) kai (and) hEmin ([to] us).

The key word is thus edoksen, which is a form of the verb dokeO. Like most verbs, this one has several related meanings, and it does indeed mean things like "think, seem, seem good, appear, appear good, suppose, be of the opinion, judge, etc."

For a variety of reasons, the most logical literal translation is "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." I won't go into all the technical minutiae, but there is no noun there corresponding to "judgment." Edoksen is a verb with the implied subject "it" (it's 3rd person singular), and in context things like "it judged" make no sense (e.g., "It judged to the Holy Spirit and to us"?).

The proper literal translation would thus be something along the lines of "For it seemed/appeared good to the Holy Spirit and to us."

This is the way the Latin Vulgate takes the passage, too (since we're talking about older translations). In the Vulgate the phrase reads visum est enim Spiritui Sancto et nobis. This is a very straightforward translation of the Greek: visum est (it seemed good) enim (for) Spiritui Sancto ([to] the Holy Spirit] et (and) nobis ([to] us).

Visum est is a perfect passive form of the verb video, which (as you might guess) means "see" or "look at," but in the passive voice (which this is) means things like "seen," "seem," "seem good," "appear," and "appear good." Again, it has an implied subject of "it," and "it seemed good" or "it appeared good" is the most natural literal English translation.

(By the way, "the Holy Spirit and us" cannot be the subject of the verb in either Greek or Latin because the corresponding nouns are in a grammatical form known as the dative case, which prevents them from being subjects of the main verb; also, we'd have a compound subject which would lead one to expect the plural, and both verbs are singular; thus the correct subject of the verb is an implied "it.")

You'll note I've been saying that "it appeared/seemed good" is the most natural literal English translation, but one can use nonliteral ("dynamic") translations, which is what the reader's older Bible apparently does. I don't know what translation it is, but the thought that the Jerusalem Council is sending to the churches is that the decision of the Holy Spirit and the Jerusalem elders is that only minimal requirements should be made of Gentile converts for the sake of Church harmony.

If one is doing a free translation rather than a literal one, "It is the decision of" would be okay. It's just not what the Greek literally says.

The Greek also doesn't indicate any uncertainty about the resulting ruling, despite what "seem" or "appear" commonly connote in English. Instead, as a way of politely giving an order to the affected churches, the Jerusalem Council is using a literary form known as meiosis, which you deliberately understate something as a way of emphasizing it (e.g., calling the Atlantic Ocean "the Pond" when it is clearly vastly larger than a pond).

And less anybody reading the letter miss the point, the Holy Spirit is mentioned first in who the ruling seemed good to. The Holy Spirit is God, and thus omniscient and all-perfect, and anything that "seems good" to him may be taken as most definitively good.

Rather than timidity about the judgment, the way the letter is written stresses its authority, while using meiosis as a way of giving the order diplomatically.

With this understanding of the text we can now ask about its value for apologetics.

I wouldn't worry about the weaker-appearing verb "seemed" because it is the better literal translation, and it does not take away from the authority the letter had for the first century Church.

Further, even if this passage did express tentativeness, that would not disprove the Church's infallibility. There are lots of things the Church is tentative about. Some things that the first century Church was tentative about are mentioned in the Bible (e.g., when Paul expresses a personal judgment that he acknowledges he doesn't have a command from the Lord on).

But this passage isn't a tentative one. It's an emphatic one, and what it actually shows is that the Holy Spirit superintends certain kinds of Church councils and his authority backs them up.

That's a message that points in the direction of at least certain kinds of magisterial functions being infallible.

This doesn't give us a full-orbed theology of ecclesiastical infallibility, but it does point in the direction of that reality, and thus the passage has apologetic value even on the "weaker" (but more literal) understanding of what the letter said.

And, not coincidentally, the Acts 15 council is the paradigm for the ecumenical councils that have been held throughout Church history, so there is apologetic value there as well, with the Acts 15 council serving as precedent and model for them.

Hope this helps!

Cool Discovery About the Birth of Christ!

A few days ago I blogged about my discovery that the Christmas Proclamation of the Birth of Christ has a not-so-great translation in the United States.

The same day I made that unfortunate discovery, I also made a fortunate one!

As I mentioned previously, we have multiple lines of evidence converging to show that Jesus was born in the year 3/2 B.C.

There are multiple sources from the early Church (around a dozen) that show this to be the case. While there are a tiny number of sources suggesting other years, the overwhelming majority indicate 3/2 B.C. as being the correct time frame for Our Lord's birth.

Most of the sources we have that address the subject are a couple three (four) centuries after the time of Christ and so are open to some question, though the convergence of all of them on this year is quite weighty.

As I was thinking about this, my mind went back to the chronological references in Luke's gospel, and I realized something that caused me to cheer. I'd never done the math before, but as soon as I did, it was obvious!

As is well known, Luke introduces the Annunciation this way in chapter 2 of his gospel:

[1] In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. [2] This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Now, the enrollment under Quinirius has long been a subject of discussion. If you assume it was a census, as many do, then it's going to cause you problems, because there was no census in the appropriate time frame. There was, however, a broad-based registration or "enrollment," that occurred in this period, but that's a story for another post.

But the big point is that Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus Caesar–a point also confirmed by the fact both Matthew and Luke record him as being born during the reign of Herod the Great, who reigned during the time of Augustus (precisely when Herod died during that reign is also a point of discussion–and a subject for another post).

So when did Augustus reign?

In part, it depends on when you count the beginning of his reign. He was the grand nephew of Julius Caesar, and Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. Augustus (who at different points in his career was also known as Octavius and Octavian) became his posthumously-adopted heir and successor. In 43 B.C. the Roman Senate awarded him the title "Imperator," which in English is "Emperor." He thus became the first Roman emperor.

Later, after the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. and the suicides of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra in 30 B.C., Augustus became sole ruler of the empire.

You can thus date his reign either from around 44/43 B.C. or 30/31 B.C.

However you chose to reckong it, Augustus had a remarkably lengthy reign, which finally came to a close in A.D. 14, when he died.

He was then succeeded by his adopted son, Tiberius, who became the second Roman emperor.

Taking a broad view, Augustus reigned from 43 B.C. to A.D. 14, and both Luke and (by implication) Matthew, place his reign in this period.

Good enough. But can we make the date more specific?

If we turn the page and start reading Luke chapter 3, we find the following statement regarding the ministry of John the Baptist:

[1] In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturae'a and Trachoni'tis, and Lysa'ni-as tetrarch of Abile'ne,[2] in the high-priesthood of Annas and Ca'iaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechari'ah in the wilderness; [3] and he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. [4] As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness"

The Herod in t.his passage isn't Herod the Great–he was long dead–but the important part of the quote is the reference to the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, who had succeeded Augustus upon the latter's death.

The way things worked in the ancient world, they often counted the first part of a year of a ruler's reign as that ruler's first year, then changing to the second year when the next civil new year began.

To give a somewhat bent example based on our own practice of having the civil new year begin on January 1st (a practice that was not universal in the ancient world), if Ruler X began his reign on September 1st in year Y then the period from September 1st to December 31st would be reckoned as his first year. His "second year" would then begin on January 1st.

Given that parts of years could count as a ruler's first year, the fifteenth year of Tiberius could be either in what we would reckon as his fourteenth or fifteenth year.

So when was that?

Augustus died in A.D. 14, so in Luke 3:1, the Evangelist is giving us a pretty specific reference to A.D. 28-29 (A.D. 14 + 14/15 years of Tiberius's rule = A.D. 28/29).

Fine. What does this have to do with the birth of Jesus?

Luke describes the (apparent) beginning of John the Baptist's ministry in A.D. 28/29, and right here in chapter 3 of the gospel he refers to Jesus' baptism and the beginning of Jesus' ministry. He doesn't say that these occurred in the same year, but he certainly gives that impression–or at least the impression that there wasn't a significant lapse of time between them.

So what?

So this: Luke also records in chapter 3 that, after the baptism and before the testing in the wilderness, that:

[23] Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age . . .

Thus, if we assume that Jesus began his ministry shortly after John the Baptist, as Luke seems to imply, and if John the Baptist began his ministry in A.D. 28/29, and if Jesus was approximately 30 years old at this point, then all we need to do is subtract 30 from the current year to find out the approximate year of Jesus' birth.

Using a modern number line that includes the number 0, one would thus think that Jesus' birth occurred in -2/-1.

But they didn't have the number 0 in the Roman world, and there is no "Year 0" on the B.C./A.D. timeline. The A.D. (Latin, Anno Domini = "Year of the Lord") years are the years counting from Jesus birth (the first year of his birth, the second year, etc.). The B.C. ("Before Christ") years are the years before his birth (the first year before, the second year, etc.). On neither reckoning is there a "Year 0."

As a result, we need to subtract an additional year to any B.C. dates to account for the lack of a 0 year.

This means that if Christ was born in what you'd think would be -2/-1 then it would really be 3/2 B.C.–the exact same year that we have multiple independent sources from early Church history pointing to.

Only here we have St. Luke himself–an undisputed first century author (who was, based on internal evidence in the gospel and Acts, almost certainly writing from Rome around the year A.D. 62).

That's important and early testimony about when Our Lord was born!

Cool, huh?

What do you think?

Bad Liturgical News, Folks

Okay, it's not too bad. I mean, it's actually pretty small in the overall sweep of things. But I was still disappointed to learn about it.

Here's what's up: I'm currently working on a project that involves the life of Christ, and I was writing part of it today regarding the year in which he was born. Now, we have multiple sources from the early Church that indicate he was born in 3/2 B.C. on the present calendar.

We know that because different individuals in the early Church identified the year using the dating systems that were employed at the time, such as what Olympiad he was born in, what year of the City of Rome, and what year of the reign of Augustus Caesar.

To help people relate these dating systems to their own experience, I thought I'd talk about the Proclamation of the Birth of Christ that is announced or sung toward the beginning of Midnight Mass on Christmas. That way people would be able to say to themselves, "Oh, yeah. I have heard of this stuff before," and they'd have the sense of discovering what all that means as I explain the dating systems.

So I looked up the text of the Christmas Proclamation, and (here comes the bad part) it turns out that the translation used here in the U.S. is lame. I mean, really lame. It's an example of contemporary liturgical translation at its worst.

So let's look at the current U.S. translation (warning: pdf!) in comparison to a more traditional translation.

First, the U.S. translation with the parts that are wrong in red:

Today, the twenty–fifth day of December,
unknown ages from the time when God [text omitted by translators] created the heavens and the earth
and then formed man and woman in his own image.
Several thousand years after the flood,
when God made the rainbow shine forth
as a sign of the covenant.
Twenty–one centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah;
thirteen centuries after Moses led the people of Israel
out of Egypt.
Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the Judges;
one thousand [text omitted by translators] years from the anointing of David as king;
in the sixty–fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel.
In the one hundred and ninety–fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty–second year from the foundation
of the city of Rome.
The forty–second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
[entire line omitted by translators!]
Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary.
[another line omitted by translators!]
Today is the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

And here's the traditional translation, with the parts that the above translation botched in blue:

The twenty-fifth day of December.
In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world
from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;
the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses
and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king;
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
in the sixth age of the world,
Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary,
being made flesh.
The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

If you compare the red parts to the blue parts, it's clear what the translators did.

First and foremost, they wiped out all the specific time expressions in the first part of the proclamation, thus destroying it's character as a concatenation of different ways of expressing the same year.

Not only do they fuzz out the clarity from these numbers ("untold ages," "several thousand years," referring only to centuries rather than years), they also change numbers (they've got the Exodus in the 13th century B.C. rather than the 15th century B.C.) and add stuff that isn't there in the original, and significant stuff, too:

"and then formed man and woman in his own image,"
"when God made the rainbow shine forth as a sign of the covenant,"
"and Sarah,"
"Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the Judges"

Why these things got included is anybody's guess, though note we've worked women into an otherwise male narrative three times (Ruth even gets top billing, though her story comes after the book of Judges in canonical order, and she ordinarily isn't paired with them). They've also included a rainbow, which has not entirely the same significance today that it did in the past.

It's not hard to see a gender/sexual agenda shaping the translation here.

Then the translators go an omit stuff like the reference to the sixth age of the world (what's up with that?) and the mention of the Son being made flesh (the last is probably because the word "flesh" is repeated in the very next line).

I understand part of the motive to change the text of the Christmas Proclamation.

The text itself is part of the Roman Martyrology and is based on the Chronology of Eusebius of Caesarea (a.k.a. "the father of Church history"–he lived back in the 300s and attended the first ecumenical council at Nicaea in 325).

The dates he gives for the earlier events in the Chronology are probably not right, and in any event we wouldn't claim today to be able to establish these dates with the exact precision that he did. In one case–the date of the Exodus–modern biblical scholars have generally dated it a couple centuries after the traditional date.

So rather than confuse people with a bunch of dates that we aren't that confident of, or that are likely not right, I can understand the motive to revise the text.

And if the Vatican chose to make those changes to the Latin original in the Roman Martyrology, I would not have a problem with it.

My problem is with the translators deciding to make the changes on their own–as well as introducing other changes.

So thank God we're going to be getting a new, more faithful translation this Advent.

But here comes the badgood news, folks . . .

The new translation is of the Roman Missal, not the Roman Martyrology. Since the Christmas Proclamation comes from the Martyrology, it probably hasn't been retranslated at this point and so come Midnight Mass at Christmas, smack in the middle of the glorious new translation, will be this execrable object.

Probably.

I'm still working to verify that.

UPDATE: I have been able to confirm that there is a new translation of the Christmas Proclamation that will be available for use this Christmas. Yahoo!

What do you think?

Does Easter have a pagan origin? And was Jesus crucified on Wednesday or Friday?

There has been some talk recently about a new book by Cambridge University professor Colin Humphreys that proposes the Last Supper was held on Wednesday of Holy Week (GET IT HERE), rather than on Thursday as it has been traditionally commemorated. I haven’t had a chance to review his arguments yet, but there is room for discussion here. In fact, in his recent, second volume of Jesus of Nazareth (GET IT HERE!), Pope Benedict wrestles with the subject of the Last Supper without coming to a definite conclusion.

Regardless of when precisely the Last Supper took place in Holy Week, one thing both the Cambridge professor and the pontiff are agreed upon is that the Crucifixion took place on Friday. There are, however, people who dispute this.

In some Protestant churches, especially Fundamentalist ones, every year at Easter time there are sermons explaining that Jesus didn’t really die on a Friday but on a Wednesday. This claim is based on Matthew 12:40, where Jesus states that “as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

“If Jesus rose from the dead on Saturday night,” the argument goes, “then he couldn’t have been crucified and died on Friday afternoon, because there aren’t three days in there. There’s only one, so we need to back up his death from Friday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon.” This is often accompanied by the claim that Easter is based on a pagan holiday; the “moving” of Jesus death to Good Friday is explained as the result of some unspecified pagan cause.

None of this is true. Easter is not based on a pagan holiday but on a Jewish one: Passover. Easter originated as the first Sunday following Passover, when Jesus was crucified.

Neither is the name Easter derived from the pagan goddess Ishtar. Ishtar was a Mesopotamian goddess who was worshiped over in Iraq, centuries before Christ, not in Medieval England where the English language was born.

In two languages—English and German—the name for Easter may be connected with a Germanic goddess of spring, but this is unclear since her name (Eostre) had already become the name of a whole month on the calendar and there may have been no more pagan significance to the name to Medieval Christians than terms like “Wednesday” (Odin’s Day) or “Thursday” (Thor’s Day) or “January” (Janus’s Month) or “March” (Mars’s Month) have to us. The Medieval English Christian scholar the Venerable Bede, for example, is reported to have observed that pagan feasts for Eostre had died out by his time, even though the name of the month remained, and Christians were now celebrating the resurrection of Christ as a paschal feast in the manner of other Christian countries.

Which brings up an interesting point: Only a speaker of English or German (where the holiday is called Ostern) would even think the holiday has a pagan origin.

In virtually every other language, the name of Easter is derived from the Jewish word Pesach or “Passover.” Thus in Greek the term for Easter is Pascha; in Latin the term is also Pascha. From there it passed into the Romance languages, and so in Spanish it is Pascua, in Italian Pasqua, in French Paques, and in Portugese Pascoa. It also passed into the non-Romance languages, such as the Germanic languages Dutch, where it is Pasen, and Danish, where it is Paaske.

Also, because of the way Christianity spread (from Jerusalem, then around the Mediterranean basin, arriving in far-flung places like England and Germany later on), Christians had long been celebrating Easter—under Passover-derived names—long before English or German came into existence. If, in a couple of countries, new languages happened to use words that had pre-Christian etymologies for the day then that in no way shows that it has pagan roots. Its roots are well known and predate these languages. The holiday was celebrated all over the Christian world long before the names were attached to it in England and Germany.

If Easter is free of pagan origins, so is Jesus’ crucifixion on Friday. The premise of the “three days and three nights” argument — that Jesus rose from the dead on what we would call Saturday night — might well be true. In Jesus’ day, the Jews reckoned the day as beginning at sunset.

When Scripture indicates that Jesus rose on the first day of the week, therefore, it means that he rose on the day that began at sunset on Saturday and lasted until sunset on Sunday. Since we are told his tomb was found empty “after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week” (Matt. 28:1), he must have risen between sunset Saturday and dawn Sunday. Whether this was before or after midnight Scripture does not say. He might have risen either Saturday night or Sunday morning before dawn, though, for purposes of determining when he was crucified, it doesn’t matter.

In the Bible, parts of time units were frequently counted as wholes. Thus a king might be said to have reigned for two years, even if he reigned for only 14 months. In the same way, a day and a night does not mean a period of 24 hours. It can refer to any portion of a day coupled with any portion of a night. The expression “three days and three nights” could be used as simply a slightly hyperbolic way of referring to “three days.”

As Protestant Bible scholar R. T. France notes: “Three days and three nights was a Jewish idiom to a period covering only two nights” (Matthew, 213).

Similarly, D. A. Carson, another highly esteemed conservative Protestant Bible scholar, explains: “In rabbinical thought a day and a night make an onah, and a part of an onah is as the whole. . . . Thus according to Jewish tradition, ‘three days and three nights’ need mean no more than ‘three days’ or the combination of any part of three separate days” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 8:296).

If Jesus was crucified and died Friday afternoon, that would be the first day; at sundown on Friday the second day would begin; then at sundown on Saturday the third day would begin. So Jesus was indeed “raised on the third day” (Matthew 20:19).

Scripture repeatedly tells us that Jesus was crucified on “the day of preparation,” which was the first-century Jewish way of referring to Friday, the day of preparation for the Sabbath. This is why the women were not able to anoint his body before he was buried — because Jesus was hurriedly buried late in the afternoon, just as the Sabbath was beginning. The women thus had to rest until the Sabbath was over (Luke 23:56).

We are also told that the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to order the legs of the crucifixion victims broken so they would die faster (from asphyxiation due to an inability to push themselves up on their crosses and take a breath), “in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath” (John 19:31).

Some advocates of a Wednesday crucifixion concede that Jesus was crucified on the day before a Sabbath, but deny that this was the regular, weekly Sabbath. In later times, the phrase “day of preparation” came to be used to refer to the day before Passover and, this argument goes, Passover counted as a Sabbath in the sense that it was a day of rest, even though it usually did not fall on the weekly Sabbath. Thus Jesus was crucified on the day before Passover and had to be buried hurriedly on that account.

But this explanation will not do. For a start, I am unaware of anything in biblical or post-biblical Jewish tradition that regards Passover as a “sabbath.” Indeed, later rabbinic tradition held that if Passover fell on a Saturday that it overrode the Sabbath laws (so you could do the work needed to kill and eat the Passover lamb, e.g.). However that may be, in the first century, “the day of preparation” referred to Friday, not the day before Passover. Further, we know from Scripture that the Sabbath following Jesus’ crucifixion was the regular, weekly Sabbath, the seventh day of the week: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher” (Matt. 28:1).

We can thus reconstruct the chronology of the crucifixion, death and Resurrection of Christ as follows:

Friday, the Day of Preparation: Jesus is crucified with two thieves. From noon to three in the afternoon, a darkness covers the land (Matthew 27:45). Then, “[s]ince it was the Day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath … the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away” (John 19:31). Then Joseph of Arimathea obtains Jesus’ body and buries it: “It was Preparation Day [that is, the day before the Sabbath]. So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body” (Mark 15:42-43, NIV).

Saturday, the Sabbath: “On the Sabbath they [the women] rested according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56b). Also on this day, “that is, after the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate” and asked for a guard to be placed on the tomb (Matthew 27:62).

Sunday, the first day of the week: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher” and found that Jesus had risen from the dead (Matthew 28:1).

The time of Christ’s death is indeed Good Friday, not a hypothetical Crucifixion Wednesday.

Pope Benedict’s “SHOCKING” Statement on the Jews!

The long-awaited second volume of Pope Benedict’s work Jesus of Nazareth is about to come out. (You can pre-order it here!).

This was the book he had started before his election to the papacy and which, in spite of the burdens of his office, he determined to press on with.

Because he’s now pope, the book is attracting vastly more attention than if he had become a private theologian at the end of John Paul II’s reign, and as with everything pope—the press is determined to make the most of it, even when they don’t have the facts quite right.

The book isn’t even out yet, but based on excerpts that have already been released, the press is already having a field day.

For once, however, they at least seem to be using their powers of exaggeration and sensationalism on the side of good.

The message they’re getting out is that in the book Pope Benedict says that the Jewish people cannot be blamed for the death of Christ.

In other words, they are not to be charged with the blood libel of being “Christ-killers”—as they have so often and unfairly labeled by anti-Semites.

So that’s good that the press is getting the word out about that! Like I said: Press using its powers for good (for once) in a religion story. Huzzah! Or, as they say in Hebrew, Mazal Tov!

But it being, y’know, the press, they’re not likely to dot all their i’s and cross all their t’s.

For example, you probably won’t get from many stories the fact that this book is not an act of the pope’s magisterium. It’s not an official Church document. In fact, in the introduction to volume 1 of the series, Pope Benedict expressly made this point and even went so far as to say explicitly that:

“This work is not an absolute act of magisterial teaching, but merely an expression of my personal research into the face of the Lord. Therefore, everyone is free to contradict me.”

This is why I love, love, love Pope Benedict. He is a man of enormous humility and, despite the fact that he is the one person on earth able to speak with divine infallibility on his own (as opposed to in concert with other bishops), he wants to make absolutely clear to the public what is his own opinion versus what is Church teaching, and to expressly give permission to people to contradict him on the former.

Wow!

Gotta love this man! That is intellectual humility.

The fact that most press stories won’t cover this is a minor matter, though. Another relatively minor matter, though perhaps a somewhat weightier one, is that most press stories also won’t make it clear that this isn’t exactly news.

Certainly, it is news-worthy, and I’m glad they’re covering it. But there is a danger that some stories might leave people with the impression that this is a new development. It’s not. For example, back in 1965 the Second Vatican Council stated that:

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.

Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone [Nostra Aetate 4].

Unlike Pope Benedict’s statement in his book, this is a declaration by an ecumenical council, it is a statement on the part of the Church’s magisterium, and one with great weight.

In fact, in the excerpts released thus far Pope Benedict doesn’t quite say what the press is making him out as saying, though he certainly agrees with the idea. (He certainly agrees with the statement from Nostra Aetate, and the idea it expresses lurks behind what he does say, which I’ll get into in my next post.)

Still, given the real existence of anti-Semitism in the world and its historical linkage to Christianity—and given some of the tensions that have occurred with the Jewish community during Pope Benedict’s reign—it is always good to have an occasion in the press to remind people of the fact that the Jewish people cannot be slimed as Christ-killers the way they have been in the past—and that the Church fundamentally rejects this characterization.

So for now we can rejoice that a positive message is being sent for once, even if some i’s are dotless and t’s are crossless.

To borrow a line from Chesterton, anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

Sending the message that the Jewish people cannot be slimed as Christ-killers is a message worth sending!

What do you think?

Oh, and GET THE BOOK!

VIDEO: What Books Were Excluded from the Bible–and Why?

GET THE BOOK!

Desperate Midwives

A reader writes:

In Exodus 1, God blessed some women for lying, because their lies saved the first born Hebrews. There are other examples of people lying in the Old Testament and it being a good thing.

So, can morality be relative depending on circumstances? I know sin can change from grave to venial depending on circumstances, but in that example I used, God blessed them, not just excused their lies as venial sins.

Thanks!

Let’s look at the passage:

15: Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiph’rah and the other Pu’ah,
16: "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live."
17: But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.
18: So the king of Egypt called the midwives, and said to them, "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?"
19: The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes to them."
20: So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and grew very strong.
21: And because the midwives feared God he gave them families.

While many folks look at this passage and conclude that God blessed the midwives for lying, this conclusion does not seem to be borne out by the text, which expressly states that the reason for the blessing was the midwives’ fear of God. This fear of (reverence for) God was manifest chiefly in the midwives’ refusal to kill the Hebrew baby boys. What they told Pharaoh in their desperation was just a secondary attempt to keep what they had done from being exposed and them from being executed.

The lie thus seems secondary to the main thing, which was their defiance of Pharaoh’s evil order so that they might honor God. It’s a "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). Since they obeyed God, God blessed them, as well as excusing the lie they told.

That being said, when reading the Old Testament one must recognize that due to progressive revelation not everything, in particular not everything regarding God’s will, was as clear at the time as it later came to be. (Indeed, the Ten Commandments hadn’t even been given at the time of Exodus 1; they weren’t given until Exodus 20). The total incompatibility of lying with God’s will thus may not have been as clear to the people of the day as it is to us, and this may have played a role in God treating them as he did (i.e., not holding the lie against them).