Category: Bible

Yesterday’s post about the Death Star Theory (my name for it) raised a number of questions about the interpretation of Genesis 1 and its famous six days. In a series of posts today, I’ll give some thoughts on that. First, let me tell you what my conclusions will be.

There are a truckload of different interpretations of Genesis 1 that have been offered, and I can’t consider them all today. I can consider more (like Gerald Schroeder’s relativistic interpretation) later on. Here’s a list of the five interpretations I will consider today, ranked in order from what I consider the most plausible to the least plausible, along with notes on how plausible I think them to be:

1. The Framework Interpretation (most plausible from a careful reading of the text)
2. The Ordinary Day Interpretation (most plausible from a casual reading of the text)
3. The Gap Interpretation (almost completely without foundation)
4. The Revelatory Day Interpretation (virtually demonstrably false)
5. The Day-Age Interpretation (demonstrably false)

Please note in how I treat these interpretations that I am coming at them here from a purely literary perspective. The question I’m asking is: "Given what the text says, how likely is it that this is the correct interpretation of the text?"

I’m trying to arrive at the correct interpretation by considering the question of textual interpretation first, not rushing to square the text with the findings of modern science. My interest is in figuring out what the text most likely means taken on its own terms, not trying to harmonize it with modern science.

In this discussion, I’ll only present one significant point of a scientific nature, and it isn’t a point of modern science. It is something that the ancients knew and commented on, making it fair to include in a discussion of what the author of Genesis 1 meant by what he wrote.

(I will also include an additional few notes based on modern science, but these will be in parentheses as they are not part of my main argument. My main concern is just what the text would be read to mean on its own, without considering modern science.)

Having said that, let’s look at these interpretations, starting with the least plausible.

I present the following with some caution.

It comes from Hugh Ross, who is a good guy from what I can tell about the man, and who does significant apologetics work, particularly in developing things like the arguments for God’s existence based on the apparent design of cosmological and local astronomical constants. I’m glad he’s out there, doing that work.

But when Hugh strays into certain areas, he makes mistakes (like all of us). For example, I think that his interpretation of Genesis 1 is demonstrably wrong (he advocates the day-age interpretation of the hexahemeron, and that dog just won’t hunt).

In other cases Hugh advocates things that I don’t consider demonstrably false but that I’d am highly skeptical of.

Put the following into that category. I present it here not because I think it’s true but because I think it’s an interesting (if far-fetched) idea.

His idea is this: The ages of the patriarch are to be taken literally and the consequent dramatic shrinkage in the human life span has a natural cause that science may have unwittingly stumbled across.

Take it away, Hugh!

In my own and others’ writings, the Vela supernova (a massive stellar explosion that occurred early in the human era) has been identified as the possible culprit. It seems this event may be at least partly responsible for the cosmic radiation that keeps people from living longer than 120 years or so. In recent months, however, a new and much more likely suspect has been identified.

First, some background. Deadly, cancer-causing (life-shortening) radiation comes from two main sources: 1) the decay of radioactive materials in Earth’s crust, and 2) massive stellar explosions (supernovae) within the Milky Way Galaxy. Cosmic radiation from supernovae (and their remnants) showers the Earth all the time. Most of that radiation is benign and fairly constant, just electrons and protons moving at less-than-dangerous velocities. But some—such as the electron-stripped atoms of oxygen and iron moving at hyper-fast velocities—can do major damage to living things.

Since 1996 Anatoly Erlykin and Arnold Wolfendale have been studying cosmic radiation’s particle energy spectrum—in particular, the high end (above a quadrillion electron volts per nucleon). They have found two peaks in the spectra, protruding high above the background. These peaks, they say, are the signature of a single, major event—a local, recent supernova blast. In other words, the thousands of supernova remnants scattered throughout the Milky Way Galaxy account for the relatively constant radiation background, but the two peaks tell of a local, recent supernova, the shock waves of which would have increased the velocities of oxygen and iron nuclei, turning them into killer radiation.

Initially, Erlykin and Wolfendale loosely identified this supernova as one closer than 3,000 light years and more recent than 100,000 years ago. These features suggested the Vela supernova (distance = 936 light years; eruption date = 20,000-30,000 years ago) as a prime possibility. With improved data, however, Erlykin and Wolfendale have been able to make a more positive identification. This particular supernova occurred so close to Earth that our solar system likely resides just inside the shell of its remnant. That remnant itself, they point out, occupies a significant portion (up to 40 degrees) of the sky—so vastly spread out that astronomers would have had great difficulty distinguishing it from the background.

GET THE STORY.

While I don’t think it likely that Hugh’s astronomical explanation for the shortening of the Genesis life spans is likely the correct one, it is quite possible that such supernovae are having a depressing effect on the human life span. There really are deadly stars out there in the sky spitting out radiation that will cause cancers in humans that would not otherwise occur. I just don’t think the effect is likely to be as dramatic as Hugh does. There are plenty of other things on Earth to kill you besides cosmic radiation (like germs, for example), and this change (together with the others he mentions) does not strike me as being at all likely to explain the shrinkage of the Genesis life spans.

That’s not to say it’s not interesting to think about, though.

A reader writes:

Hi Jimmy,
You’re the only one I know who can answer this question:
In last week’s Gospel from John we read:

35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples,
36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God."
37 The two disciples  heard what he said and followed Jesus.
38 Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
39 He said to them,"Come, and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.
40 Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.

But this week, we read from Mark:

14 After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
15 "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."
16 As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen.
17 Jesus said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men."
18 Then they abandoned their nets and followed him.
19 He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets.
20 Then he called them.

So: were the first disciples called before, or after, John’s arrest?  Were the disciples with John at the time, or were they fishing?  (Could it be that John the Evangelist is compressing time in verses 36-38?)

There are a couple of things to keep in mind here. First, the Gospels are not complete accounts of what Jesus said and did. This is something that (a) obvious from how short they are and (b) John is explicit about the point (John 21:24-25).

Second, the Gospels–like ancient books of history in general–are MUCH more flexible about chronology than modern ones are. Often ancient writers would arrange events topically rather than chronologically. SEE HERE FOR MORE INFO.

What we seem to have in this case is a statement by John about how certain apostles first met Jesus and a statement by Mark about how he formally called them to his service full-time.

I know that I wouldn’t be inclined to drop everything and follow someone full-time if I’d only just met him, even if he was held by friends of mine to be a prophet. That kind of commitment is only likely to develop over time, after you’ve known someone and gotten to trust him. It’s a significant decision that one doesn’t make on the spur of the moment.

Since this is how human relationships normally work, it’s most naturally assumed by the Gospels.

You’ll note that John doesn’t say (and neither does Mark, for that matter) that the disciples in question started following Jesus full-time. John only says that they followed him to see where he was staying that day. John even mentions that it was toward evening (about four in the afternoon). Andrew then introduces Peter to Jesus the next day (immediately after the part of John 1 that you quoted).

So the likely chronology is:

1. Andrew and another disciple of John the Baptist meet Jesus for the first time and follows him to where he is staying.
2. Andrew introduces Peter to Jesus for the first time. Andrew and Peter may or may not have been working as fishermen at this time, though Andrew was clearly a disciple of John the Baptist.
3. John gets arrested.
4. Jesus calls Andrew and Peter (together with James and John) to be disciples on a more stable and possibly a full-time basis. Andrew and Peter were both clearly working as fishermen at this time and left their profession here or soon afterwards to follow Jesus as full-time disciples.

Several folks asked in the combox down yonder for some more info on what commentaries on the Scriptures that I like/recommend.

So here goes.

The Jewish commentary on Genesis that I mentioned is the volume on Genesis that is part of the Jewish Publications Society’s JPS Torah Commentary, edited by Nahum Sarna. The volumes I’ve read from the JPS Torah Commentary are good, and I really like the volume on Genesis, which Sarna also wrote.

These are expensive, so if you order one, make sure that Sarna’s name is attached to it. (The JPS also had an older Torah commentary which Sarna was not involved in. That’s not the one I’m talking about.)

I haven’t read enough of Sarna’s Understanding Genesis to comment on it, but his commentary on Genesis is top notch material.

Also good is Rashi’s commentary on Genesis. Rashi was the greatest Medieval Jewish Scripture commentator, but Rashi is very expensive and rather technical, so I’d only recommend him for someone who’s really wanting to do some intense work on Genesis.

A couple of folks asked what I think of the Navarre commentary series, and the answer is . . . It’s okay. It’s certainly theologically orthodox, but it is hampered for me by two things: (1) It’s hasn’t been available in a single, complete set and (2) it has a devotional angle rather than a scholarly angle.

This means that it’s not that suited for the kinds of uses I put commentaries to. I don’t really need a commentary that has footnotes with lots of devotional quotes from John Paul II and St. Josemaria Escriva (which the original volumes on the New Testament had). For anything that’s going to be a multi-volume set, I need something that’s going to survey the breadth of scholarly opinion and the arguments in favor of different positions.

The same consideration applies to the Ignatius Study Bible. It’s also hampered for me by not being available (yet) in a complete edition and not having the kind of technical orientation that I need, so I haven’t read enough of it to comment, really.

This points up something that is quite relevant here: I may not be the best person to recommend commentaries for most folks since most folks don’t put commentaries to the uses that my job requires me to.

When I want a quick take on a passage, I just go to Orchard, since that’s a decent 1-volume commentary that reflects traditional Catholic interpretations and which was written before Catholic biblical scholarship went hog wild for hypercritical speculations.

If I want more than a quick take, I go for much more detailed commentaries that many folks wouldn’t be interested in, so I don’t really spend a lot of time reading or using other non-technical commentaries (e.g., Navarre, Ignatius Study Bible).

One "lighter" set that I can recommend is IVP’s Bible Background Commentary, which is now available for both the Old and the New Testaments. This isn’t so much a commentary attempting to tell you what the text DOES mean but a resource for telling you the cultural and historical background that MIGHT help explain what the text says. It’s helpful and easy to read, though it has a singificant limitation in that it doesn’t footnote the background it provides. It leaves that for other, more detailed commentaries. Still, it’s very useful for what it attempts to do.

When it comes to those longer, technical commentaries, I tend not to buy complete sets (too expensive) but only the volumes for whatever book I’m studying at the moment. I do, however, have favorable impressions of certain sets.

For example, I’ve generally found the volumes of the Word Biblical Commentary to be quite good. (It’s also Protestant.) I know Fr. Mitch Pacwa also likes this series.

Certain volumes of the Sacra Pagina series are also good. (That’s a Catholic series, but this means that some volumes–since I haven’t read them all–may be heterodox.)

I’ll sometimes use the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (an Evangelical set) for the New Testament and the Keil-Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament (a 19th century Protestant set).

I’d love to have some good Catholic commentary sets to recommend, but Catholics haven’t really been producing multi-volume commentaries of an in-depth nature (except Sacra Pagina) in recent years. They have been contributing individual volumes to some scholarly sets, but not whole, multi-volume commentaries by Catholic authors.

There are other commentaries I turn to as well, but these are of an even more technical nature and likely wouldn’t be of interest to any but a tiny number of people.

And then there’s the problems of heterodoxy and hypercriticalism.

The problem is that every commentary is going to have some flaws, multi-volume sets included. You can’t check your brain at the door when reading biblical commentary. You have to treat it as "idea starters" and figure out what you think the evidence best supports. That means that, regardless of whether the author you are reading is Catholic or non-Catholic, whether he is older or newer, you’re going to have to question and challenge what he says, because in the world of biblical commentary, heterodoxy, hypercriticalism, and plain ol’ ordinary being wrong are all over the place.

Unfortunatley, God has not given us an infallible, inspired Bible commentary. Instead, he is glorified by our efforts to use the reason that he gave us to wrestle with the text and try to figure out how to follow his thoughts behind him.

A reader writes:

I listen to Catholic Answers Live as much as possible (on the Internet).

I have a question for you….I currently use the RSV:CE Bible but would like a commentary that explains what the Scripture passages mean.  I don’t want to misinterpret the Scripture like our Protestant brothers and sisters do.  What do you suggest?  I once heard you say not to use the "Collegeville" commentary which I promptly threw out.  However, I cannot recall what you did recommended. 

I guess I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

First, I’m afraid that I can’t recommend a resource that will prevent you from misinterpreting Scripture passages. The Church has not established the correct interpretation of the great majority of Scripture passages. It has taught that Scripture and the faith do not conflict, so if you know your Catholic faith well then that will help you discern what a particular passage of Scripture DOESN’T mean, but it normally will not help you identify precisely what it DOES mean.

Consequently, there is always risk of error in Scripture interpretation. We can’t eliminate that risk.

What we can do is seek to minimize it, and to that end we can recognize the limits and stay humble and flexible about our interpretations of Scripture. Although I feel more confident of certain interpretations than others, in my own study of Scripture I try not to get overly wedded to particular interpretations and to be aware of what else a passage MIGHT mean, in addition to what I think it MOST LIKELY means.

If you listen to when people call in on the radio and ask me what a particular passage means, you’ll note that I often point out a range of possibilities regarding what a passage may mean. I may not even express a personal opinion, or I may say which option I think most is the most likely interpretation in my personal view, but I seldom tell people that a passage definitely DOES mean something, because I don’t like to go beyond what the Church teaches and make people think that my personal opinion is the only one there is.

Another part of minimizing the risk of error is reading what others think about the passage. Others may have had things occur to them that would not occur to us when we read the passage, and they may have good arguments for or against particular interpretations. Reading what the Church Fathers said on a passage is particularly important. Commentaries also can be helpful, and the more voluminous the commentary the better. I like big, multi-volume commentaries because they can cover so much more, giving so many more possible interpretations and the arguments for and against them.

It’s also good to read multiple commentaries by different people with different interpretations–and not just by Catholics. Non-Catholics have brains, too, and sometimes they have really good insights.  In fact, my favorite commentary on Genesis isn’t a Christian commentary: It’s Jewish.

I therefore don’t write off a commentary just because the author isn’t Catholic. Instead, I use critical thinking to try to correct non-Catholic elements in the commentary as I read it.

One volume commentaries that try to cover the whole Bible in a single volume are of some use, but they can’t go into a great deal of detail because there is so much in the Bible to cover. They are of some use, though, particularly when you’re just getting your feet wet with biblical interpretation. A key in using them, though, is to remember that because of the highly compressed way they have to treat Scripture, they won’t be able to lay out a range of options and the arguments for them in any detail. So don’t get wedded to what a one volume commentary says.

Having said all that, the one volume commentary that I most recommend is the 1950s edition of A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture by Bernard Orchard. Unfortunately, it’s out of print

BUT YOU CAN OFTEN GET COPIES OF IT HERE.

OR HERE.

A reader writes:

What is the difference between Scripture and the Bible?

Let’s start with the earliest term: "The Scriptures." This term literally means "the writings" and it’s used of a specific set of writings–the divinely inspired ones that you find between the covers of a Bible today. Originally, they weren’t all in a single volume. They were a collection of scrolls, so they were viewed as different writings. Hence: "The writings." The is the way that the term "the scriptures" is used in the Bible.

You’ll also find a similar term in the Bible: "scripture." It doesn’t have "the" in front of it (or, at least, it doesn’t ALWAYS have "the" in front of it). The key, though, is that it’s SINGULAR rather than PLURAL.

This term means something different.

When you encounter "scripture" in the singular in the Bible, it tends to refer to some PARTICULAR writing, not the collection of sacred writings as a whole.

For example, when John 19:12 says:

So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be"; this was to fulfill the Scripture: "THEY DIVIDED MY OUTER GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS."

John has in mind one particular writing–one particular scripture: the book of Psalms, and specifically Psalm 22:18, which is where the quotation is from.

But when John 5:39 says

"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me"

what is meant is the body of sacred writings as a whole: "the Scriptures."

Over the course of Church history, "the Scriptures" got bound in a single volume, which led folks to think of them more as a single unit rather than a collection of writings, and so the word "scripture" (in the singular) came to be used as a collective noun referring to all of them.

You’ll notice this usage particularly in Protestant circles. Protestants will often talk about "Scripture" where Catholics would say "the Scriptures" (though Catholics may also sometimes use "Scripture" collectively).

Now for "Bible": It’s a synonym for "the Scriptures."

"Bible" is adapted from the Latin word biblia, which was adapted from the Greek ta biblia, which means "the books." Way back when, books were the same things as scrolls, which is again related to the idea of the Bible as a collection of writings (books, scrolls). That’s the way the sacred writings/books were experienced in the Old Testament: as a collection of scrolls.

It was only with the introduction of Christianity that the modern form of book–the codex (which has a spine)–became popular. This was what made it possible (in the fullness of time) for all of the sacred scrolls to be bound together in one book.

Nobody would want a scroll with all of them, because you’d have to laboriously roll through a couple thousand pages of material, and the scroll would tear and get poorly wound and things like that. But with a codex (a book with a spine) you could flip to whatever passage you want quickly.

Codices are thus random access where scrolls are linear access: Kind of the same difference between computer disks and computer tapes or between DVDs and VHS. You can get just where you want to go much more quickly in the former than the latter.

And so codices replaced scrolls the way DVD is replacing VHS.

This replacement led to the creation of collective terms for the sacred writings: "Scripture" instead of "the Scriptures" and "Bible" instead of ta biblia.

The rest is history.

A reader writes:

I am having some trouble with an argument I have been
running into lately…

In response to numerous attempts by Catholics on a
message board to exegete James 2:24 a Protestant
seminary says:

"You are in gross error in your understanding of James
2:24. Your interpretation of James 2:24 CANNOT BE
CORRECT – because it places Abraham’s justification
before God AFTER his circumcision and Paul says in
Romans 4:10 that it was ‘NOT AFTER BUT BEFORE he was
circumcised’ that he was justified before God. The
offering of Isaac (which is what James 2 is
discussing) happened *long after* Abraham was
circumcized. Hence, you are misusing James 2:24. And
why are you misusing it – because your tradition tells
you what to find in Scripture, and lo and behold, you
find it – context means nothing. Let’s see if you can
offer a contextually sound defense of what you say…"

I am not sure how to answer this charge.  St. Paul
does, in fact, say "not after but before" – which
(while it may not prove that justification is a
one-time forensic declaration) *seems* to indicate
that St. James is eithr not using the word "justify"
as St. Paul does or he is contradicting St. Paul
(which both the Reformed and Catholic person must
reject), as it seems to create a chronology ("not
after but before") in which the Abraham’s
"justificion" in St. James *seemingly* cannot be the
same thing as the one in St. Paul…

I think I understand his argument… how can I answer
(in a satisfactory manner) it exegetically (i.e. a
"contextually sound defense")?

Your seminarian friend is presupposing that justification is an event that occurs only once in the life of the believer. This is a false assumption. Scripture does not indicate this. In fact, the case of Abraham demonstrates this quite clearly.

Begin by looking at Hebrews 11. In this chapter we read:

1: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped  for, the conviction of things not seen.
2: For by it the  men of old received divine approval.

This sets the context of the chapter as saving faith, the kind that receives divine approval. The chapter goes on to list a bunch of people who had this kind of faith, including Abraham:

8: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a
place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not
knowing where he was to go.

Okay, so Abraham had faith of the kind this chapter is discussing (the kind that receives divine approval) when he went out from his homeland to journey to the promised land.

Now: When did that happen?

Genesis 12.

So Abraham already had divine approval in Genesis 12. But if that’s the case then he must have been justified at that point.

Now let’s more forward a bit in Genesis to chapter 14. What happens there? Abraham goes out and fights a battle and resues a bunch of people and afterward Melchizedek pronounces a blessing on him (14:19-20). This is more stuff sounding like Abraham is right with God (justified) at this point in his life. Also Abraham refuses to take anything from the king of Sodom, thus turning down any reward from the king of so wicked a place.

Then IMMEDIATELY when we turn the corner into chapter 15, with Abraham just having turned down a reward from the king of Sodom,  God declares:

1: . . . "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your  reward shall be very great."

So Abraham is so right with God that God is promising him a really cool (i.e., great) reward for what he’s done and how he’s followed God and conducted himself in righteousness. Again: Abraham is justified at this point.

Then Abraham queries God what his reward will be because, no matter what God gives him, he has no son and so a slave will inherit it. He can’t pass on the reward that God plans to give him.

So God says:

5: . . . "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be."
6: And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Now this (Gen. 15:6) is the verse that Paul uses in Romans 4:3 to say that Abraham was right with God (righteous/justified) before his circumcision in Gen. 17.

Fine.

But what kind of justification are we talking about here?

Protestant theology commonly conceives of justification as an event that occurs once in a person’s life, when he moves from a state of being unrighteous (not right with God) to a state of being righteous (right with God). If that’s what you interpret Genesis 15:6 as referring to then you’ve got a huge problem because the text gives us absolutely zero reason to think that Abraham only suddenly got right with God in Genesis 15:6. All the evidence is going the other way. He didn’t even get the promise of a multitude of descendants until God was wanting to reward him for having followed him so well. And he’d been following him well for years, for he left home to go to the promised land (AGAIN, trusting in a divine promise) back in Genesis 12, which Hebrews testifies was an act of faith of the kind that receives divine approval.

I mean, the alternative is saying that Abraham was this repropate guy in mortal sin who left his homeland trusting in God with the kind of faith that wins divine approval, yet for some reason God was really unhappy with him and didn’t give him divine approval. In fact, he was SO UNHAPPY with Abraham back in Genesis 12 that he had promised him a new homeland and that he would make him a blessing to everybody on earth. I mean, God must have been REALLY unhappy with Abraham back there since he promised to bless those who bless Abraham and curse those who curse him. Right? I know I’D think that God wsa unhappy with me if he told ME that.

And then Abraham deals magnanimously with his nephew Lot by letting Lot have the better pastureland in chapter 13 and then he rescues Lot’s butt in chapter 14 (putting his own life and those of his men at risk) and then Melchizedek pronounces a blessing on him and Abraham refuses to take a reward from the king of a wicked city and God is SO UNHAPPY with Abraham about all this that he promises him a really great reward–PLUS descendants who can inherit it–and it’s only when Abraham says "Yeah, okay, I guess I will have descendants" that God suddenly decides that Abraham is on his good side.

This is not a very plausible interpretation.

It is a much MORE plausible interpretation to say that Abraham was right with God (justified) no later than the time he left his homeland in faith, having trusted in the divine promises, and that he continued to act righteously in his dealings with others (or at least in many of them) so that God chose to give him a big reward and children he could leave it to. When Abraham believed that God would do what he said, that was yet another thing Abraham did that was righteous and so God, naturally, reckoned it as such.

Genesis 15:6 therefore does not refer to the time when Abraham passed from being unrighteous (unjustified) to being righteous (justified). It represents a continuing growth in his righteousness. He is more pleasing to God now than he was before because he has stayed faithful as he has walked with God.

This is problematic if your theology limits you to talking about justifcation only as a once-in-a-life event where you pass from unrighteousness to righteousness, with no potential for growth in righteousness. But it makes all the sense in the world if you acknowledge (as Catholic theology does) that justification is both something that happens at the begging of the Christian life to put you in a state of rightness with God and that you can then grow in righteousness.

Viewed from that perspective, it’s quite appropriate for Paul to point out that Abraham was right with God before he was circumcized, because he was. You DON’T NEED to be circumcized to be right with God, as Abraham’s case shows. He was right with God LONG before he got circumcized in Genesis 17. He was right with God no later than Genesis 12, and we have explicit testimony to his rightness with God in Genesis 15:6.

But suppose that, even though you are right with God and have been for years, God then asks you to get circumcized.

Whew! That’s a painful thing! You naturally want to avoid that pain. But–if that’s what God’s told you to do and you go ahead and do it–God’s going to reckon that you did a thing that was right (just).

("Right" and "just" are just different English translations of the same underlying word in Hebrew–as well as in Greek. "Justification" and "Righteousness" mean the same thing in biblical theology, as do "To justify" and "to make right." English has this crazy vocabularly that obscures the fact that we’re talking about the same underlying terms here, so I’m filling them in parenthetically.)

So you go ahead and get circumcized and God judges you righteous for doing it–for subordinating your natural desire to avoid pain to your desire to follow his will–and this represents one more stage in your growth in righteousness as you walk with God.

And that’s what James is talking about. He also is not talking about when Abraham first passed from unrighteousness to righteousness. Like Paul, he is talking about Abraham’s growth in righteousness (justice, justification).

Paul seizes on an earlier aspect of Abraham’s experience to show that you don’t need to be circumcized in order to be right with God (which is important to his gentile readers since–unlike Abraham–THEY have not been giving a divine command to be circumcized).

James seizes on a later aspect of Abraham’s experience to show the importance of more than intellectually assenting to the truths of theology but of actually obeying God–even when it’s painful. (Whis is important to his readers since some of them seem to have the idea that obeying God isn’t important, just acknowleding the truths of theology.)

In neither case, when they cite the story of Abraham, are they talking about the time when Abraham was first made right with God, because that happened years and years earlier–no later than Genesis 12.

Incidentally, in handling these passages the Catholic Church only cites James 2 in connection with growth in justification. Check Trent’s Decree on Justification and you’ll see what I mean. It mentions James 2 when talking about growth in righteousness–which is what James is talking about–but not in connection with how we first come to God and are justified at the beginning of the Christian life.

See my book The Salvation Controversy for more, as well as my other writings on the subject on the web (try Googling "Jimmy Akin" or "James Akin" together with "Abraham," "justification," etc.).

A reader writes:

A question I have long wondered about.

In the Gospels (which are historical –as noted by the Church)  various persons refer to Jesus as "lord’ and he himself refers to people saying "lord lord" but not doing what he teaches.

The question is — how are we to understand the usage of these people –who I think for the most part are Jews?  Do they mean ‘lord’ the same way as did the Church later in its profession "Dominus Jesus!"  Jesus is Lord!?

Some thoughts have been:

A. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit.  Thus they really profess that he is God.

B. The Greek they use must mean (in most cases) something else –some title of respect but not a calling Jesus –God.

C. Something else entirely.

Any help would be great!

What people meant in these cases is probably a mix of different things. For some the New Testament references to him as "Lord" are confessions that he is God. We know this because in the Greek text the word kurios is often used of Jesus when giving a quotation from the Old Testament, and when you look up the original in Hebrew it has Yahweh–the divine name–where the Greek quotation has kurios referring to Jesus.

These quotations tend to be later, though, and aren’t in the voices of people who were talking to him during his ministry (e.g., they’re in the mouth of a later author as narrator or epistle-writer), so what consciousnessness there was of Jesus as God during his ministry is not entirely clear.

Certainly there are references by people during the Gospels referring to him to his face as "Son of God," and this is certainly to be understood as reference to him as a supernatural and even a divine figure. Something similar applies (paradoxically) to the title "Son of Man," which is not simply a straightforward reference to Jesus’ humanity. (In some literature of the person "the Son of Man" was also a supernatural figure.)

How much of this conscoiusness is loaded into their use of "Lord," though, is unclear. They certainly weren’t walking around referring to him as "Yahweh" to his face. We know that in this period the divine name had already become taboo, so people showed their reverence for it by not pronouncing it (except on special occasions). That’s a big part of why we have kurios so much in the New Testament–because people used it as a Greek substitute for the divine name instead of writing Yahweh in Greek letters.

So if people didn’t call Jesus "Yahweh" to his face, what did they call him?

Maran.

Or at least Mar.

Mar is the Aramaic word for "Lord," and when you put the –an suffix on it it means "Our Lord." This is where we get Maranatha = Maran athe ("Our Lord comes").

The thing about Mar, though, is that it has a pretty broad semantic range, just like "Lord" does in English. "Lord" can mean God, but it can also be a title of nobility.

There’s also the possibility that in first century Palesting Mar functioned like the Spanish word Senor, which can not only be a title of Christ but also simply a term of polite respect, meaning "Sir" or "Mister."

I don’t know if we know precisely how broad the semantic range of Mar was in the first century, but it had significant flexibility and could certainly be used as a term of respect that did not presuppose either nobility or divinity.

This means that when we’re dealing with people who call Jesus "Lord" in the Gospels that we can’t say with certainty what was in their minds. Some of them (at least some of the core disciples after a certain point in his ministry) may have meant it to have divine overtones, but for many it was more likely undrestood as a term of respect.

I also suspect, though, that the Evangelists may have intended us to understand divine overtones even when the person using the term wouldn’t have had them in mind. In other words, when people called Jesus Maran (or Mari, "My Lord") they were in some fashion acknowledging his divinity without even realizing it. At least it’s possible that the Evangelists want us to hear the word with these unintentional overtones (the same way that the high priest prophesies about Jesus without realizing it in John 11).

In case you’re curious, Mar is still used with several different meanings in contemporary Aramaic. Today it is used sometimes distinctively of God (as in the term Maran for "Our Lord" or as in the greeting Mar hubba, or "The Lord is Love"–used by Maronites) but also of humans, as when it is used as the Aramaic equivalent of the title "Saint" in a name (e.g., Mar Toma = St. Thomas) or as the equivalent of the title "Bishop" in a name (e.g., Mar Ibrahim Ibrahim and Mar Sarhad Jammo = Bishop Abraham Abraham and Bishop Sarhad Jammo, the Chaldean bishops for the eastern and western United States, respectively).

Incidentally, whenever I’ve spoken to a Chaldean or Assyrian bishop, I’ve always greeted him as Mari ("My Lord" = Monsignor, a title used for bishops in Europe) and I’ve never had one blink when I used the term (except over the fact that it was an American cowboy so greeting him).

A reader writes:

I’m sorry to bug you.  I have been reading your blog for over a year now and have enjoyed it very much.  I know your busy but I have a problem I can’t seen to fix and you have that nice button on your site inviting people to email you.  😉   

My son who is 12 years old has a pretty severe learning disability.  He also has Asberger’s (a mild form of autism).  I am trying to find a very simple translation of the Bible he can use when he is at Sunday school.  Do you know any way to find out the reading level of different Bible translations or what would be a good translation for someone with learning disabilities.  Any help would be appreciated.

There are a number of guides to the reading difficulty of different Bible translations, but I’ve been out of that loop for a few years and can’t recommend such a guide of the top of my head.

What I can do is give you the names of a number of very easy to read translations, some of which were specifically done for children or people with restricted vocabularies (e.g., non-native English speakers).

So here goes:

• The New International Version. This is a fairly simple translation that you may wish to check out, though it is a bit above some of the others in reading level. There is an advantage with this one in that there is a Catholic youth version of the New Testament available in it.
• The New International Readers Version is a simplified form of the previous translation. It is meant for people who have difficulty reading.
• Today’s English Version A.K.A. The Good News Bible is one of the easiest to read that I have personal experience with. It also has a Catholic edition available. The deuterocanonicals are available in this translation.
• The Living Bible is a paraphrase that was done specifically for children. There are also a Catholic edition of this. The deuterocanonicals are available. There is also a revision of this one known as The New Living Translation, though I haven’t read that one.
• The EasyEnglish Bible has about a 1200 word vocabulary and is designed for those with trouble reading.
• The Contemporary English Version is another meant for easy reading. It also has the deuterocanonicals available in this translation.
• The Worldwide English New Testament was written for students in other countries whose grasp of English is limited.
• The Bible in Basic English has about a 1000 word vocabulary.

MORE VERSION INFO HERE.

Having metioned these, I need to give a couple of caveats. First, these versions (even ones for which there are Catholic editions) are Protestant and have a number of limitations. Some do not have all the books of the Catholic Bible. Others have theological bias in some passages and may in some editions have problematic footnotes.

Second, the fact that these versions are dynamic equivalence or paraphrases–plus the fact that many have restricted vocabularies–mean that they often flatten out the theology of the text and risk introducing more of the biases of the translators.

I say that not to discourage you from using them with your son, but just to say that you should check them out first and are likely to need to help your son with troublesome aspects of the texts. (I’d get a version without footnotes if possible to help avoid problems.)

More information is available about all of them online, and the links above will help point you to it. The complete text of some of these versions is also available online (check out Bible Gateway among other sites).

I don’t know how significant the reading problem that your son has is, but these could help him learn more about the Bible. He may eventually be able to graduate to reading more advanced versions of the Bible that will help him learn even more.

I’d like to be encouraging in this regard because I have a reading disability. I’m dyslexic. I had a lot of trouble learning to read as a kid, and I had to have special training. Eventually, though, I was reading above my grade level, and today I’m interacting with Bible versions that aren’t even in English, so I’d like to encourage you about what can happen in situations like this.

To that end, let me give another suggestion: Consider using audio versions of the Bible with your son.

One of the ways that they helped me with reading when I was a boy is they sat me down with a machine called a Reader Hoffman, which played a record and a filmstrip at the same time and read to me as I read along with the text.

There are a lot of audio versions of the Bible out there already, and if you use computer tech like what I recommend here (and here) you can produce audio versions of any Bible for which you can get an electronic text.

At least it’s something to consider and maybe experiment with.

Hope this helps, and God bless!

A reader writes:

Here’s a really quick one for you.  (I know your time is valuable!)  Father metioned something yesterday I don’t recall ever hearing before, namely, that Mary became pregnant immediately after "fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum [Latin, "May it be to me according to your word," Luke 1:38]."  Does the Church teach this definitively?

No, certainly not.

The Church has very very few Bible verses whose meaning it has addressed infallibly, and this one is not one of them.

I know that it’s customary for individuals to speak of Mary becoming pregnant during the Annunciation, as if the Holy Spirit were coming upon her that moment, but this is not what Scripture indicates, nor is it part of Church teaching.

In fact, that’s not what the Greek text here would suggest. In the Greek of Luke 1:35 ("The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you") the verbs are in the future tense, indicating that the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary at some point in the future.

Hypothetically, it could have been a few seconds later, but that’s not the natural sense of the text, and if it was then Mary showed no signs from what Luke records of being aware of the event when it happened.

It could have happened at any time up until shortly before Joseph and Mary began cohabiting (because Joseph already knew she was pregnant by this time; Matthew 1:20).

Personally, I tend to think the Incarnation of Our Savior was something that had phenomenal effects–i.e., that it was something Mary was aware of when she was overshadowed by God’s power–and this means that the exact moment of the Incarnation is likely one that is hidden from us–something not recorded in Scripture.

People tend to look at the Annunciation as if it were the moment of the Incarnation because it’s the closest thing we have in Scripture to a description of that moment, but if you read the text itself, it does not suggest that this is what was going on while Gabriel was talking to Mary.

But that’s just my opinion. If someone wants to hold the opinion that when Gabriel said "The Holy Spirit will come upon you" that he meant "in just a few seconds, during this very conversation" then that’s also permitted.