Category: Bible

A reader writes:

Hi Jimmy!

I’m a long-time reader of your blog, since the very beginning actually! I just wanted to ask your opinion on an issue that recently came up. I joined a bible study not too long ago on the book of Genesis. In this study, we learned that the Pentateuch was not actually written by Moses, but that portions were written by various authors at various times, which explains why many accounts supposedly contradict each other.

For example, the study mentioned 4 “authors”: Priestly, Yahwist, Elohist, and Deuteronomic. Each has a unique style to express their message. Our facilitator then talked about the two different creation stories, and how they reflected different authors with different purposes. This type of bible scholarship seemed a little too “modern” and liberal to me, so I wanted to ask if there was any merit to this type of scholarship. Has the Church said anything about the idea of 4 different authors composing the Pentateuch, esp. with regards to the book of Genesis? Thanks!

Early in the 20th century the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued documents rejecting this type of approach to the Pentateuch, though these documents were disciplinary in force (as opposed to doctrinal) and they lapsed in the mid 20th century. Since that time, Catholic Bible scholars have been permitted to advance this kind of view.

If you read John Paul II’s Original Unity of Man and Woman, it is clear that he personally favors the four-source hypothesis. This, however, is his personal opinion and not something that he (or the Church) has taught with Magisterial authority. Consequently, it is incorrect to represent it as something the Church teaches.

It also is worth pointing out that the four-source hypothesis is not certain. In fact, in Protestant circles, the theory has become passe to many, with scholars claiming that the so-called Elohist source is really not a separate source at all.

There are also significant refutations of the theory. I especially recommend the book Before Abraham Was, by Kikawada and Quinn. It is absolutely devastating. First they make the strongest case they can for the theory. Then they tear it apart. Unfortunatley, it’s out of print, but a used book service may turn it up.

Personally, I have not studied the matter in sufficient depth to resolve in my mind the question of how many and what sources there may be contributing to the Pentateuch, but I am quite suspicious of the idea that the four-source hypothesis has it correctly worked out.

I also would like to comment on the particularly destructive way in which the hypothesis is often presented. It often is portrayed as an explanation for numerous "errors" or "contradictions" in the Pentateuch. In reality, there are none of these. As Vatican II taught, whatever is asserted by the sacred author is also asserted by the Holy Spirit, and since the Holy Spirit is infallible, he makes no errors in his assertions. Therefore, any perceived errors or contradictions in Scripture are not this in reality. They are either to be harmonized or they are non-assertions (e.g., figures of speech not meant to be taken literally).

We’ve found something like 2000 clay seal impressions in Israel that contain the legend LMLK (lamed, mem, lamed, kaf).

This is a significant legend because it likely is to be parsed L-MLK.

L, in this case, being a preposition that means "to" but also can signal personal property.

MLK is probably to be understood as MeLeK, or "king."

LMLK thus probably means "Belonging to the King."

The king in question seems to have been King Hezekiah, who reigned about seven hundred years before Christ.

There are lots and lots of these seal impressions, but the thing is . . . we’re not sure what they were used for.

READ THE THEORIES.

A reader writes:

Hi Jimmy

I was listening of KIHM’s rebroadcast of Monday’s show this morning as I am
wont to do and enjoyed it as usual.  I liked your answer to the question
about why water is mixed with the wine at Mass and as I do know something
about the history of wine (I used to sell the stuff for a living) I do want
to expand on the subject if I may.

You said that wine in ancient times was concentrated.  This gives the
impression that it had a very low water to solids concentrate not unlike
juice concentrates that one buys in the grocery store today and to which one
adds water in order to drink.

But rather ancient wines were both slightly more alchoholic and considerably
sweeter than modern wines, cloyingly so.  Therefore it was part of all
Mediteranean cultures (all of whom were wine drinkers) to add water to the
wine simply to make it palatable.

Indeed the definition of immoderate drinker in Greco-Roman culture was not
one that drank to much, but rather one that drank unwatered wine.  The
implication being that if you did that you were too uncivilized to know
better.

Of course there were exceptions to the rule.  The wines of the Greek island
of Chios were considered to be of the highest qualtiy and it was considered
bad taste to dilute them.

So I suspect (and I admit I’m just making an educated surmise here) that in
the early days of the Church, when it was time for the Eucharist the
celebrant simply did what was the cultural norm and added the water to the
wine.  But I also suspect that fairly early on someone also realized that
this cultural norm also was a excellent symbol for the Incarnation and the
dvinization of man through the Eucharist as you mentioned and the prayers
were subsequently added.

Thanks much for the info!

(LINK TO THE READER’S BLOG.)

A reader writes:

Hi Jimmy

I was listening of KIHM’s rebroadcast of Monday’s show this morning as I am

wont to do and enjoyed it as usual.  I liked your answer to the question

about why water is mixed with the wine at Mass and as I do know something

about the history of wine (I used to sell the stuff for a living) I do want

to expand on the subject if I may.

You said that wine in ancient times was concentrated.  This gives the

impression that it had a very low water to solids concentrate not unlike

juice concentrates that one buys in the grocery store today and to which one

adds water in order to drink.

But rather ancient wines were both slightly more alchoholic and considerably

sweeter than modern wines, cloyingly so.  Therefore it was part of all

Mediteranean cultures (all of whom were wine drinkers) to add water to the

wine simply to make it palatable.

Indeed the definition of immoderate drinker in Greco-Roman culture was not

one that drank to much, but rather one that drank unwatered wine.  The

implication being that if you did that you were too uncivilized to know

better.

Of course there were exceptions to the rule.  The wines of the Greek island

of Chios were considered to be of the highest qualtiy and it was considered

bad taste to dilute them.

So I suspect (and I admit I’m just making an educated surmise here) that in

the early days of the Church, when it was time for the Eucharist the

celebrant simply did what was the cultural norm and added the water to the

wine.  But I also suspect that fairly early on someone also realized that

this cultural norm also was a excellent symbol for the Incarnation and the

dvinization of man through the Eucharist as you mentioned and the prayers

were subsequently added.

Thanks much for the info!

(LINK TO THE READER’S BLOG.)

Down yonder, a reader writes:

Speaking of Matthias, I caught a sermon by a fundamentalist preacher
on the radio somewhat in the middle of it, but it seemed to me that he
was arguing that the election of Matthias was invalid, presumably
because it was done by casting lots, and that God over-ruled the early
Christians by making Paul an apostle. The moral, he said, was that we
shouldn’t force God to choose between two man-made choices, but rather,
we should give him the maximum freedom in revealing his will. (He used
Matthias as an example of this, although the principle seems valid).

My question is: how common is this line of thought? And, if Paul was
an apostle and so was Matthias, then weren’t there 13 apostles?

The line of thought is somewhat common in Protestant circles. When I was Protestant, for a time I was a member of a church where the pastor held this idea, though he didn’t phrase it so strongly (e.g., he didn’t diss the drawing of lots, perhaps because he knew high priests often did this in the Old Testament to discern God’s will).

Still, the idea is not all-pervasive in Protestant circles, and my impression is that most reject it. There is good reason for doing so as Acts portrays the selection of Matthias as a divine act and never challenges his status as an apostle. The fact Paul (who wouldn’t be converted for some time yet) went on to be a more effective apostle proves nothing. Paul also was more effective, so far as we can tell, than–say–Jude Thaddeus or Simon the Zealot, but they were clearly apostles.

There’s also another reason why the argument doesn’t work: The basic motive for booting Matthias in favor of Paul (other than an anti-hierarchial bias) is to get the total number of apostles to come out to twelve. But this won’t work as soon as one realizes that Barnabas, along with Paul, is directly called an apostle in Acts 14:14, which would boot the number back up to thirteen.

One could, of course, count the martyrdom of James son of Zebedee (Acts 12) as bringing the number down to twelve even allowing Barnabas and Paul, but at this is so long after the Crucifixion that it would be hard to explain except on the Mormon-like idea that the Twelve constituted a group that needed to be continually replenished, which the early Church did not share. It also would not explain the other (though more debatable) passages that appear to refer to additional apostles (e.g., the Andronicus and Junias mentioned in Romans 16:7).

It is simpler, I suggest to look at the matter this way:

1) In the wake of Judas Iscariot’s suicide, Peter declares (Acts 1:20-22) that his slot in the Twelve needs to be filled and he lays out a specific condition for the kind of person that needs to fill it: someone who was with them the whole time of Jesus’ ministry, from the Baptism by John to the Ascension. This suggests that the function of the Twelve is to serve as witnesses of Christ’s earthly ministry.

2) Matthias was validly elected as a member of the Twelve, as Acts 1 suggests. The other apostles or early Church Fathers never challenged this.

3) The Twelve, as witnesses of Christ’s ministry, were a group that could not continue indefinitely since only a certain number of people witnessed it. It thus was not a continuing body, as Mormons maintain.

4) Despite the function of the Twelve as witnesses of Christ’s ministry, God did call other apostles, including Paul, Barnabas, and possibly others. Some of these, such as Paul, could not be members of the Twelve because they had not been around during the period of Jesus’ ministry, but they could be afterward commissioned as apostles, either in a vision of Jesus (1 Cor. 9:1) or perhaps by revelation from the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:2).

A reader writes:

My husband and I have a question about "The Lord’s Supper" and the apostles in attendance.  Our confusion arises from a very old print of "The Lord’s Supper" that we found many years ago at an antique shop in Florida.  It is in an old gray-colored frame under "bubble" glass, and I was drawn to it because it is exactly like one that my grandparents always had in their home.  On this print are the names of the apostles at the bottom edge of the tablecloth (altar cloth).

The names listed (in Hebrew? Latin?)  are as follows (from left to right):

Bartholomaeus Bartholomew
Jacobus II James II (meaning: James son of Alphaeus)
Andreas Andrew
Judas Judas (meaning Judas Iscariot)
Petrus Peter
Joannes John
Jesus Christus Jesus Christ
Thomas Thomas
Jacobus I James I (meaning: James son of Zebedee)
Philipus Philip
Matthaeus Matthew
Thaddaeus Thaddeus (a.k.a., Judas not Iscariot or Judas the son of James)
Simon Simon (a.k.a., Simon the Zealot, the Zealots being a political movement)

Therein lies our confusion.  After Judas betrayed Jesus and committed suicide, the apostles continued the Apostolic Succession by "voting" for Matthew to join the fold.  On our print, "Matthaeus" is listed as one of the apostles at the Passover.  Was there another Matthew who was already part of the original Twelve?  Or are the names incorrect or simply added as "artistic license?"  (We also know the English translations as most are obvious and that Jacobus is the Hebrew/Latin? name for James.)

I think I can clear up the confusion. Matthew was a disciple who was named an apostle during Jesus’ ministry (see Matthew 10:2-4). The guy who was elected an apostle after the suicide of Judas Iscariot was a different guy but had a similar name: Matthias. You can read about him in Acts 1:12-26 (you’ll note that Matthew is listed among the apostles before the election of Matthias in Acts 1:13).

Incidentally, the names above are Latinized forms of Aramaic names. The "bar-" in Bartholomew is a dead giveaway. "Bar" is Aramaic for "son of." If the name were Hebrew, that would be "ben." ("Bartholomew" = "son of Ptolemy," though Ptolemy isn’t an Aramaic name; it was popular around this time due to being the name of one of Alexander the Great’s generals who later ruled Egypt). What happened is the folks of olden times took the Aramaic names of Jesus and the apostles, passed them through Greek (where they got modified a little) and then made them sound Latin by adding Latin endings and such to them.

I’ve put the English equivalents along with some explanatory notes alongside the names above in red. Hope it’s useful.

We want to share this information with our church family at our Cathedral in Charleston, SC.  We have a fabulous stained glass window of the Lord’s Supper and were discussing the names of the Apostles with the head of the tour guides.  Many had never seen the names of the Apostles listed, so we wanted to share accurate information.  Any assistance that you may offer would be appreciated, or if you could direct us to another resource.  We were unable to find the exact names and the seating order in the Bible.  Our print is certainly not a "DaVinci," but it is quite beautiful and a prayerful part of our dining area.

Cool! Hope the above helps.

Incidentally, the seating order is something made up by the artist, so you should examine the stained glass version to see if it seems to have the apostles in the same places. Generally there are little visual signs to indicate which are which. For example, Peter is depicted as an old man, while John is depicted as a young man (and is always seated next to Christ in pictures of the Last Supper, typically with Peter next to him).
 

146 year ago today, Aleph was found.

Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is also the symbol used to designate Codex Sinaiticus, which is the Aleph found in 1859.

Codes Sinaiticus is a fourth-century uncial manuscript of the entire Greek New Testament (as well as parts of the Old Testament and other works).

(An uncial manuscript is one written in all capital letters, which is basically what all manuscripts were before the invention of lower-case letters.)

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the two most important manuscripts in New Testament textual criticism (the study of which variants in New Testament manuscripts were most likely in the original–now lost–documents). The other most important manuscript is Codex Vaticanus.

Sinaiticus was found by Constantin von Tischendorf in a monastery (the Monastery of St. Catherine) at the ostensible site of Mt. Sinai (hence the name) in Egypt.

The text to the left is taken from Codex Sinaiticus.

(Incidentally, a codex is the modern form of a book that we use today, with pages attached to a spine, rather than the older form of book with pages dewn end-to-end, making a scroll. Christians popularized the codex or modern book.)

Codex Sinaiticus helped revolutionize the study of the textual history of the New Testament.

A reader writes:

Somebody’s been quoting this passage on a board I frequent often (www.bolt.com): Proverbs 6:16-19 "These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: {17} A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, {18} An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, {19} A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren."

Is it then proper to say that god Hates.

Also, What is youre take on the Hebrew notion of Hatred.  I am aware that it doesn’t have certain kinds of catagorically discriptive terms.  So if you have a first and a second choice, they may be discribed as "first and last" or if you like one option more than the other one may be "loved" and the other "hated".

Any thoughts.  Is it correct to say "God Hates,"?

Since Scripture uses the term in regard to God, it is possible to say that in some sense God hates. The question is: What sense? (Or senses.)

Since God is Love, and since he is very different from us, it is not to be expected that God hates in the same way we do. As Aquinas notes, God doesn’t have passions the way we do.

In an obvious sense, to say that God hates something (because it is evil, e.g., shedding innocent blood) may be taken to mean that it is inconsistent with his goodness.

In other cases, to say that God hates something (e.g., "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated") or that God wishes something to be hated (e.g., "If anyone comes to me but does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, and yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple") then it may be understood that he prefers something to it (Jacob rather than Esau) or that something else is to be preferred to it (having one’s first loyalty to Jesus rather than to any other).

It may also be possible to find places where divine justice is said to be administered in terms of God’s hatred of sin. In these cases, Aquinas would tell us (though I don’t have the reference handy) that God is willing a non-moral evil (e.g., pain) for purposes of a greater good (upholding justice, correcting behavior).

What cannot be said is that God commits the sin of hatred, i.e., willing evil against someone for its own sake.

As far as the Hebrews’ conception of hatred (which at times may have been expressed in Aramaic or even Greek rather than Hebrew), it may have been broader than ours, at least in the sense that the term could be used in senses that we today would never use it in English (e.g., Jesus’ statement about hating your family, though this may have been as shocking to its original audience as it is to us, so a broader understanding is not clear from that verse alone).

I am dubious of our ability at this late date to come up with a refined, carefully nuanced understanding of the meaning of the relevant Hebrew vocabulary. When you don’t have speakers of the dialect alive to question about what terms do and do not include (and biblical Hebrew is not identical to modern Hebrew, so the Israelis don’t count) it is difficult to reconstruct the exact parameters of words.

I suspect that the ancient Hebrews had a largely anthropomorphic understanding of God’s hatred, and the distinctions we would now draw are based on the revelation Christ gave us, as meditated upon throughout the centuries of Christian reflection.

Down yonder, some reader write as follows:

READER A: Jesus also said he would return soon. Are you a preterist?

Yes, I tend to be a preterist when it comes to Revelation (meaning: a person who thinks that most of the book applies to the beginning of Church history). I explain the fact that Jesus said he was coming soon by one of two possibilities:

(a) Scripture often speaks of God "coming" in vengeance but without meaning that he will be physically coming. Perhaps (since Jesus is God) this applies to a non-physical "coming" of Jesus in vengeance that occurred early in Church history (e.g., the destruction of Jerusalem).

(b) The standard "A days is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day to God, so ‘soon’ is hard to interpret" reply.

I lean toward the former possibility. In any event, Revelation indicates that before there will be a big long period of time (the Millennium, which is not necessarily only a thousand years) before the end of the world and the Second Coming. Typically of Catholics, I think we are now living in that period, which corresponds to most of Church history. We are now in the period of Revelation 20:1-10, and I think the material before chapter 20 thus applies to the early part of Church history.

READER B: I think I read in one of Scott Hahn’s book that 666 could also refer to St. Solomon.

I would be surprised if Scott said that. Sometimes people link 666 with Solomon because it is once mentioned that he had 666 talents of gold a year (1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13). This seems to have no symbolic significance and is just a coincidence (like many things in Scripture). In any event, the beast of Revelation 13 clearly was an individual living in Church history (as he persecutes Christians) and not Solomon, who lived centuries earlier.

READER C: In an old Bible of an old parish priest, 666 is explained like this :
7 is the perfect number and  so 6 (7-1) is the number of what is unperfect…
3 is the nuber of God…
So 666 is the number of "what is unperfect" trying to be called God, to usupt his title…
Is it a correct interpretation ?

I’ve heard this suggested, but it seems rather speculative to me. Maybe it’s what’s happening in the text, but maybe not. The obvious alternative number to 666 (the name of the beast) is not 777 but 888 (the name of Jesus). This explanation sounds more like an attempt to reason based on broader number symbolism, while the real explanation may simply be that 666 and 888 simply were the numbers of Nero’s and Jesus’ names. (Though that in itself may be a matter of Providence.)

READER D: it seems the Nero interpretation has the strongest arguments in its
favor, even if I don’t really find it convincing. (One weakness is that
Revelation was written in Greek, not Aramaic, and there’s no hint that
St. John meant us to dig beneath the Greek language for an Aramaic
subsoil to solve the 666 puzzle.) I’m not even sure St. John expected
his first readers to recognise the number of the Beast’s name, though
that would seem to make sense too.

I agree that the connection is not a certainty, though I think it’s stronger than what you seem to think, at least given the remaining contents of the book. I also am not that disturbed by the fact that Aramaic issue. (a) It may not have been written in Greek, as the Greek of the book is notoriously barbarous. It may be an unpolished translation of an Aramaic original, as far as I know. (b) If you’re an Aramaic speaker and it’s hit you that "Caesar Nero" is 666 then you may want to use that fact because of the triple that is present in the number. The triple makes it seem more significant than 557, which is what "Caesar Nero" is in Greek. (c) John may have been such a poor Greek speaker that he might not have known how to calculate name numbers in Greek. He may have been relying on someone else to help him with the Greek for Revelation but did the number calculation in his native language. (d) John does warn the reader that it takes understanding to figure out the number. Perhaps the Aramaic issue is part of what he’s thinking of.

Also, by e-mail, a reader writes:

READER E: I was reading your inof on the net regarding false prophets and was very interested in what you had to say regarding "Nero Caesar", a couple of questions came to mind while I was reading. The first was that you made no mention of the mark (666) of the beast on the right hand or forehead as well as the mortal wound, I’m thinking that the mortal wound may not be a literal wound, however; I’m wondering about the mark, can you shed some light on this for me.  Thanks

In my opinion, the symbolism of having the number on the right hand or on the head is likely to be understood as either a symbol of loyalty to the Roman state or (more likely) participation in the cult of emperor worship.

As to the head wound, I suspect that this also may not be literal. Many have thought that it’s an expression of the myth that sprang up after Nero’s death that he wasn’t really dead and would one day return and take his revenge (much like there were rumors after World War II that Hitler wasn’t dead).

I don’t like that interpretation, though, and I think it may refer to a number of things.

An intriguing possibility is that it is meant to allude to the previous emperor Caligula, who was mad, vicious, and who demanded to be worshipped as a god–and who was assassinated by his own guards. It may be that the revival of the beast is symbolic of Nero’s rise after Caligula (with the reign of Claudius between them). In other words: The evil (symbolized as a beast) that everybody thought had died in Caligula came back in the form of Nero.

It’s a thought, anyway.

 

Yesterday I blogged about the fact that in Greek, Jesus’ name adds up to 888. In response, a reader asked:

All this brings to 666, the number of the beast. I’ve read somewhere
this backtranslates to Nero, though intentionally without determinism.
Is there a known spelling of Nero that makes the connection in Latin or
ancient Greek?

It is true, though the language isn’t Latin or Greek. It’s Hebrew or Aramaic. These two languages use the same alphabet, though the shapes of the letters are sometimes quite different, and as a result they used the same numbering system. Since first century Jews were Aramaic-speakers, Aramaic is really the more relevant language in this case, but because modern pastors tend to know more Hebrew than Aramaic (since most of the Old Testament is in Hebrew), you often hear that "Nero Caesar" adds up to 666 in Hebrew.

Here’s how it works:

Aramaic and Hebrew did not have vowels in the first century, so words were spelled with consonants. There were different ways one could spell words (in the absence of Webster’s dictionary), and one spelling of "Nero Caesar" (or "Caesar Nero") was NRWN QSR.

Nun = 50
Resh = 200
Waw = 6
Nun =  50

Qop = 100
Samekh = 60
Resh = 200

TOTAL = 666

Now, there’s lotsa folks who have names that add up to 666, so why should one be confident that the emperor Nero was who St. John/God had in mind in the book of Revelation?

Well, in Revelation the beast is described as a leader who demands to be worshipped as a god and who persecutes Christians? Any of St. John’s contemporaries fit that bill? Yep: Nero.

Any reason we should think that it would be one of St. John’s contemporaries? Yep, again: At its beginning and its end, the book stresses it deals with what will happen "soon" (Rev. 1:1, 22:6).

Anything else?

Yep the third: Another spelling of "Nero Caesar" in Aramaic(/Hebrew) is NRW QSR, which leaves off a nun (50), resulting in the total number 616 instead of 666.

It turns out that some early manuscripts of Revelation record the beast’s number as 616 rather than 666.

Somebody back then got it–and was used to a different spelling.

(Note: It’s interesting when you’re taking a class in Aramaic and are learning the numbering system–still in use among Aramaic-speakers today–and all this comes up. Startling confirmation of the solidity of all this.)