Category: Bible

A reader writes:

Here is my question: How do we square the divine inspiration with the fact that in Genesis (and through all the Bible) the Earth is assumed to be flat?

You just said the key word: "assumed." If you had said "asserted," and if you were right that the Bible asserted this, then we would indeed have a problem. But it didn’t, and you didn’t, and so we don’t.

Lemme ‘splain:

First, though, lemme lodge an objection that I will raise anew at the end: I don’t see any compelling evidence from the text (in Genesis or elsewhere) that indicates that the biblical authors literally thought that the earth is flat. Since you don’t name any specific texts, I can’t interact with what you may be thinking of (I invite you to e-mail me again on this point), but I am unaware of any texts that unambiguously indicate an assumption that the earth is literally flat.

That being said, let’s assume that you are right and that the biblical authors did assume this in a way detectable in the pages of Scripture. How would one regard that?

The doctrine of divine inspiration does not mean that everything the biblical authors assumed is protected from error. It means that everything they asserted is protected from error. Here is what the Vatican II decree on divine revelation had to say on the matter:

In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation [Dei verbum 11].

The operative word here is, again, "asserted." An assertion is a statement that, taken in its literal sense (not in a literalistic sense), is intended to declare a particular fact.

Now, many things that we say are not assertions. "Hello" is not an assertion. Neither is "Goodbye" or "Look out!" or "Help me bring in the groceries from the car" or "Was it his refusal t write more stories and consequent poverty and poor nutrition that caused H. P. Lovecraft to get stomach cancer at an abnormally young age?"

None of these things is intended to declare a particular fact.

Even when we do have an assertion, we have to be careful about what we infer from the statement. For a start, we have to distinguish between the literal sense of the assertion (what it is intended to mean by the one who makes it) and the literalistic sense one might give it.

For example, the statement "They really rolled out the red carpet for the new pope when he visited America" is definitely an assertion. It states a fact. But one is not to take this statement literalistically and so infer that the U.S. has a single red carpet that was physically unrolled for the new pope. "To roll out the red carpet" is a figure of speech that means that great efforts were made to honor a visiting individual. (I’m told that the equivalent idiom in Spanish is "Throw the house out the window.")

The literal sense of the statement is that great efforts were made to honor the new pope when he visited, not that a carpet of a particular color was unrolled. Thus, despite the statement’s reference to a red carpet, it is not being asserted that a red carpet was unrolled.

Now, another distinction that has to be carefully parsed is the difference between assertion and assumption. Whenever we talk, we operate using a large number of assumptions. (Which is the only way we manage to ever get anything said. If we had to spell out all our assumptions and do a full brain dump every time we wanted to say something, we’d never say anything.)

Often it is possible to tell what a person’s assumptions are based on what he says. For example, if you read a newspaper column and it says that the new pope is "a 78-year-old hidebound archconservative who ran the office that used to be called the Inquisition and who once belonged to Hitler Youth" then you know that Maureen Dowd is throwing another tantrumsomething about the author’s views of the pope–namely that she despises him. She isn’t asserting that, though. She doesn’t come out and say "I despise the pope."

Instead, what she’s doing is asserting (what she perceives to be) facts in hopes that you will come to share her view of the pope. Her assertions are all about details regarding the pope: his age, his theological outlook, his resume, and his boyhood affiliations. None of these is an assertion offering a bottom-line assessment of the personal character of the pope. None of them says "The pope is a despicable individual." That’s a view that Mizz Dowd holds and that she wants us to adopt, but it’s an assumption that she’s making as she describes the pope, not something she asserts. It’s assumed. Not asserted.

It is possible in a text for everything that is asserted to be true even though the author’s assumptions are not true.

Suppose, for example, that Tantrum Queen had instead written that the pope is "a 78-year-old I regard as a hidebound archconservative and who ran the office that used to be called the Universal Inquisition and who once belonged to the Hitler Youth."

In this case, all of the assertions would be true. Some of them would be grossly unfair. (What does it matter what the CDF used to be called for purposes of evaluating the person of Benedict XVI? And why no mention of the fact that membership in the Hitler Youth was compulsory at the time and that the young Ratzinger went to great lengths to avoid attending its meetings?) But they at least would all be true.

The author’s assumption that the pope is a despicable man would still, however, be false.

So it’s possible for an author’s assertions to be true even though her assumptions may be false.

Now let’s flip this into the biblical sphere.

God has vouched for certain things regarding Scripture. Among these is that everything asserted by the sacred author is true. He has not, however, vounched for everything believed by the biblical author.

For example. Suppose that St. Paul believed that Julius Caesar was a bad man.

God doesn’t vouch for that.

St. Paul never in his writings asserts that Julius Caesar was a bad man. Indeed, he never even mentions Julius Caesar. The divine inspiration of Sacred Scripture thus in no way means that God vouches for St. Paul’s personal assessment of Julius Caesar.

This is a case where the belief of the sacred author is remote from the text of Scripture since Julius Caesar is never even mentioned in St. Paul’s writings. (Jules died years before Christ was even born.) But the same would be true of assumptions of St. Paul that are much closer to the text.

F’rinstance: There are a number of passages that make it look like the apostle Paul may have assumed (at certain phases of his career) that the world would be ending in (his) near future. God eventually revealed that this was not the case (Revelation 20 provides for at least a thousand year period before the end of the world), but one can look at certain passages in Paul and think that he may have assumed it.

That’s okay.

God doesn’t vouch for the assumptions of the biblical author, only his assertions. (Though I would point out that the same passages have alternative interpretations that do not require a nearby end for the world.)

S’ppose that I had the ability to magically make someone always tell the truth when he makes an assertion (sorta like in thet thar film Liar, Liar). S’ppose that this individual also happened to harbor the belief that the next time it rains it means that the pope is about to issue an encyclical. One day the individual rushes in and tells me, "It’s raining! It’s raining!"

Since he’s under a truth spell, I’m quite confident that it is, indeed, raining.

But since the truth spell only protects his assertions, not his assumptions, I’m not at all persuaded that the pope is about to issue an encyclical (however much he may be persuaded of this).

This is how it is with Scripture: God protects and vouches for the assertions of the sacred authors, but not their assumptions.

To bring this full circle (pun intended!) to flat earthism, there are three things to note regarding the verses in the Bible that one might take as suggesting this:

1. These verses may have been using figures of speech (like "roll out the red carpet"). Specifically: They may have been using a figure of speech known as "phenomenological language," which involves describing things according to their appearances (e.g., "The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening"). Since the earth appears flat from the perspective of a normal person standing on its surface, one can speak using phenomenological language as if it is flat, even though one knows it is really (largely) spherical.
2. The ancients were more sophisticated than we tend to think today. Many people in the ancient world knew that the earth was round. Other at least suspected it. In view of this, we shouldn’t be too quick to read their statements that might suggest a flat shape for the earth as being meant as assertions. Even if they were not personally convinced of a spherical shape for the earth, they may well have heard of the idea or at least have had doubts in their minds regarding flatness. They may, thus, have meant their statements as going along with a conventional mode of speech even though they did not meant to assert it literalistically (the way that we go along with speaking of "sunrise" and "sunset" without meaning that the sun literalistically moves around the earth).
3. Some (or all) of the biblical authors may have assumed that the earth is flat. Fine! God doesn’t vouch for their assumptions, only their assertions. One has to draw the line somewhere, and that is where God drew it.

I’d also add one other point: To my knowledge, the argument that the biblical authors assumed a flat earth view is remarkably weak. As I mentioned above, I can’t think of any texts that clearly assume this. There are certain texts that could be construed that way, but quite implausibly as far as I can tell. I therefore would encourage you to e-mail me with specific references.

Thanks, and God bless!

<RULE 15 SUSPENSION>

Ed Peters writes:

Jimmy, I’m a simple man, talk to me as you would to a simpleton, and tell me, A) the basic canon of Scripture is closed (pace finding better versions of accepted texts) or B) the canon is NOT closed, or C) we don’t know.

Following which, Quasimodo writes:

The Jimmy of Akin,
The Quasimodo asks the same question as the Ed Peters. Quasimodo thought Trent (and Florence?) closed the canon. Infallibly. No?

Following which, Adam D writes:

Um, Ed Peters is a simpleton? Okay, I’m a downright babbling idiot. Don’t even bother trying to explain anything to me, Jimmy. I won’t understand it.

(I mean seriously, Ed P? A simpleton? 🙂

RESPONSES:

To Ed:

Since Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologiae with simplicity in mind, and since he included many distinctions in it, let me begin with a distinction.

First, we must distinguish between whether the canon has been closed by God and whether it has been closed by the Church.

Regarding whether the canon has been closed by God, I answer that it has. This seems evident from what would be meant by a divine "closing" of the canon–that is, a cessation of the writing of new books of public revelation to be collected by the Church in her Bibles. Since the Church has established (see the Catechism on this point) that the era of public revelation is over until the Second Coming, it would seem that there are to be no new books of public revelation written and thus no new books can be composed for inclusion by the Church in her Bibles. The canon is thus closed from God’s perspective.

This does not, however, guarantee that we currently have in our possession all books of public revelation that God has previously inspired.

In regard to whether the canon has been closed by the Church, this question would seem to resolve to whether the Church has defined a particular list of books for inclusion in its Bibles that is incapable of further admission, even if new books of apostolic origin and/or divine inspiration were to be discovered.

To answer this question, we must introduce a second distinction: Whether the matter has been infallibly decided by the extraordinary Magisterium of the Church and whether it has been decided infallibly by the ordinary Magisterium of the Church.

To answer the first question, we must look at the texts where the Church has infallibly addressed the question of the canon.

The first such text seems to be found in the Bull of Union with the Copts (Session 11) of the Council of Florence, which says:

It [the holy Roman church] professes that one and the same God is the author of the old and the new Testament — that is, the law and the prophets, and the gospel — since the saints of both testaments spoke under the inspiration of the same Spirit. It accepts and venerates their books, whose titles are as follows.

This establishes that certain books (the ones named) are accepted and venerated by the Church as Scripture at the books of the Old and New Testament. However, there are two difficulties with regarding this as an irreformably exclusive list:

1. The text is of debatable infallibility since it does not use terms like "define" or "anathema." (It is a decree of an ecumenical council imposed on a people as a condition for unity with the Roman church, but it does not use the language the Church has elsewhere used to trigger infallibility.)
2. Even granting that the text is infallibly, every infallible utterance must be interpreted strictly regarding what question is being decided, and in this case it would seem that the question would be "What books–of those currently known–belong to the Old Testament and the New Testament?" It does not appear that the questio was "What books–of those currently known or ever to be discovered in the future–belong to the Old and the New Testament?" Since the latter question was not addressed, it does not preclude a futurely-discovered book from belonging to the New Testament.

Thus this decree does not seem to represent a closing of the canon by the Church.

The second text is the Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures by the Council of Trent, which states:

Following, then, the examples of the orthodox Fathers, it [the Council of Trent] receives and venerates with a feeling of piety and reverence all the books both of the Old and New Testaments, since one God is the author of both; . . .

It has thought it proper, moreover, to insert in this decree a list of the sacred books, lest a doubt might arise in the mind of someone as to which are the books received by this council.

They are the following:

<SNIP>

If anyone does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate Edition, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be anathema.

From this it is seen that the Council of Trent "accept[ed] as sacred and canonical" certain books without saying anything one way or the other regarding additional books. Thus it did not close the canon in the sense of excluding any future books from acceptance as sacred and canonical.

Since these seem to be the two instances on which one can argue (plausibly in the first case, certainly in the second case) the extraordinary Magisterium of the Church has dealt with the canon in an infallible manner, it would seem that the extraordianry Magisterium of the Church has not closed the canon.

This leaves us with the issue of whether the ordinary Magisterium of the Church has settled the question. In this regard, while it appears that there are enormous reasons why the Church would never add anything to the canon at this date, it nevertheless appears that the ordinary Magisterium of the Church has not entertained the question of what would happen if an unknown apostlic book were discovered.

Since no matters are infallibly defined that have not been entertained, it would seem that it has not been defined that a newly discovered apostolic book could not be included in the canon. Hypothetically, therefore, it could be included, despite the overwhelmingly unlikelihood of this.

It thus would seem that the canon remains theoretically open on the supposition of the discovery of an unknown apostolic book.

Since we do not have (and are overwhelmingly unlikely to ever have) a previously unknown book of demonstrably apostolic origin, we are unlikely to find ourselves in the above situation. In the absence of that circumstance, we must regard the canon as practically closed. The Church considered numerous works purporting apostolic origin and found them lacking. They are thus not to be considered canonical.

Thus all known extra-canonical works are to be regarded as non-canonical: Those that were known in antiquity are to be regarded as non-canonical on the grounds of rejection by the Magisterium, and those written after the apostolic age (e.g., Joseph Smith’s forgeries) are to be regarded as non-canonical on the grounds that public revelation is closed.

Works that were written in the first century (before the ban on public revelation) and that were lost before the Church began to pronounce on the canon could theoretically be included given what the Magisterium has thus far determined, but practically they could not.

To Quasimodo:

The Quadimodo has obviously been paying attention to the rules regarding the use of the definite article in the New Testament Greek. Therefore, the kudos to the Quasimodo regarding the use of "the"!

To Adam D:

We are all simpletons (Latin, simplicii) here. Now, if you can get the real Benedict XVI (and not a combox faker) to participate in the blog, we’ll have to revise that.

Till then, we’re all just folks.

Got it? ;-D

</RULE 15 SUSPENSION>

Earlier I suggested that the only way a significant movement to include a new document in the New Testament would get started was if we found something that looked like an authentic, first century apostolic epistle, gospel, or proto-gospel.

Let me clarify what I mean by the latter.

It is standardly assumed that there are lost sources behind the four gospels as we have them. The most talked about is a source called "Q," which is allegedly where a bunch of the material in Matthew and Luke comes from. It is not clear whether Q was an oral source or a written source, but many assume the latter. It also is not clear if Q even existed (there are other ways to account for the material besides positing Q and there are arguments against Q), though this is the standard claim these days. (Personally, I’m not convinced, though I’m open.)

Luke, at any rate, mentions that he used written sources in composing his gospel, and unless he’s referring exclusively to Matthew and Mark, that means there’s a lost source.

If we turned up Q or something else that looked like it might be a source behind the canonical gospels, that would be what I’m calling a "proto-gospel," and it would really set the cat among the pidgeons. The scholarly debates would be endless.

And it would be one of the few things that could conceivably spartk a New Testament inclusion movement.

How would that play out?

First, there’d be a buncha folks going "Ooo! Aaaah!" over the document in an uncritical manner and it would sell a bazillion copies.

Then there’d be a buncha folks going "I’m very favorably impressed, but we mustn’t be hasty."

Then there’s be a buncha folks going "Hey, let’s reserve judgement on this thing."

Then there’d be a buncha folks going, "This looks fake to me."

And finally there’d be a buncha folks going "This new document is of the devil!"

There’d be a big fight that would remain inconclusive for some time, probably generations.

Eventually, some publisher might decide to stick the document in Bibles it’s printing. Then there would be another huge controversy over this. (To mitigate it, the publisher might print the document as an appendix, not claiming it to be authentic or inspired but merely "useful," but that would still start a huge controversy.)

In the end, though, standard Bible would continue to outsell the ones that had the document in it. A few Christians (in newly-created denominations following denominational divides over the new book) might use it, but traditional Christians–who would be and would remain the great majority–would not include it in their Bibles, however fascinated or perplexed they might be by it.

What would the Catholic Church do?

Nothing.

Certainly in the beginning.

In our lifetimes we might get a few cautionary statements, but the attitude of the Church would very much be a "Let’s wait and see" attitude. The Church is not about to preemptorially endorse a work of such a sensitive nature if it might turn out to be fake. Neither is it about to preemptorially condemn such a work if it might turn out to be genuine. We’d get cautionary statements telling Catholics not to regard it as Scripture but to otherwise reserve judgement on it, and that would be about it.

And that’s probably the way it would stay.

Forever.

Hypothetically, the Church could use its infallibility to make a determination that the document falls into one of the following classes:

1. Fake
2. Authentic but not inspired
3. Authentic and inspired but not to be included in the New Testament
4. Authenatic and inspired and to be included in the New Testament

But the odds of any such determination at any date, even long after our lifetimes, would be very, very low.

The reason is that not making a determination would be so much easier than making one. It would be hard to prove it fake since, per supposition, we’ve already said that it appears authentic.

It would be hard to prove it authentic but not inspired since (a) we have no independent test for inspiration besides Tradition (which is absent here) and (b) we have no precedent for an authentically apostolic work that is non-inspired.

It would be hard to prove it authentic and inspired but not to be included among the Scriptures because of (a) the lack of a test for inspiration apart from Tradition and (b) we have no precedent for an inspired work that is not to be included in the Scriptures.

It would be hard to prove that it should be put in Scripture because (a) again, no independent tst for inspiration and (b) we have no precedent for including new works in Scripture.

The Church would thus find it much easier to simply downplay the matter, to be open to what value the document might have historically, but not to do anything to encourage folks to think of it on the same plane as the known Scriptures.

The only way I can see an infallible determination being made would be if, probably after centuries, a huge controversy was tearing the Church apart and one was needed for pastoral reasons.

In that case the likelihood would be that the decision would come down this way:

While this document may have many useful and instructive things to tell us, the Holy Spirit did not choose in His providence to shepherd it into the New Testament at the time it was codified. He did not choose to have it be part of the patrimony of Christendom down through the ages. Consequently, since the Scriptures as they have been historically known form the patrimony of the Church that God intended it to have uniquely in all ages of its development, it is hereby infallibly defined that the new document–whatever value it may have–is not to be placed in the canon of Scripture.

Only it’d be said more flowery than that.

The recent and ongoing decipherment of the Oxyrhynchus papyri raises a question of what the Christian community would do if we found a new Christian document purporting to be from the first century, say a new letter of St. Paul or a "lost gospel."

The paramount question in folks minds would be: Should this be added to the New Testament?

There are parallels for this already.

In the 20th century we found a whole slew of early Christian and semi-Christian documents. In particular, the Nag Hammadi find gave us a bunch of Gnostic gospels dating from the second and third centuries.

Did those get added?

Nope. We got a bunch of breathless documentaries on The History Channel and A & E, and a bunch of folks got confused by them, but there was no serious move to add them to the New Testament. Not even the Jesus’ Seminar’s publication of the Gospel of Thomas alongside the four canonical gospels caused any serious move to add it to the New Testament in the broader Christian community.

The reason is that these documents have almost no historical value and were written way after the apostolic age, automatically disqualifying them from New Testament inclusion in the eyes of traditional Christians.

If Oxyrhynchus turns out to have more of the same, expect more of the same.

But what if we find something from the first century?

Again: It’s already happened.

We’ve long had Clement’s epistle, which dates from the late first century. We’ve also got things like the Epistle of Pseudo-Barnabas and the Didache, both of which are first century texts.

There has been no move to include these in the New Testament either. While Clement was a pope, he wasn’t closely enough associated with the apostles for his epistle to make it in. It also contains material that, to modern eyes, would make it problematic to include (e.g., his seeming treatment of the phoenix as if it were a real bird).

Pseudo-Barnabas is even worse in that regard (he gets his biology demonstrably wrong regarding rabbits–saying that hares develop a new bodily orifice [apparently on their posteriors] for each year of life, kind of the way trees get rings).

And the Didache, despite its presentation as "the teaching of the twelve apostles" was demonstrably late and not clearly written by apostles or their associates, however much useful info it may have on first century Christianity.

So the mere find of a first century document would not create a mass movement to stick it in the New Testament.

The only way that would even conceivably get started would be if we found what appeared to be a first century gospel, proto-gospel, or epistle of an apostle.

If we found something that looked like the epistle to the Hebrews, for example, that contained lots of neat doctrine but doesn’t claim to be written by an apostle, no mass inclusion movement would begin.

Even if we got something by a known New Testament figure, like Timothy or Sylvanus or Apollos, there wouldn’t be a big inclusion movement.

Only if we got an apostolic epistle, a gospel, or a proto-gospel would a significant inclusion movement even get started.

What would happen then?

See next blog post.

A reader writes:

I know my basic theology behind why the Roman Catholic Church does not profess Sola Scriptura. My favorite defense is "the pillar and foundation of truth" of 1 Timothy 3:15.

Today, in talking with some reformed friends, they told me my translation was wrong.

They are referring from the ESV which is reputably very strong on its greek translation – just what I hear, I dunno one way or the other, I’m not a language scholar.

Anyways, according to the ESV, the verse is "A pillar and foundation of truth".

Well the non-definitiveness there certainly ruins the claim that the Church is the sole interpretive authority on earth. Now, one of the fellows I’m talking to attends Westminster, and he’ll be asking his greek prof about the discrepany between the Greek, the ESV, and all other translations we’ve been looking at.

The concept of definiteness can be tricky across languages–or even within a language. For purposes of comparison, Latin has no definite articles, meaning that you have to determine definiteness by context or simply guess whether it’s there or not.

Greek (the language we are here concerned with) has a definite article ("the") but not indefinite article ("a, an"). The presence of a definite article in Greek makes it somewhat easier to determine definiteness, but it’s not always easy because New Testament Greek doesn’t use the presence (or absence) of the definite article precisely the way we do in English. Sometimes they use it when we wouldn’t (e.g., saying "And the Jesus answered and said . . . "), and sometimes they omit it even though English would require it.

In this case there is no definite article before the phrase "pillar and foundation." The default translation of this phrse would thus either omit any article or supply the indefinite article ("a pillar and founation").

That’s only what one would think looking at the phrase itself, though. Phrases do not exist in isolation but need to be looked at in the overall context of the sentence and the passage in which they occur. The context of the phrase may contain clues about whether the phrase is really definite or indefinite.

Here is how the Englis Standard Version (ESV) translates 1 Timothy 3:15:

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.

Let’s break this up into clauses:

a) I hope to come to you soon,

b) but I am writing these things to you

c) so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God,

d) which is the church of the living God,

e) [which is] a pillar and buttress of truth.

The sentence has two independent clauses, (a) and (b). The first states what Paul hopes to do in the future and the second states what he is doing now.

Clause (b) is then progressively explained by a series of subordinate clauses, (c), (d), and (e).

The purposes of why Paul is doing (b) is explained by (c), which ends with the phrase "household of God." This phrase is then clarified further by (d) and (e).

Now here’s the thing: While it’s true that the phrase "pillar and buttress of truth" in clause (e) does not have a definite article, neither do the phrases "church of the living God" in clause (d) or the prhase "household of God" in clause (c).

This is important because, as we noted, context may indicate definiteness or indefiniteness. One cannot rely exclusively on the presence or absence of the definite article.

A common-sense take on the relationship of these clauses suggests that they all share the same definiteness or indefiniteness. Clauses (d) and (e) seem to just clarify the expression "household of God" at the end of (c). If the noun phrases in (c) and (d) are definite then one would naturally take the noun phrase in (e) as definite as well.

Thus it is inconsistent for the ESV to suddenly go indefinite in clause (e). To translate with consistency on this point, one would either render the verse:

if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in A household of God, which is A church of the living God, A pillar and buttress of truth.

or

if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in THE household of God, which is THE church of the living God, THE pillar and buttress of truth.

The latter rendering seems more likely to me–among other reasons because the phrase "household of God" is non-standard. It’s not the kind of thing descriptor of the Church that early Christians normally used. They used it sometimes, to be sure, but not in the rote manner that they used the term "church." As a result, it seems less likely to me that Paul would lead off by using a non-standard term in an indefinite manner ("a household of God") than that he would use it in a definite manner.

Most translations, including the ESV, seem to agree with me, at least as far as taking the phrase as definite. Consistency would then urge one to render the parallel noun phrases in clauses (d) and (e) as definite as well. Most translations also seem to do that, though the ESV (for some reason) does not.

There can be reasons not to translate consistently, but you need a reason not to do so. I don’t see any reason in the grammar to suddenly shift from being definite to indefinite in how one is rendering this string of noun phrases. It could be a theological reason why the ESV translators do it (e.g., because they don’t want to make such a strong claim about the Church), but that’s simply speculation on my point. They don’t say (to my knowledge) why they switched to indefinite, so we can only guess.

In the absence of a clear-cut reason for the shift, though, it still seems to me that the most natural to take the phrase as definite.

Even if that were not the case, though, it wouldn’t "ruin the claim that the Church is the sole interpretive authority on earth." The Church’s claim to having the unique authority to make final determinations regarding the meaning of Scripture is not dependent on this verse. The Church has that authority, but it does not need this verse to prove it. One may argue back and forth about the degree to which this truth is reflected in this or any other verse, but it is not dependent on this verse.

Further, whether one takes the final phrase definitely or indefinitely, the verse certainly makes a very strong statement about the Church’s role in relationship to the truth. You don’t need the article to tell you that.

A reader writes:

I know my basic theology behind why the Roman Catholic Church does not profess Sola Scriptura. My favorite defense is "the pillar and foundation of truth" of 1 Timothy 3:15.

Today, in talking with some reformed friends, they told me my translation was wrong.

They are referring from the ESV which is reputably very strong on its greek translation – just what I hear, I dunno one way or the other, I’m not a language scholar.

Anyways, according to the ESV, the verse is "A pillar and foundation of truth".

Well the non-definitiveness there certainly ruins the claim that the Church is the sole interpretive authority on earth. Now, one of the fellows I’m talking to attends Westminster, and he’ll be asking his greek prof about the discrepany between the Greek, the ESV, and all other translations we’ve been looking at.

The concept of definiteness can be tricky across languages–or even within a language. For purposes of comparison, Latin has no definite articles, meaning that you have to determine definiteness by context or simply guess whether it’s there or not.

Greek (the language we are here concerned with) has a definite article ("the") but not indefinite article ("a, an"). The presence of a definite article in Greek makes it somewhat easier to determine definiteness, but it’s not always easy because New Testament Greek doesn’t use the presence (or absence) of the definite article precisely the way we do in English. Sometimes they use it when we wouldn’t (e.g., saying "And the Jesus answered and said . . . "), and sometimes they omit it even though English would require it.

In this case there is no definite article before the phrase "pillar and foundation." The default translation of this phrse would thus either omit any article or supply the indefinite article ("a pillar and founation").

That’s only what one would think looking at the phrase itself, though. Phrases do not exist in isolation but need to be looked at in the overall context of the sentence and the passage in which they occur. The context of the phrase may contain clues about whether the phrase is really definite or indefinite.

Here is how the Englis Standard Version (ESV) translates 1 Timothy 3:15:

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.

Let’s break this up into clauses:

a) I hope to come to you soon,

b) but I am writing these things to you

c) so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God,

d) which is the church of the living God,

e) [which is] a pillar and buttress of truth.

The sentence has two independent clauses, (a) and (b). The first states what Paul hopes to do in the future and the second states what he is doing now.

Clause (b) is then progressively explained by a series of subordinate clauses, (c), (d), and (e).

The purposes of why Paul is doing (b) is explained by (c), which ends with the phrase "household of God." This phrase is then clarified further by (d) and (e).

Now here’s the thing: While it’s true that the phrase "pillar and buttress of truth" in clause (e) does not have a definite article, neither do the phrases "church of the living God" in clause (d) or the prhase "household of God" in clause (c).

This is important because, as we noted, context may indicate definiteness or indefiniteness. One cannot rely exclusively on the presence or absence of the definite article.

A common-sense take on the relationship of these clauses suggests that they all share the same definiteness or indefiniteness. Clauses (d) and (e) seem to just clarify the expression "household of God" at the end of (c). If the noun phrases in (c) and (d) are definite then one would naturally take the noun phrase in (e) as definite as well.

Thus it is inconsistent for the ESV to suddenly go indefinite in clause (e). To translate with consistency on this point, one would either render the verse:

if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in A household of God, which is A church of the living God, A pillar and buttress of truth.

or

if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in THE household of God, which is THE church of the living God, THE pillar and buttress of truth.

The latter rendering seems more likely to me–among other reasons because the phrase "household of God" is non-standard. It’s not the kind of thing descriptor of the Church that early Christians normally used. They used it sometimes, to be sure, but not in the rote manner that they used the term "church." As a result, it seems less likely to me that Paul would lead off by using a non-standard term in an indefinite manner ("a household of God") than that he would use it in a definite manner.

Most translations, including the ESV, seem to agree with me, at least as far as taking the phrase as definite. Consistency would then urge one to render the parallel noun phrases in clauses (d) and (e) as definite as well. Most translations also seem to do that, though the ESV (for some reason) does not.

There can be reasons not to translate consistently, but you need a reason not to do so. I don’t see any reason in the grammar to suddenly shift from being definite to indefinite in how one is rendering this string of noun phrases. It could be a theological reason why the ESV translators do it (e.g., because they don’t want to make such a strong claim about the Church), but that’s simply speculation on my point. They don’t say (to my knowledge) why they switched to indefinite, so we can only guess.

In the absence of a clear-cut reason for the shift, though, it still seems to me that the most natural to take the phrase as definite.

Even if that were not the case, though, it wouldn’t "ruin the claim that the Church is the sole interpretive authority on earth." The Church’s claim to having the unique authority to make final determinations regarding the meaning of Scripture is not dependent on this verse. The Church has that authority, but it does not need this verse to prove it. One may argue back and forth about the degree to which this truth is reflected in this or any other verse, but it is not dependent on this verse.

Further, whether one takes the final phrase definitely or indefinitely, the verse certainly makes a very strong statement about the Church’s role in relationship to the truth. You don’t need the article to tell you that.

A reader writes:

Over on the CA fora I made the following argument against Sola Scriptura from a Jewish religious and historical point of view. Do you think it holds water from a Catholic apologetical PoV?

Okay. Let’s take a look!

Being Jewish, I have always had a problem with the concept of Sola Scriptura, and I have always thought that there is a very good religio-historical argument against it.

Now I think we can all agree that Judaism is the foundation upon which Christianity of all types is built.

Any Christian with an ounce of historical consciousness will grant this, yes.

After all the Christian bible contains both an Old (Jewish) Testament and a New (Christian) Testament.

True.

And Jesus and the Apostles and (especially) St Paul were all brought up as Jews and had a firm grasp of Jewish Tradition.

Ah. Here is where someone wishing to oppose your argument may begin his case. An unsophisticated Protestant might simply say "Yes, but Jesus had a lot of criticism of Jewish tradition (cf. Matthew 15:1-11)."

A more sophisticated Protestant might ask: "What do you mean by ‘Jewish tradition’? There were several schools of Jewish thought that differed significantly from each other–the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, etc.–each of which was possessed of a substantially different tradition that it identified as the correct one. While St. Paul may have been a Pharisee, it is not clear that the others all imbibed that tradition or any particular tradition. Indeed, as they were ‘unlearned’ men, they may have simply been ‘am ha-eretz and not formal disciples of any particular school of thought apart from Jesus’."

A logical reply to both of these individuals would be "While there is truth to what you are saying, hear me out. It seems past dispute that Jesus and the apostles were inheritors of Jewish tradition in some sense in their formative years, which is all that is being claimed at this point."

That said Judaism has always had written law, the Torah, i.e. the first five books of the Old Testament. And it has an oral law, Mishnah, that expounds on and explains Torah.

This is certainly the Rabbinic understanding, and it thus naturally seems to be reflective of the Pharisee understanding (Rabbinic Judaism being descended, in broad strokes, from the Pharisee movement).

One might argue that the Sadducee movement did not have this understanding, but such an argument would be open to significant challenges, not the least of which would be that Jesus and the apostles, whatever they were, clearly were not Sadducees and thus would not be expected to share their understanding. You also have on your side Jesus’ "Do whatever they tell you" statement (Matt. 23:1-4), which seems to reflect the existence of a legal authority and, by extension, a legal tradition not arising exclusively from the text of the Hebrew Scriptures.

By way of an example there is a verse in Leviticus (unfortunately I don’t have a Bible handy so I can’t give an exact verse cite) that says "Thou shalt not scald a kid [i.e a baby goat] in its mother’s milk." This is Torah. Mishnah expands on that verse to provide a great deal of the basics of the kashruth food laws, namely things like not cooking meat in milk, not eating dairy foods and meat at the same meal, keeping separate dishes and utensils for cooking and eating meat or dairy, etc.

"Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk" (Ex. 23:19) is indeed a good example of the phenomenon you mention. It may not, however, be pleasing to a person of Protestant background.

The unsophisticated may simply say, "Yeah! And that’s why I can’t get a cheeseburger in Jerusalem! McDonalds is a strictly BYOC affair over there!"

A more sophisticated individual might reply by saying, "While it’s true that this mitzvah is commonly interpreted to preclude any combination of milk and meat products, and thus is a good illustration of the kind of interpretation-by-tradition that you are seeking to document, it may not be the most persuasive example to me as there is significant question as to whether the mitzvah has been correctly interpreted in this case. On its face, not boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk is a very great distance away from forbidding any combination of milk and meat products in a meal. The latter seems not to be reasonably grounded in the former."

He might continue: "We don’t have to be legal positivists about this: We could grant that there is an element of propriety for the ancient Hebrews that made it seem ‘icky’ or otherwise perversely inappropriate to boil a young goat in its own mother’s milk, and we might grant that this rule of propriety should be applied in other contexts, such that one should not boil a calf or a lamb or any young animal in its mother’s milk. Those might be logical extensions of this mitzvah, but to forbid any combination of milk and meat products in a meal seems a sweeping generalization that is the kind of ‘heavy burden’ that Jesus faulted the scribes and Pharisees for creating via their interpretive tradition."

To which you might reply: "Yes, but I haven’t claimed that any particular item of tradition was or should be binding from a Christian point of view. I’m merely using the example to document the phenomenon historically so far."

So to recap, at the time of Jesus and the early Church there was a written law and and an oral law. And this is key, the oral law was not written down until around the 3rd or 4th century AD, where it became the basis for later Talmudic commentary.

The sophisticated Protestant may say at this point: "We need to be a little more nuanced here. The position you are representing is the classical Rabbinic view of matters, but it must be understod with some caution. The Rabbinic view is broadly reflective of the Pharisee point of view, as has been mentioned, not the view of all Jews prior to the dawn of the Rabbinic age. Further, it is not clear that all of the Talmudic traditions actually date back to the first century."

To which you might reply, "Perhaps, but the traditions recorded in the Mishna are sufficiently early that their broad outlines, plus many of their specific particulars, must date from that period and–further–were probably representative of a broad swath of Jewish practice and not simply representative of the Pharisee viewpoint."

Therefore since Jesus and the Apostles and St Paul were all Jews coming out of a Jewish tradition, it logically follows that the early Church would follow Jewish tradition and have it’s own written law (the Gospels and the Epistles) as well as it’s own oral law (Tradition).

The conclusion is plausible, though I have two suggestions to make regarding how it’s phrase:

1) I wouldn’t say that "the earl Church would following Jewish tradition." This is a phrase that may sidetrack the discussion as it may cause a misunderstanding about what it being claimed. The reader may think that you are saying that the Church should follow particular items of Jewish traiditon, e.g., the kashrut laws, which will provoke disagreement.

This, however, is not what you are saying. To avoid the confusion, I’d avoid the word "tradition" at this point and say something like: "Coming from a Jewish background that did not have the principle of sola scriptura and that was willing to rely on extra-scriptural material, we should expect Jesus and the apostles to do the same. They would naturally interpret Scripture by their own interpretive tradition, just as other Jews would by theirs."

2) There’s another potential confusion that might arise: The reader might think that you are making a kind of scriptural-theological argument here (e.g., "The Hebrew Scriptures needed an oral tradition to complement them, so the Christian ones do too"). This would provoke disagreement as well as a Protestant likely would not concede (without argument) that there needed to be an oral tradition to complement the Hebrew Scriptures.

It seems to me, though, that this is not the argument you are making. It seems that you are making a historical argument rather than a scriptural-theological one. In other words: Jesus and the apostles came from a world in which people did rely on tradition to inform their understanding of sacred texts, so we should expect them to use this principle as well.

To make it clear that you are making a historical argument and avoid confusion, I’d go to extra lengths to point this out when presenting the argument to Protestants.

The rejoinder that you will likely encounter is the first one mentioned: Jesus had a lot to say that was critical of Jewish tradition. An unsophisticated person will simply assert this flatly, while a more sophisticated person might say, "Your historical argument is sufficient to establish a presumption that this is how Jesus and the apostles would approach Scripture, but then we have to look at how they actually did approach Scripture to see if the presumption holds up. When we look at Scripture, we see that Jesus had a lot to say that was critical of Jewish traditions."

To which you might reply: "Yes, but it is clear that the authors of the New Testament also had a healthy respect for tradition. Look at St. Paul’s positive statements regarding it (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:2). So it isn’t the case that we have a presumption that is then defeated by an examination of apostolic practice. What we have is a presumption that is confirmed by apostolic practice, with the apostles simply rejecting the traditions of other groups the way each group of Jews rejected the tradtions of other groups. That’s why there were different groups: They didn’t all adhere to identical traditions. It then becomes a question of which group had the correct tradition, but not of whether tradition should be used at all."

Which is a point that the most sophisticated Protestant individuals will concede. Many Protestants, particularly in the scholarly community, have significant appreciation for the importance of tradition. How they square that with sola scriptura is what gets dicey.

In any event, I would say that your argument is helpful in that it helps illustrate the background with which the New Testament’s positive statements regarding tradition are to be understood, so it does make a valuable contribution.

Hope this analysis helps!

A reader writes:

As a Catholic I understand there are 7 books in the Catholic Bible that are not in Non-Catholic Bibles. Would you please be able to tell me the names and what 7 books those are, so I can discuss this with a non Catholic friend?

Actually, these books are missing from Protestant Bibles. They do tend to be in the Bibles of Eastern Christians.

The books are:

1. Tobit
2. Judith
3. 1 Maccabees
4. 2 Maccabees
5. Sirach
6. Wisdom
7. Baruch

There are also parts of two others that are missing in Protestant Bibles:

• Daniel
• Esther

MORE INFO HERE.

AND HERE.

So, you say the plain-and-simple meaning of the Bible just ain’t plain and simple for you?  You hear of Stephen being stoned and wonder what he was tripping on?  (No kidding, apparently some people wonder just that.)  Fear not, for behold there is a new Bible translation available just for you:

"For readers of the Bible confused by its archaic language, such as its use of the term ‘stoned’ for a form of execution rather than the effects of smoking dope, help is at hand.

One of the world’s most widely read Bibles, the New International Version, has been modernised by a team of 15 American and British scholars and is published today [March 15].

"Gone is the word ‘aliens,’ which the academics thought was invariably associated in the minds of the younger generation with extra-terrestrials. It is replaced with ‘foreigners.’

"Even the term ‘saints’ is deemed to be too ‘ecclesiastical’ and has been banished, to be replaced with ‘God’s chosen people.’ The Virgin Mary is no longer ‘with child’; she is ‘pregnant.’

Uh, how can the Virgin Mary be pregnant if she is not with child?  I guess that will be a question for the translators of the next edition of this Bible.

GET THE STORY.

A reader writes:

I have become reaquainted with a friend from highschool and we have had a couple of conversations of a religious nature. I have just recently come back to the Catholic faith and have been studying diligently but feel inadequate to answer some of his questions. He recently wrote to me regarding his criticisms of the creation of the Bible.

He states that the process of collecting and consolidating Scripture was launched when a rival sect produced it’s own quasi-biblical canon. Around 140 a Gnostic leader named Marcion began spreading a theory that the New and Old Testaments didn’t share the same God. Marcion argued that the Old Testament’s God represented law and wrath while the New Testament’s God, represented by Christ, exemplified love. As a result Marcion rejected the Old Testament and the most overtly Jewish New Testament writings, including Matthew, Mark, Acts and Hebrews. He manipulated other books to downplay their Jewish tendencies. Though in 144 the church in Rome declared his views heretical, Marcions’s teaching sparked a new cult.

Challenged by Marcion’s threat, church leaders began to consider earnestly their own views on a definitive list of Scriptural books including both the Old and New Testaments. He goes on to say that he thinks the process was flawed.

Would you please comment on this and possibly refer me to some writings on this subject? Your thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

This is a case of "right premises, wrong conclusions."

It’s true that Marcion rejected the Old Testament, holding that it had a different god, and that he produced an edited version of the New Testament (consisting of an edited version of the Gospel of Luke and edited versions of Paul’s epistles) that he had stripped the overtly Jewish passages out of.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MARCION HERE.

It’s also true (or thought to be true) that Marcion’s release of his mutilated canon helped spur the solidification of the real canon by the Church.

But . . . so what?

God often uses heretics to spur the Church to codify in explicit form what was handed down from Christ and the apostles. The Church tends to deal with things in a pastoral manner, meaning that if something hasn’t become a problem, it doesn’t come down on it with the full force of its teaching authority.

The fact is: Being challenged makes people get more explicit and precise about their beliefs. As long as they aren’t challenged on them, they aren’t forced to think through how to defend them and precisely what their boundaries are.

In the beginning, Jesus handed on certain Scriptures as divine to the apostles (i.e., the Scriptures of the Old Testament), and the apostles and their associates wrote new Scriptures (i.e., the New Testament0, which they handed on to the Church.

As long as nobody was challenging these Scriptures with a rival set, there was little need to write out a formal list of precisely what they included.

But when Marcion comes along and starts chucking out large portions of Scriptures known to have been handed on from Jesus and the apostles, the Church needed to start making explicit statements on the point in order to protect the faithful from absorbing his harmful ideas.

It thus reaffirmed in a more precise form what had always been believed.

That’s what typically happens when a new heresy crops up: The Church his forced to articulate what it has always believed in a more forceful and precise way.

Marcion wasn’t the only gent who furthered this process regarding the canon, either. In the second and third centuries lots of Gnostic individuals wrote phony gospels that they tried to pass off as the genuine article. Since these disagreed with the doctrine that had been handed down from Christ and the apostles by Tradition, and since they showed up all of a sudden, with no tradition of their having been used in the churches as handed down from the apostles, it was easy to spot them as fakes. But to prevent ordinary individuals from being taken in by them, the bishops felt it prudent to start issuing lists of the authentic Scriptures and contrasting them with the new-fangled forgeries.

Again: What had always been believed was being reaffirmed more forcefully and precisely.

None of this gives us any reason to doubt the canon or think that the process leading to it was flawed. The process was superintended by the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Scriptures, to make sure that the Church ended up identifying the right ones. Individual bishops, not possessing the charism of infallibility, might make mistakes, but the Magisterium of the Church as a whole (which does possess the charism of infallibility), could not err once it defined the matter.

That was some centuries later, but even before then the fact that Marcion’s scripture and the Gnostic scriptures were rejected as incompatible with what had been handed down from Christ and the apostles shows that the process of preserving and passing down the authentic Scriptures was working.