Category: Bible

Catholics and Textual Criticism

A correspondent writes:

I am wondering, how do Catholics regard textual criticism? What is the Catholic position on the canonicity of various New Testament passages like the Pericope Adulterae, the Comma Johanneum, and the Longer Ending of Mark, for example?

 

What Textual Criticism Is

For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, textual criticism involves the study of how texts change over time—how bits get added, deleted, or altered.

Some variation in texts was inevitable before the invention of the printing press, since all texts were hand-copied and scribes sometimes made mistakes. Accidental textual variations even occur now that we have the printing press, though not as much.

Also, some textual variations are intentional. This happens on both the smaller level—as when a scribe or a publisher intentionally fixes a typo—and on the larger level, when they produce a “revised and expanded edition” of a work.

 

Textual Criticism and the Bible

One of the goals of textual criticism when it’s applied to the Bible is determining what the original reading of a text was.

There are various ways of doing this, and they involve detective work based on comparing the different readings that are out there and using lines of evidence to figure out which was most likely the original.

There are a large number of textual variants in the thousands of manuscripts that were hand copied before the printing press, but the large majority of them are trivial, such as alternate spellings and word order.

Very few would have any impact on doctrine, and no key doctrine of the Faith is at stake.

Nevertheless, love for God’s word has led Christian and Jewish scholars to spend a great deal of time trying to determine the original wording of the Bible.

 

Earliest Editions and Authoritative/Canonical Editions

It should be pointed out that, even if you determine the earliest reading of a text, that does not tell you what the canonical or authorized version is.

A number of years ago, Mark Twain’s original manuscript for Huckleberry Finn was discovered, and scholars of American literature could see the earliest readings of this text in Twain’s own handwriting—with all the crossing out and marginal additions he made during the writing process.

But even though scholars now could see the earliest readings of different passages, that didn’t mean these belonged in the authorized, “canonical” edition of the novel—i.e., the version of Huckleberry Finn that Twain authorized for publication. Indeed, Twain had crossed them out!

Something similar happens when authors or publishers issue new editions of books. While what a first edition said is of historical interest, later editions supersede earlier ones. Thus, the first edition of a chemistry textbook written in 1940 should not be considered as valuable a teaching text as an updated edition published in 2020 (chemistry has advanced in the last 80 years!). Neither should one rely on a copy of the U.S. legal code published a hundred years ago, but on the current edition of the law.

A parallel phenomenon happens with Scripture, where expanded versions of books and revised versions of material also appear. As I write in The Bible Is a Catholic Book:

God sometimes inspired books that contained material he had already placed in other books. These could be condensed versions of the original. The most famous is Deuteronomy, which condenses and revises the laws given earlier in the Pentateuch. Thus its name, Deuteronomy, means “second law.” Chronicles and 2 Maccabees also condense and supplement material found in other books.

Sometimes God expanded on a previous work. This happened with Jeremiah. There was an original, shorter edition that was burned by King Jehoiakim, but God inspired a new edition that contained the original material as well as much new material (Jer. 36).

God did something similar in the deuterocanonical period. He inspired expanded editions of Daniel and Esther. The first includes three additional sections. One (“The Song of the Three Young Men”) is a hymn sung by Daniel’s companions. The other two (“Susannah” and “Bel and the Dragon”) display Daniel’s wisdom and show how God delivered him. In addition, the expanded edition of Esther includes sections that bring out more clearly the role of God. (The Hebrew edition, strikingly, doesn’t contain explicit references to God.)

So, bear in mind the distinction between the earliest version of a text and the canonical version.

 

Catholics and Textual Criticism

Like scholars in general, Catholic scholars are very interested in determining the earliest version of biblical texts, and so they also practice textual criticism. The Church is totally fine with this and positively encourages it. In 1943, Pope Pius XII wrote:

The great importance which should be attached to this kind of criticism was aptly pointed out by Augustine, when, among the precepts to be recommended to the student of the Sacred Books, he put in the first place the care to possess a corrected text. “The correction of the codices”—so says this most distinguished doctor of the Church—”should first of all engage the attention of those who wish to know the Divine Scripture so that the uncorrected may give place to the corrected.”

In the present day indeed this art, which is called textual criticism and which is used with great and praiseworthy results in the editions of profane writings, is also quite rightly employed in the case of the Sacred Books, because of that very reverence which is due to the divine oracles. For its very purpose is to insure that the sacred text be restored, as perfectly as possible, be purified from the corruptions due to the carelessness of the copyists and be freed, as far as may be done, from glosses and omissions, from the interchange and repetition of words and from all other kinds of mistakes, which are wont to make their way gradually into writings handed down through many centuries. . . .

Nor is it necessary here to call to mind—since it is doubtless familiar and evident to all students of Sacred Scripture—to what extent namely the Church has held in honor these studies in textual criticism from the earliest centuries down even to the present day (Divino Afflante Spiritu 17-18).

The Church thus approves of textual criticism. But what about the three passages that the correspondent asked about?

 

What Are the Three Passages?

The Comma Johanneum, the Pericope Adulterae, and the Longer Ending of Mark are three of the most famous textual variants in the New Testament.

The first—the Comma Johanneum or “Johannine comma” (a “comma” being a short piece of text, in this case) is a variant found in some manuscripts of 1 John 5:7-8. Here it is, with the text in question italicized:

For there are three that beare record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that beare witnesse in earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one (KJV, 1611).

Because this variant makes explicit mention of all three Persons of the Trinity, it became very popular as a text for defending the doctrine of the Trinity. However, as the science of textual criticism developed, it became clear that it may not have been in the original version of 1 John.

The Pericope Adulterae (pronounced per-IH-co-PAY ah-DUL-ter-AE; that is, “the passage concerning the adulteress”) is a variant printed in many Bibles as John 7:53-8:11, and—together with the Longer Ending of Mark—it is one of the two longest textual variants in the entire New Testament. As its name suggests, it’s the famous story about the woman caught in adultery and how Jesus refused to condemn her (“Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone”).

The Longer Ending of Mark is a variant printed in many Bibles as Mark 16:9-20. It concerns things that happened after the Resurrection of Jesus, and it largely repeats and rephrases material found in the other Gospels and Acts.

 

The Johannine Comma

The Catholic Church does not have a teaching about whether these three variants were in the original editions of the books in question. It leaves that issue to scholars, and most scholars are of the opinion that none of the three were in the earliest versions.

However, this does not settle the question of their canonicity, because later editions may be the ones that God guided to become canonical (as in the case of Jeremiah, Daniel, and Esther).

In the case of the Comma Johanneum, the Magisterium has not taught it to be canonical, and—given the textual evidence against it being in the original—it is not included in most modern Catholic Bibles.

For example, it is not in the revised version of the Latin Vulgate—the translation that the Holy See itself uses. Similarly, it is not in the New American Bible: Revised Edition, which is published by the U.S. bishops.

Neither translation even includes a footnote mentioning the Johannine Comma.

 

The Pericope Adulterae and the Longer Ending of Mark

When it comes to the Pericope Adulterae and the Longer Ending of Mark, the matter is more complicated. Here is what the Council of Trent said:

But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition . . . let him be anathema (Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures).

That’s an infallible definition. The question is what the definition means when it says the books found in the Vulgate need to be accepted as sacred and canonical “entire with all their parts.”

This does not mean that we can’t do textual criticism to determine the original readings. That matter was discussed by Pius XII in Divino Afflante Spiritu (see sections 21-22).

The statement is principally directed against Protestants who were challenging the canonicity of parts of Daniel and Esther (see above), which they rejected as apocryphal. In fact, the whole reason that Trent chose to define the canon was to deal with Protestant challenges to various books of the Old Testament.

That was Trent’s clear intent, but in the discussions that led up to the council fathers voting on this decree, there also was discussion of certain New Testament passages, including the Longer Ending of Mark and the Pericope Adulterae (see Hubert Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent, Volume II, ch. 2).

The subject of whether these passages are also included in Trent’s definition thus will depend on how clearly the council fathers intended to define this matter.

The general rule concerning infallible definitions is:

No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident (can. 749 §3).

One could argue that what is manifestly evident is that Trent wanted to define the canonicity of the books of the Bible including those passages in the Old Testament that were being disputed by Protestants but that it is not “manifestly evident” that they meant to define the canonicity of particular New Testament passages, in which case the matter would not be infallibly settled.

Because the Longer Ending of Mark and the Pericope Adulterae were mentioned in the background discussions leading up to the approval of the decree, most have concluded that they are defined.

Thus, the editors of the New American Bible have a note on the Longer Ending of Mark that states that it “has traditionally been accepted as a canonical part of the Gospel and was defined as such by the Council of Trent.”

Similarly, they also include a note on the Pericope Adulterae that says, “The Catholic Church accepts this passage as canonical scripture.”

On the other hand, Pope Benedict XVI wrote:

The ending of Mark poses a particular problem. According to authoritative manuscripts, the Gospel comes to a close with 16:8—“and they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.” The authentic text of the Gospel as it has come down to us ends with the fear and trembling of the women. . . . In the second century, a concluding summary was added, bringing together the most important Resurrection traditions and the mission of the disciples to proclaim the gospel to the whole world (Mk 16:9–20) (Jesus of Nazareth vol. 2, 261-262).

Benedict thus seems to treat the Longer Ending of Mark as noncanonical, since he indicates it is not part of “the authentic text of the Gospel as it has come down to us.” (Also, in Church-related documents “authentic” means “authoritative,” and if a text is not authoritative, it is not canonical.)

Further, if he is correct that the Longer Ending was written in the second century, that would seem to place it after the apostolic age and make its canonicity further problematic.

One does not have to agree with Benedict, here, for as he famously wrote:

It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search “for the face of the Lord” (cf. Ps. 27:8). Everyone is free, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding (Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, Foreword).

In light of what is manifestly evident regarding Trent’s intention, and Pope Benedict’s statement regarding the ending of Mark, there is presently a question in my mind about whether Trent intended to define the canonicity of the New Testament passages that came up in its preliminary discussions.

To settle the question, I would need access to the texts of these discussions so that I could see exactly what was said and what preliminary votes were taken. Unfortunately, I have thus far not been able to obtain access to this information.

New Books in the Bible? (& More Weird Questions)

It’s time for more weird questions with Jimmy Akin, including this time new books in the Bible; Heaven on another planet; impeaching the Pope; time travel & the Eucharist; marrying aliens; zombie apocalypses; and more.

Weird Questions in this Episode:

  • How does the Church view books like 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, or the Greek Ezra (which are found in Bibles of the Byzantine tradition)? Was there ever an official statement or teaching on these other works which were sometimes in the Bible?
  • Is it possible that God has placed heaven, or the New Earth of Revelation, on a planet in another galaxy?
  • Could the pope make a canon law that allowed for impeachment of a pope?
  • Could intelligent non-human aliens receive the Eucharist?
  • Assuming time travel is possible and a priest and his parishioners are transported back to a time before the Incarnation of Christ. Since the Last Supper hadn’t happened yet in the natural timeline, is it possible to have a valid eucharistic consecration?
  • Why wouldn’t there be marriage in the age to come? Will the sex organs on our resurrected bodies not work?
  • If you can have a nihil obstat for books, why doesn’t the Church have a similar system for speakers and Catholic teachers?
  • Can a priest give himself confession if he is in a state of mortal sin and needs to say Mass and receive the Eucharist?
  • How did the animals get to places like Australia after the Great Flood?
  • If we found another sentient species (on earth or on another planet), would it be a violation of natural or moral law for a human to marry and/or procreate with that being?
  • Will God allow a zombie apocalypse possible to happen? Will killing a helpless, disabled, and starving zombie be criminal or immoral?

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The Mysteries of the Magi – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

The Bible says, that when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, wise men (or in Greek, “magi”) came from the East to find Him. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli explore the mystery of who these magi were; whether they were kings; if there was just three of them; what a magi was; and how they knew to come look for Jesus.

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Mysteries of the Magi

“When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem” (Matt. 2:1).

“Wise men” is a common translation in English Bibles, but it doesn’t give us a good idea who they were.

The Greek word used here is magoi—the plural of magos. These terms may be more familiar from their Latin equivalents: In St. Jerome’s Vulgate, we read that magi came from the east, and an individual member of the group would thus be a magus.

 

Who Were the Magi?

Originally, the term magi referred to a group of people in Persia (modern Iran). Around 440 B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus listed the Magi as one of the six tribes of the Medes (Histories 1:101:1).

Apparently, they were like the Jewish tribe of Levi, for they exercised priestly functions. Herodotus says that, whenever a Persian wanted to sacrifice an animal to the gods, he would cut it up and then “a magus comes near and chants over it the song of the birth of the gods, as the Persian tradition relates it; for no sacrifice can be offered without a magus” (Histories 1:132:3).

In the book of Daniel, magi are also called upon to interpret dreams (1:20; 2:2, 10, 27).

Magi were also called upon to interpret heavenly omens. Consider the case of the Persian king Xerxes I (also known as Ahasuerus, who married the biblical Esther). In 480 B.C., he asked the magi to tell him the meaning of a solar eclipse that occurred as he was about to do battle with Greeks.

They said that the sun was special to Greeks, so when it abandoned its place in the daytime, the god was showing the Greeks that they would have to abandon their cities. This greatly encouraged Xerxes (Histories 7:37:4).

However, things didn’t work out well. His expedition against Greece ended up failing, but this does show the original magi were interpreters of portents in the sky—as later magi would be for the star of Bethlehem.

With time, the term magi ceased to refer exclusively to members of the Persian priestly caste. The skills they practiced became known as mageia, from which we get “magic” in English, and by the first century, anybody who practiced magic could be called a magos.

Thus in Acts 8, we meet a man named Simon, who was a Samaritan—meaning he had mixed Jewish ancestry. Simon practiced mageia (8:9, 11), and so he became known as Simon Magus.

Full Jews also could be magi, and in Acts 13 we meet a Jewish man named Bar-Jesus, who is described both as a magus and a false prophet (13:6).

This means that, in Jesus’ day, the term magus was flexible, so we need to ask another question.

 

Who Were These Magi?

Matthew’s magi were clearly dignitaries of some kind, as shown by the facts that they (1) saw themselves as worthy to congratulate a distant royal house on a new birth, (2) had the resources and leisure to undertake such a lengthy journey, (3) could offer costly gifts, and (4) received a royal audience with King Herod the Great.

Matthew says that they came “from the East,” which from the perspective of Jerusalem would point to locations like Arabia, Babylonia, and Persia.

There were Jews in all of these regions. Consequently, some interpreters have proposed that the magi who visited Jesus were Jews, who would naturally be interested in the newborn king of the Jews.

However, most scholars have concluded this is unlikely. If they were visiting Jewish dignitaries, Matthew would have identified them as co-religionists. The fact he merely describes them as being “from the East,” suggests that they were Gentiles who came from a distant, eastern land.

Matthew also says that they went back “to their own country” (2:12), suggesting they were among its native inhabitants rather than Jews living in exile.

In fact, there is a pattern in Matthew’s Gospel of Gentiles who respond to the true God. Matthew uses it to show his Jewish readers that Gentiles can be Christians. The pattern culminates in the Great Commission, when Jesus tells the apostles to “make disciples of all nations” (alternate translation: “make disciples of all the Gentiles”; 28:19).

The magi are part of this pattern: They are Gentile dignitaries who represent an early response to God’s Messiah, in contrast to the Jewish king, Herod, who seeks to kill him. This prefigures how the Jewish authorities will later kill Jesus, but Gentiles will embrace his gospel.

Scholars have thus concluded that Matthew’s magi were Gentile astrologers from an eastern land, though we can’t be sure which one (see Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 168-170).

The earliest discussion we have is found in St. Justin Martyr, who around A.D. 160 said that they came from Arabia (Dialogue with Trypho 78:1), and around A.D. 210 Tertullian deduced that this is where they came from based on the gifts they offered (Against Marcion 3:13). In the ancient world, gold and frankincense were associated with Arabia, though this isn’t conclusive since they were widely traded in the region.

Many scholars have seen Babylon as a possibility, and the Jewish readers of Matthew would have been familiar with the book of Daniel, which associates magi with Babylonia. It’s also been argued that the major Jewish colony there could have given the magi a special interest in the Jewish Messiah, though this was also a common expectation of Jews in other lands.

Most Church Fathers concluded that the magi were from Persia. Just after A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria identified them as coming from there (Stromata 1:15), and they were commonly depicted in early Christian art wearing Persian clothing. They thus may have been members of the original class of magi.

 

How Did They Know?

In popular accounts, the magi are depicted as following the star, which led them to Bethlehem. That has led many to see the star as a supernatural manifestation that moved around in the sky in a way stars don’t.

However, this isn’t what Matthew says. He never claims they were following the star, only that it was ahead of them as they went to Bethlehem and that it stood over the house (2:9). This was a providential coincidence.

They weren’t being led by the star for, as Benedict XVI points out, they initially went to Herod’s palace in Jerusalem—the natural place to find a newborn prince (Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, ch. 4). They assumed that Herod the Great or one of his sons had just had a baby boy who would grow up to be king.

When they learned there was no new prince at the palace, a consultation had to be held with the chief priests and scribes to learn where the magi really needed to go: Bethlehem (2:4).

The fact that the chief priests and scribes looked to a well-known prophecy of the birth of the Messiah (Micah 5:2; cf. Matt. 2:6) suggests the magi could have seen the appearance of the star as signaling not just the birth of an ordinary king but of a particularly great one—the predicted Messiah.

While magi weren’t following the star, it did tell them when he was born, for they said, “We have seen his star in the East” (2:2).

Recently, scholars have argued that this is a mistranslation and that the Greek phrase rendered “in the East” (en tê anatolê) should instead be “at its rising”—that is, when it rose over the eastern horizon as the Earth turns. Some have argued that this is a technical term for what is known as a star’s “heliacal” rising, which occurs when it briefly rises above the horizon just before sunrise.

The real question is what told them the star was significant and why they linked it to a king of the Jews. Here we can only speculate.

The system of constellations in use at the time, which includes our own zodiac, was developed in northern Mesopotamia around 1130 B.C, and it was used by Babylonian and Persian astrologers.

It’s not surprising that they would associate a particular star with the birth of a king, because at this time astrology was used to forecast national affairs. Horoscopes weren’t normally done for ordinary people.

Heavenly signs were interpreted as having to do with things of national importance, like relations between nations, wars and rebellions, whether the crops would be good or bad, epidemics, and kings.

It’s thus not a surprise that the magi would be looking for signs dealing with the births of kings.

What the star they saw might have been is difficult to determine, but one possibility is Jupiter. At this time Jupiter and the other planets were considered “wandering” stars since they moved against the background of “fixed” stars.

Unlike some later Greeks, Mesopotamian astrologers didn’t see the stars as controlling events on Earth. Instead, they thought the gods made their wills known through celestial phenomena—so it was a form of divine revelation.

Jupiter was associated with Marduk, the king of the Babylonian pantheon, and it was often involved in signs associated with kings.

For example, one Babylonian text says that if Jupiter remains in the sky in the morning, enemy kings will be reconciled with each other.

An Assyrian text indicates that if a lunar eclipse takes place and Jupiter is not in the sky then the king will die. To protect the king, the Assyrians came up with an ingenious solution: They took a condemned criminal and made him a temporary, substitute “king” who could then be executed to save the life of the real king!

Whether Jupiter was the star the magi saw will depend on when Jesus was born, and that’s something scholars debate.

 

When Was Jesus Born?

According to the most common account you hear today, Herod the Great died in 4 B.C., so Jesus would have to have been born before this.

In Matthew 2:7, Herod secretly learns from the magi when the star appeared, and in 2:16, he kills “all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men.”

This indicates the star was understood as appearing at Jesus’ birth, which is to be expected since such portents were associated with births (as opposed to conceptions).

It also indicates Jesus was born up to two years before the magi arrived, though it may not have been a full two years, since Herod may have added a “safety” margin to his execution order.

Many scholars have thus proposed that Jesus was born around 7-6 B.C., and this is the date you commonly hear.

However, other scholars have argued that this calculation is wrong. A better case can be made that Herod died in 1 B.C. (see Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 2nd ed., and Andrew Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul).

This likely would put Jesus’ birth in 3/2 B.C., which is the year identified by the Church Fathers as the correct one.

It also fits with Luke’s statement that Jesus was “about thirty years old” when he began his ministry (3:23), shortly after John the Baptist began his in “the fifteenth year of the reign Tiberius Caesar” (3:1)—i.e., A.D. 29. Subtracting 30 from A.D. 29, we land in the year 2 B.C. (bearing in mind that there is no “Year 0” between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1).

 

What Was in the Sky?

Regardless of which view of Jesus’ birth is correct, it occurred in the first decade B.C. So what notable astronomical events took place then that could have served as the star of Bethlehem?

A large number have been proposed. The following list contains only some:

7 B.C.

  • 1: Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction

6 B.C.

  • April 17: Jupiter has its heliacal rising in Ares (a constellation associated with Judaea), with several other significant features in the sky
  • May 27: Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction
  • 6: Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction

5 B.C.

  • March: A comet in Capricorn

4 B.C.

  • April: A comet or nova (which one is unclear) in Aquilea

3 B.C.

  • August 12: Jupiter and Venus rise in the east, in conjunction with each other, in Leo, near Regulus
  • 11: The sun in mid-Virgo, with the moon at the feet of Virgo
  • 14: Jupiter in conjunction with Regulus

2 B.C.

  • 17: Jupiter in conjunction with Regulus
  • May 8: Jupiter in conjunction with Regulus
  • June 17: Jupiter in conjunction with Venus

One of the most interesting of these events is the rising of Jupiter and Venus on August 12, 3 B.C. Since Babylonian times, Jupiter was seen as a heavenly king, and Venus was seen as a heavenly queen, suggesting a birth. Further, the Babylonians named Regulus (the brightest star in Leo) “the king,” and the lion was a traditional symbol of the tribe of Judah (cf. Gen. 49:9).

Also very interesting is what happened on September 11th, 3 B.C. In Revelation, John says, “A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (12:1). This woman then gives birth to Jesus (12:5). Some have proposed that this encodes information about when he was born: When the sun was in the middle of Virgo (“the virgin”) and thus “clothing” it, with the moon at her feet.

Unfortunately, we can’t say which—if any—of these events corresponds to the star of Bethlehem without knowing precisely when Jesus was born. That’s something the Bible never tells us, and the Church Fathers had different opinions, with only some proposing December 25th.

 

What Was the Role of Jewish Thought?

Thus far we’ve looked at how the magi would have interpreted celestial events largely in terms of establish, Mesopotamian astrology.

This association with paganism gives rise to questions, such as, “Would God really use pagan astrology to signal the birth of his Son?”

That’s a matter for God to decide. Scripture indicates God cares for all people and makes himself known to them in various ways (cf. Rom. 1:19-20). It wouldn’t be so much God using pagan astrology to mark the birth of his Son as choosing to preserve certain true ideas among Gentiles to point to this event.

Also, if the magi were Persians, they wouldn’t have been polytheists. By this period, the Persians did not believe in the old gods, and their dominant religion was Zoroastrianism.

This faith teaches the existence of a single, great, all-good Creator God who they refer to as “the Wise Lord” and who will vanquish evil in the end. They believe in the renovation of the world, the final judgment, and the resurrection of the dead.

If the magi were Persians, they could have seen themselves as spiritual kin to the Jews and as worshipping the same God—the only true God—using their own term for him.

Finally, they may well have had contact with Jews living in their own land, and thus come into contact with biblical revelation that could have influenced their perception of the star.

They could have learned, for example, of the lion as a symbol of Judah, and they could have associated the coming Jewish Messiah with a star.

One of the most famous messianic prophecies is “a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Num. 24:17).

This prophecy was already associated with the Messiah, which is why in the A.D. 130s the messianic pretender Simon bar Kosiba was hailed as “Simon bar Kokhba” (Aramaic, “Simon, son of the Star”).

 

What About Astrology?

What about the role of astrology itself in this account? While astrology was popular among Gentiles, it wasn’t as popular among Jews, who often looked down on it.

This is itself a sign that Matthew’s tradition about the magi is historically accurate. It’s not the kind of thing that Jewish Christians would tend to make up.

However, while astrology wasn’t as popular among Jews as among Gentiles, it did exist.

Genesis says that God made the sun, moon, and stars “to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years” (1:14). This could mean that they are simply to be time keeping markers.

But some Jews thought that their function as “signs” went beyond this and included information about future events. Thus, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain astrological texts.

In the ancient world, there was no rigid distinction between astronomy and astrology. It’s only in the last few centuries that the two have been disentangled. This happened as scientists learned more about the effects the sun, moon, and stars do and don’t have on life here on Earth.

Even Thomas Aquinas, based on the science of his day, thought that the heavenly bodies had an influence on the passions and could, for example, make a man prone to anger—but not in such a way that it would overwhelm his free will (Commentary on Matthew 2:1-2, ST I:115:4, II-II:95:5).

Subsequent scientific research showed they don’t have this kind of effect, and consulting the stars for these purposes is superstition. Thus the Catechism today warns against consulting horoscopes (CCC 2116).

While the stars don’t have the kind of influence many once thought, that doesn’t mean God can’t use them to signal major events in his plan of the ages. The fact he signaled the birth of his Son with a star shows he can. This isn’t what people think of as astrology, but it’s part of divine providence.

In fact, this doesn’t appear to be the only time God did something like that. On the day of Pentecost, Peter cited the prophet Joel’s prediction that the moon would be turned to blood as fulfilled in their own day (Joel 2:31-32; Acts 2:20-21).

It so happens, on the night of the Crucifixion (April 3, A.D. 33), there was a lunar eclipse visible from Jerusalem. The moon did turn to blood.

Pronouncing Biblical Names (Wherein I Rant)

Pronouncing biblical names is often tricky. They’re names from other languages, after all.

Some have become standard, English names. But for every David or John there’s also an Artaxerxes and a Mahershalalhashbaz.

When you’re reading the Bible aloud and you come across a name, you may:

  1. Use the standard English pronunciation
  2. Use the standard pronunciation in the original language (Hebrew, Greek, etc.)
  3. Fake it

Many readers that I hear seem to prefer option 3.

However, that’s not what I want to rant about today. Instead, I want to rant about a pet peeve of mine.

Yes, I know it’s trivial, but it drives me nuts.

 

Elijah and Elisha

Consider the names of these two Old Testament prophets: Elijah and Elisha.

They’re different, no? One of them has a /j/ in it and the other has an /sh/ in it.

And that’s the only difference.

So it should be the only difference in how you pronounce them, right?

 

The Traditional English Pronunciation

Sure enough, in the traditional English pronunciation, it is: Elijah is pronounced ee-LIE-jah and Elisha is pronounced ee-LIE-shah.

If somebody names their kid Elisha, you call him ee-LIE-shah.

At least, that’s how you do it if you’re using the standard English pronunciation.

 

The Traditional Hebrew Pronunciation

Normally when reading aloud, you wouldn’t want to use anything but the standard English pronunciation.

It would confuse your audience, and you could come across as just showing off.

Like if you pronounced the name David as dah-WEED in church for no reason.

However, there are situations—like in a language class—where you’d want to know the pronunciation in the original language.

So how would you pronounce Elijah and Elisha in biblical Hebrew?

There are a few things you need to know:

  1. Hebrew doesn’t have the /j/ sound; it uses the /y/ sound instead.
  2. Every syllable in Hebrew must begin with a consonant, even if it’s just a glottal stop—i.e., a constriction of the throat (we actually have this consonant in English, but it’s not part of our alphabet; if you pay attention, you can hear yourself saying it on the front of the word apple).
  3. After a glottal stop, Hebrew tends to have a short vowel that’s basically equivalent to the English /uh/ sound (like in the word upper).
  4. Both Elijah and Elisha start with a glottal stop followed by a short vowel.
  5. Both Elijah and Elisha have a long /ee/ sound (as in seem) in the middle.
  6. Hebrew tends to stress the last syllable of the word (in contrast, English often stresses the next-to-last syllable, as in gateway or edition).

With that in mind, you can work out how you should (roughly) pronounce Elijah and Elisha:

  • Elijah becomes uh-lee-YAH
  • Elisha becomes uh-lee-SHAH

 

The Newfangled Nonsense Pronunciation

In recent years—in some circles—the people who write biblical name pronunciation guides have been promoting a ridiculous, alternative pronunciation of this name.

I suspect it’s the same people who were pushing for all manner of liturgical novelties in the 1970s and 1980s, including items of Orwellian Liturgical Newspeak (e.g., “We Are Church,” which is just bad English).

The alternative pronunciation they’ve been promoting is ee-LISH-ah.

No!

This is not the standard English pronunciation, and as far as Hebrew goes, Every. Syllable. Of. This. Is. Wrong.

  • The /ee/ on the front is wrong because Hebrew has a short vowel here: /uh/ as in upper, not /ee/ as in seem.
  • The /LISH/ is wrong (a) because it’s improperly given the stress, when that should be on the last syllable, (b) because it grabs the /sh/ that must be on the beginning of the last syllable, and (c) because it uses a short /i/ sound (as in hit) when it should be an /ee/ sound (as in seem).
  • The /ah/ on the end is wrong (a) because it doesn’t have a consonant on the front of it and (b) because it isn’t stressed, as it should be.

Weirdly, the people promoting the ee-LISH-ah pronunciation haven’t been doing the same thing with Elijah. They haven’t been urging people to pronounce it ee-LIJJ-ah.

This makes me suspect that they wanted to use the difference in pronunciation to help people keep Elijah and Elisha straight, given how similar their names are.

But they needn’t bother. Most people today don’t know the difference between Elijah and Elisha in the first place.

And they’re doing violence to the language.

So please, do not pronounce Elisha so that it kinda-sorta sounds like the word delicious.

The fancy way of saying that one word kinda-sorta sounds like another is to say that the two words are assonant.

So please, when it comes to Elisha, don’t be an assonant.

Pope Francis Institutes Annual Sunday Devoted to God’s Word

On September 30th, Pope Francis decreed that the third Sunday of Ordinary Time henceforth will be celebrated as the Sunday of God’s Word.

He did this in a document titled Aperuit Illis (Latin, “He opened them”), referring to how Christ opened the minds of the disciples so they could understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45).

Pope Francis had proposed this idea in 2016 (see Misericordia et Misera 7).

Every day of the Church’s liturgical year involves reading Scripture at Mass and in the liturgy of the hours.

Precisely because Scripture is a regular part of the Church’s life, some can treat it as routine and unexceptional.

The new Sunday celebration is meant to provide an annual reminder of just how precious God’s word is and to encourage us to appreciate that fact.

Pope Francis points out a number of ways the Sunday will be celebrated:

The various communities will find their own ways to mark this Sunday with a certain solemnity.

It is important, however, that in the Eucharistic celebration the sacred text be enthroned, in order to focus the attention of the assembly on the normative value of God’s word.

On this Sunday, it would be particularly appropriate to highlight the proclamation of the word of the Lord and to emphasize in the homily the honor that it is due.

Bishops could celebrate the Rite of Installation of Lectors or a similar commissioning of readers, in order to bring out the importance of the proclamation of God’s word in the liturgy.

In this regard, renewed efforts should be made to provide members of the faithful with the training needed to be genuine proclaimers of the word, as is already the practice in the case of acolytes or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.

Pastors can also find ways of giving a Bible, or one of its books, to the entire assembly as a way of showing the importance of learning how to read, appreciate and pray daily with sacred Scripture, especially through the practice of lectio divina (n. 3).

Some groups may see the Bible as something that is exclusively theirs. Biblical scholars, members of the clergy, and Protestants sometimes fall into this trap. However, Pope Francis emphasizes that this is not the case:

The Bible cannot be just the heritage of some, much less a collection of books for the benefit of a privileged few. It belongs above all to those called to hear its message and to recognize themselves in its words. At times, there can be a tendency to monopolize the sacred text by restricting it to certain circles or to select groups. It cannot be that way. The Bible is the book of the Lord’s people, who, in listening to it, move from dispersion and division towards unity (n. 4).

A key way the Church helps people appreciate Scripture is through the homily, in which a priest or deacon explains the readings and helps the faithful apply them to their lives. Pope Francis indicates that this “is a pastoral opportunity that should not be wasted!” He writes:

Sufficient time must be devoted to the preparation of the homily. A commentary on the sacred readings cannot be improvised. Those of us who are preachers should not give long, pedantic homilies or wander off into unrelated topics. When we take time to pray and meditate on the sacred text, we can speak from the heart and thus reach the hearts of those who hear us, conveying what is essential and capable of bearing fruit (n. 5).

In recent years, skeptical biblical scholars have cast doubt on the historical reliability of Scripture—including its accounts of Jesus’ resurrection—but Pope Francis rejects this:

Since the Scriptures everywhere speak of Christ, they enable us to believe that his death and resurrection are not myth but history, and are central to the faith of his disciples (n. 7).

He goes on to repeat the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on the inerrancy of Scripture:

Dei Verbum stresses that “we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures” (Dei Verbum 11).

Since the Scriptures teach with a view to salvation through faith in Christ (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15), the truths contained therein are profitable for our salvation. The Bible is not a collection of history books or a chronicle, but is aimed entirely at the integral [i.e., complete] salvation of the person. The evident historical setting of the books of the Bible should not make us overlook their primary goal, which is our salvation. Everything is directed to this purpose and essential to the very nature of the Bible, which takes shape as a history of salvation in which God speaks and acts in order to encounter all men and women and to save them from evil and death (n. 9).

He also cautions against neglecting the Old Testament and regarding it as something that does not apply to us:

The Old Testament is never old once it is part of the New, since all has been transformed thanks to the one Spirit who inspired it (n. 12).

Pope Francis stresses the role of the Holy Spirit in helping us understand and apply the Scriptures, which helps avoid a restrictive, fundamentalist reading:

Without the work of the Spirit, there would always be a risk of remaining limited to the written text alone. This would open the way to a fundamentalist reading, which needs to be avoided, lest we betray the inspired, dynamic and spiritual character of the sacred text. As the Apostle reminds us: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). The Holy Spirit, then, makes sacred Scripture the living word of God, experienced and handed down in the faith of his holy people (n. 9).

While Scripture is inspired by God in a unique sense, Pope Francis sees the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit as providing a form of “inspiration” today (note his quotation marks):

God’s revelation attains its completion and fullness in Jesus Christ; nonetheless, the Holy Spirit does not cease to act. It would be reductive indeed to restrict the working of the Spirit to the divine inspiration of sacred Scripture and its various human authors. We need to have confidence in the working of the Holy Spirit as he continues in his own way to provide “inspiration” whenever the Church teaches the sacred Scriptures, whenever the Magisterium authentically [i.e., authoritatively] interprets them, and whenever each believer makes them the norm of his or her spiritual life (n. 10).

As I discuss in my book The Bible Is a Catholic Book, Catholics rely on the triad of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium. Pope Francis has already mentioned Scripture and the Magisterium, and he stresses that Tradition “is also God’s word,” stating:

We frequently risk separating sacred Scripture and sacred Tradition, without understanding that together they are the one source of revelation. The written character of the former takes nothing away from its being fully a living word; in the same way, the Church’s living Tradition, which continually hands that word down over the centuries from one generation to the next, possesses that sacred book as the supreme rule of her faith (n. 11).

He also exhorts us:

The sweetness of God’s word leads us to share it with all those whom we encounter in this life and to proclaim the sure hope that it contains (n. 12).

The first celebration of the Sunday of God’s Word will be in 2020, when the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time will be January 26th.

“Three Days and Three Nights”?

In Matthew 12:40, Jesus says:

Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

This has widely—and correctly—been understood as a reference to the period he spent in the tomb, between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

However, it raises a question about the timing of these events. Many people ask, if Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, how could he rise on Easter Sunday? That’s not “three days and three nights” later—at least by our reckoning.

To solve this dilemma, some propose that Jesus was actually crucified earlier—on a Wednesday. That way he could lie in the tomb all of Thursday, all of Friday, and all of Saturday, only to be raised early on Sunday.

Every year at this time—and periodically throughout the year—I get email from people telling me that I, and the vast majority of scholars (Catholic and Protestant alike), don’t know what we’re talking about when placing the Crucifixion on a Friday.

Some are positively insulting about it, presenting Matthew 12:40 as conclusive proof that we—apparently—have never thought about before.

But we have.

So, let’s talk about it and the other evidence we have from the New Testament about the day of Jesus’ Crucifixion.

 

Not a Matter of Faith

Let’s start by noting that, although the Church commemorates Jesus’ death on Good Friday, the traditional chronology of Holy Week is not a dogma of the Faith, and scholars can explore other options.

For example, in his Jesus of Nazareth series, Pope Benedict XVI discussed the view of the French scholar Annie Jaubert, who proposed that the Last Supper actually took place on Holy Tuesday rather than Holy Thursday.

That view is commonly shared by advocates of a Wednesday Crucifixion (though Jaubert still places the latter event on Good Friday).

After exploring the arguments proposed by Jaubert, he observes that the theory is “fascinating at first sight,” but that it “is rejected by the majority of exegetes” (2:111).

He then offers his own conclusion, stating:

So while I would not reject this theory outright, it cannot simply be accepted at face value, in view of the various problems that remain unresolved (Jesus of Nazareth 2:112).

For the pope to publish a book in which he says that he doesn’t “reject this theory outright,” even though he ultimately isn’t persuaded by it, is a clear indicator that alternative chronologies are possible.

But it’s a question of what the evidence supports. So what evidence is there?

 

The Day of the Resurrection

All of the Gospels indicate that Jesus’ tomb was found empty on Sunday morning.

  • Matthew says this happened “after the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning” (Matt. 28:1).
  • Mark says it was “when the sabbath was over” (Mark 16:1).
  • Luke says it was “at daybreak on the first day of the week” (Luke 24:1).
  • And John says it was “on the first day of the week” (John 20:1)

This gives us a solidly fixed day of the week, which is unmistakably Sunday—the day after the Jewish sabbath and the first day of the week on everyone’s reckoning.

Since no human eye witnessed the Resurrection itself, one could propose that Jesus actually rose some time Saturday (or any point after the burial), but this was not the understanding of the early Christians.

They universally understood Sunday as the day of the Resurrection, which is why they began gathering every first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:2) and why this day came to be known as “the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10; cf. Ignatius of Antioch, Magnesians 9:1).

We thus begin with the premise that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday, at least as it was reckoned at the time (remembering that Jews began the day at sundown, so for them Sunday began on what we would call Saturday night).

 

“The Sabbath”

You’ll note that Matthew and Mark both say that Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty after “the sabbath.”

In ordinary Jewish speech, “the sabbath” was overwhelmingly used to refer to the day of the week known to us as Saturday.

There are a few exceptions to this, where certain other holy days could be referred to as sabbaths:

  • The day of atonement (Lev. 16:31, 23:32)
  • The feast of trumpets (Lev. 23:24)
  • The first and eighth days of the feast of booths (Lev. 23:39)

However, these usages were rare, and the fact that Matthew says this sabbath preceded “the first day of the week,” which Luke and John confirm, indicates that it is the weekly sabbath we are talking about, which is what we’d expect from the unmodified use of “the sabbath.”

What else do we know about this particular sabbath?

Luke records that as soon as Jesus was buried, the women “returned and prepared spices and perfumed oils. Then they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 24:56).

If we back up a few verses, Luke records that the burial was done in haste, for “it was the day of preparation, and the sabbath was about to begin” (Luke 24:54).

Bear in mind that this is the same weekly sabbath that the Gospels report as the day before the Resurrection, so the chronology Luke gives is:

  • “the day of preparation”: Jesus buried
  • “the sabbath”: the women rest
  • “the first day of the week”: the women find Jesus’ tomb empty

 

“The Day of Preparation”

Modern people aren’t typically familiar with the phrase “the day of preparation,” but it was a way of referring to the day before the sabbath.

It was called that because devout Jews had to make preparations to rest on the sabbath. For example, they needed to prepare all the food that they would eat on Saturday. Thus, Moses declared:

“This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay by to be kept till the morning’” (Exod. 16:23).

Friday thus became known as the day of preparation. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes:

“The idea of preparation is expressed by the Greek name paraskeuê, given by Josephus (Ant. 16:6:2) to that day (compare Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; Matt. 27:62; John 19:42). In Yer. Pesaḥim 4:1 the day is called ‘Yoma da-’Arubta’ (Day of Preparation)” (s.v. Calendar).

What Luke is saying thus is that Jesus was crucified on Friday, the women rested on Saturday, and they found his tomb empty on Sunday.

The same is indicated by the other Gospels. Speaking of the same day that the women rested, Matthew records:

The next day [after Jesus was buried], the one following the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember that this impostor while still alive said, ‘After three days I will be raised up.’ Give orders, then, that the grave be secured until the third day” (Matt. 27:62-64).

Matthew thus indicates that Jesus was buried on the day of preparation (Friday), and the next day—Saturday—the priests requested a guard be posted until the third day (Sunday).

Mark says that Jesus was buried, “the day of preparation, the day before the sabbath” (Mark 15:42). This is particularly significant because he then says the women found the tomb empty “when the sabbath was over” (Mark 16:1). Mark’s chronology thus has Jesus being buried on a Friday and raised on a Sunday, with the weekly sabbath intervening.

Finally, John says that Jesus was crucified “the day of preparation of the Passover” (John 19:14, LEB)—that is, the Friday in Passover week.

He then says that the Jewish leaders asked for the legs of the crucified to be broken “since it was the day of preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day)” (John 19:31)—and a sabbath falling in Passover did have extra solemnity.

Finally, John indicates that Jesus was buried hurriedly, in a nearby tomb: “So because of the Jewish day of preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (John 19:42).

He thus indicates that Jesus was crucified and buried on the day of preparation (Friday), which preceded the sabbath (Saturday), and he was discovered alive again “on the first day of the week” (John 20:1).”

All four Gospels thus point to the same Friday-Saturday-Sunday chronology, with each saying specifically that Jesus was crucified on the day of preparation (cf. Matt. 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14, 31, 42).

 

“On the Third Day”
You’ll note that in Matthew the Jewish authorities asked that the tomb be secured until “the third day” (Matt. 27:64).

This is the standard way that Jesus referred to the time he would rise. There are at least eight cases in the Gospels indicating that he rose on “the third day” (Matt. 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24:31, 46).

Mark also records three instances of him saying he will rise “after three days” (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:34), and John has him saying it will happen “in three days” (John 2:20).

However, the standard way of referring to the timing of the event was “on the third day”—a usage also found outside the Gospels (Acts 10:40, 1 Cor. 15:4).

To understand which day was the third, one must understand a couple things about how biblical authors counted:

  • The first unit of time after something happens begins immediately after the event. We still use this convention today. It’s why a president’s “first” year in office is the one that begins immediately upon his inauguration. His first year isn’t complete until he reaches his twelve-month anniversary.
  • Where the ancients differed from us is that they would often count parts for wholes. For example, they would often consider an emperor’s first year to be the time from when he took office to the beginning of the next calendar year. His “second” year would begin with New Year’s Day, meaning that his “first” year wasn’t twelve months long. Yet though it was only part of a twelve-month period, it was counted as a year.

The same thing applied to other units of time, such as months, weeks, days, and hours, and this has implications for the Crucifixion:

  • Jesus died at around 3 p.m. (cf. Luke 23:44-46), which means the first day of his death was the remainder of the day of preparation, between 3 p.m. and sunset.
  • The second day then began at sunset and lasted through the entire sabbath (i.e., it was Friday night and Saturday daytime).
  • The third day then began at sundown on the sabbath and lasted until sunset on the first day of the week (i.e., it was Saturday night and Sunday daytime).

This is why, on the road to Emmaus, the disciples can tell Jesus that “it is now the third day” since the Crucifixion (Luke 24:21).

We thus have abundant evidence pointing to the Friday-Saturday-Sunday chronology, with Jesus being raised “on the third day.”

 

“Three Days and Three Nights”?

How, then, do we explain the single verse in which Jesus says he will be in the belly of the earth for “three days and three nights”?

If we took that literally to mean three full days—no more and no less—then it would mean Jesus would be dead for exactly seventy-two hours, which would place the Resurrection at 3 p.m.—something nobody proposes.

We must therefore recognize that this expression is not to be taken fully literally. It involves a figurative expression.

To understand that expression, we can’t impose our own culture’s ideas. We need to look at how ancient Jewish authors used language, and here scholars are clear.

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

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

“Three days and three nights” is just an especially demonstrative way of saying “three days.” It doesn’t literally mean seventy-two hours.

And because of the ancients’ tendency to count parts for wholes—that is, to round numbers up—the three days of Jesus’ death were the final part of Friday, all of Saturday, and the first part of Sunday.

Of course, the phrase “three days and three nights”—with no further context—could mean seventy-two hours, but we have context for Matthew’s use of this phrase.

Ultimately, one cannot use a single verse that can be understood in more than one way to overturn all other the evidence we have from the New Testament—and from later in the Gospel of Matthew itself.

Scholars thus are on safe ground when they maintain the historic position that Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

Did Jesus Have a Miraculous Birth?

You might think that the question we are asking has an obvious answer, since Jesus was conceived without a human father. That, of itself, makes his birth miraculous, doesn’t it?

It does, but we are actually asking something different: Did the process of the birth itself—presumably nine months after conception—involve a miracle?

The New Testament does not address this question, but, as we will see, it has been discussed from surprisingly early times.

Basically, two types of miracles (and usually both) have been proposed in connection with Jesus’ birth:

  1. Mary did not experience labor pains.
  2. Jesus did not pass through Mary’s birth canal. Instead, he passed from her womb the way he passed through the walls of his sealed tomb.

On what basis have these been proposed?

 

An Argument from Genesis

One basis for Mary being free from labor pains has been seen in Genesis 3:16, where God tells Eve—and, by extension, future women:

I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.

The argument is that, since Mary was immaculately conceived, she was not under this curse and thus would not experience labor pains.

The argument has some weight, but the biblical text does not require that Eve would have experienced no pains at all. God says that he will “greatly multiply” (Heb., harbeh arbeh) her pains, which could suggest that there would have been pain even in an unfallen state.

Some theologians have proposed that an unfallen Adam and Eve would have experienced no pain, but this is a matter of theological speculation. (In Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott lists the view as sententia communis or “common opinion,” p. 104.)

What Scripture indicates entered the world for the first time upon the fall was human death (cf. Gen. 2:17), not any and all pain (note also Jesus’ sufferings in an unfallen state).

 

An Argument from Revelation

At the other end of the Bible, in Revelation 12:1-2, John sees a great sign in heaven:

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.

This symbol, in part, refers to the Virgin Mary, for the woman gives birth to “a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Rev. 12.5)—that is, she gives birth to Jesus.

Since she is explicitly stated to have labor pains, some have proposed that the Virgin Mary did experience labor pains in giving birth to Jesus.

While this is a natural interpretation of the text, it also is not certain.

First, Mary experienced post-birth sufferings in connection with being the mother of Jesus (Luke 2:34-35), most notably when she saw her Son hanging on a cross (John 19:25-27). Given the prominent role of symbolism in Revelation, it could be that Mary’s post-birth sufferings as the mother of the Messiah are here depicted rather than literal labor pains.

Second, while the image of the woman in Revelation 12 does point to the Virgin Mary, it also points to other things, like other symbols in Revelation (cf. Rev. 17:9-10). Thus the symbol also points to Israel and the Church.

The birth pains, therefore, might not apply to Mary but to one of these other referents, such as the pains that Israel endured as part of its national experience when the Messiah appeared (think: Roman oppression).

 

A Physiological Argument

One also can propose a physiological argument for an absence of birth pains: If Jesus didn’t pass through Mary’s birth canal then there would be no need for her to experience labor pains.

The cause of labor pains are the forceful contractions that are intended to push the child through the birth canal, so if Jesus didn’t go through the latter then there would be no need for contractions and thus no need for labor pains.

This argument also has weight, but it depends on the timing of Jesus’ departure from the womb. If it happened early enough, then there would be no labor pains. However, if it happened late enough then such pains would have resulted.

The physiological argument brings us to the second miracle that has been proposed in connection with Christ’s birth—his exiting Mary’s womb without going through the birth canal—so what is the evidence for that?

 

Virginity In Partu

Church teaching holds that Mary was a perpetual virgin, meaning that she was a virgin before, during, and after Jesus’ birth.

The fact she was a virgin in the act of giving birth is referred to as her virginity in partu (Latin, “in bearing,” “in giving birth”).

Thus the Second Vatican Council taught that “at the birth of our Lord,” Jesus “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it” (Lumen Gentium 57).

Historically, this has been understood as meaning that Jesus did not injure Mary’s hymen, the presence of which was taken in biblical times as proof of virginity (cf. Deut. 22:13-17), though this is not a medically sure test for reasons we will not discuss.

On the assumption that Jesus did not injure Mary’s hymen, would this show that he did not pass through her birth canal?

It could mean that, and that has certainly been the common historic understanding, but God is omnipotent, and if he can miraculously take Jesus out of the womb altogether, he also could miraculously preserve Mary’s hymen through a vaginal birth.

 

What Does Church Teaching Require?

In his book Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, German theologian Ludwig Ott proposes that the teaching that “Mary bore her Son without any violation of her virginal integrity” is defined as a matter of faith “on the ground of the general promulgation of doctrine” (p. 205).

In other words, he argues that it is a dogma (something that has been infallibly defined as a matter of divine revelation) by the ordinary and universal magisterium rather than by a decree of a pope or council. However, he then states:

The dogma merely asserts the fact of the continuance of Mary’s physical virginity without determining more closely how this is to be physiologically explained. In general, the Fathers and the Schoolmen conceived it as non-injury to the hymen, and accordingly taught that Mary gave birth in miraculous fashion without opening of the womb and injury to the hymen, and consequently also without pains (cf. S. Th. III 28, 2).

However, according to modern natural scientific knowledge, the purely physical side of virginity consists in the non-fulfilment of the sex act (“sex-act virginity”) and in the non-contact of the female egg by the male seed (“seed-act virginity”) (A. Mitterer). Thus, injury to the hymen in birth does not destroy virginity, while, on the other hand, its rupture seems to belong to complete natural motherhood. It follows from this that from the concept of virginity alone the miraculous character of the process of birth cannot be inferred, if it cannot be, and must not be derived from other facts of revelation. Holy Writ attests Mary’s active role in the act of birth (Matt. 1:25; Luke 2:7: “She brought forth”) which does not seem to indicate a miraculous process.

But the Fathers, with few exceptions, vouch for the miraculous character of the birth.

From this one might conclude that, although Jesus was miraculously conceived, he didn’t experience a miraculous birth—either in terms of Mary not having labor pains or in terms of not passing through her birth canal.

On that view, the Fathers who advocated a miraculous birth simply made a mistaken inference based on how virginity was understood in their time. Mary remained a perpetual virgin even if Jesus had a totally normal birth.

However, before adopting such a conclusion, one should be aware that this isn’t an idea that only arose in later centuries. It’s early.

Amazingly early.

 

The Protoevangelium of James

For example, a document known as the Protoevangelium of James (also called the Infancy Gospel of James) attests to Christ’s miraculous birth. It was probably written in the mid-second century (c. 150).

According to the Protoevangelium, when the holy family was on the way to Bethlehem, the following happened:

And they came into the middle of the road, and Mary said to him: Take me down from off the ass, for that which is in me presses to come forth (ch. 17).

This would suggest that Mary experienced at least some discomfort, though not necessarily the sharp pains of labor. The miracle itself occurs afterward, and it occurs in two parts.

First, after finding a place for Mary in a cave in Bethlehem and making sure she is taken care of, Joseph goes in search of a midwife. While doing so, he sees an amazing vision in which time seems to stop for a moment (ch. 18). However, this is something that accompanies the birth and does not directly pertain to the birth itself.

Second, upon finding a midwife, Joseph takes her back to the cave and the following occurs:

And they stood in the place of the cave, and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said: “My soul has been magnified this day, because my eyes have seen strange things—because salvation has been brought forth to Israel.”

And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from his mother Mary (ch. 19).

This does not directly say that Jesus didn’t pass through Mary’s birth canal, but it suggests that since the great light fades and the baby Jesus seems to appear without a normal birth.

 

The Odes of Solomon

An earlier and more explicit reference to a miraculous birth is found in the Odes of Solomon, which is a collection of 42 early Christian hymns that were written in the second half of the first century—perhaps fifty years after the Crucifixion. According to the Odes:

So the Virgin became a mother
With great mercies.

And she labored and bore the Son but without pain,
Because it did not occur without purpose.

And she did not seek a midwife,
Because he allowed her to give life.

She bore with desire as a strong man.
And she bore according to the manifestation;
And she possessed with great power (Odes of Solomon 19:7-10).

The translation of this passage is difficult, and scholars have rendered portions of it differently. For example, some have taken the statement that Mary bore Jesus “with desire as a strong man” to mean that she gave birth as a deliberate act of will and that the birth did not come upon her suddenly, with her playing a passive role like a normal woman experiencing the onset of labor.

However that may be, what is not in doubt is that the passage says that Mary “bore the Son without pain.”

We thus have first-century testimony to a painless birth.

 

The Ascension of Isaiah

Another first century document that records a miraculous birth is the Ascension of Isaiah. Based on clues it gives, this work appears to have been composed in A.D. 67.

According to it, the birth of Jesus took place two months after Joseph received Mary into his home:

It came to pass that when they were alone that Mary straight-way looked with her eyes and saw a small babe, and she was astonished.

And after she had been astonished, her womb was found as formerly before she had conceived. . . .

And the story regarding the infant was noised broad in Bethlehem.

Some said: “The Virgin Mary hath borne a child, before she was married two months.”

And many said: “She has not borne a child, nor has a midwife gone up (to her), nor have we heard the cries of (labor) pains” (Ascension of Isaiah 11:7-14).

Here Jesus suddenly appears, without passing through the birth canal, and Mary’s womb is found as it was before, which presumably means that she was no longer large with child (though it also could mean an examination of her hymen was carried out; see Protoevangelium of James 20).

We also have an explicit statement that she did not experience labor pains.

The author of this document appears not to be aware of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. This is not surprising since, by my estimate, Luke was written only eight years earlier and Matthew was written even more recently.

In any event, the author seems to be reporting traditions that were circulating about Jesus’ birth just 34 years after the Crucifixion, which is very early indeed.

 

Conclusion

The late Cardinal Avery Dulles pointed out that there is flexibility in Church teaching regarding the precise way in which Jesus was born an in which Mary’s virginity in giving birth is to be understood:

The Church, Cardinal Dulles said, “has not committed itself to any particular physical theory” of virginity in partu, and therefore the possibility that Mary “could have suffered some pains in birth” may be “compatible with Catholic doctrine.” The cardinal also pointed out that further doctrinal development and magisterial teaching could clarify the question one way or the other (source).

However, before we use that flexibility to adopt the view of Jesus’ birth that is easier from a modern perspective (i.e., a non-miraculous interpretation), we need to bear in mind that we are already standing in the presence of a miracle (a virginal conception!) and we have amazingly early testimony regarding a miraculous birth.

While the details of the three documents differ, they all attest to something extraordinary happening at Jesus’ birth, and in A.D. 67 the Ascension of Isaiah refers both to a lack of birth pains and to Jesus not passing through the birth canal!

When Was Jesus Born? – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

Christmas is December 25, but was that the actual date Jesus was born? Some claim evidence from the Bible and temple rituals. Other say evidence from the Bible show it isn’t or that it was just a co-opting of a pagan festival. Does it even matter? Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli look at the claims and counter-claims about what we can and can’t prove about when Jesus was born.

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Does Paul Say That God Punished Jesus?

Recently we looked at a view of the atonement which holds that God literally punished Jesus on the cross—that the Father “poured out his wrath” on Christ as he hung on the cross.

This view is known as penal substitution, and its advocates claim that it is taught in the Bible.

For example, they claim it is taught in Isaiah 53 and its discussion of the Suffering Servant.

However, when we looked at this passage, we found that it isn’t a good basis for penal substitution.

Now let’s look at three texts from St. Paul which are often used as proofs for the view.

 

God “Made Him To Be Sin”

The first passage is 2 Corinthians 5:21. Here, after exhorting his readers to be reconciled to God, Paul writes:

(21) For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God

The first thing to be said about this passage is that it’s among the most difficult things Paul says to understand, and hard verses make bad prooftexts. If exactly what a verse means isn’t clear, you can’t use it to prove a technical point.

There are also a number of specific problems with using it to prove penal substitution:

  1. The verse doesn’t mention anything about punishment. There isn’t a reference to anger, wrath, or condemnation. You have to presuppose that Paul is thinking about God being angry with Jesus and punishing him for our sin (i.e., you have to read into it what you’re trying to prove).
  2. The verse doesn’t mention Jesus’s death on the cross. While it’s possible that Paul is thinking of his death, he doesn’t refer to it, and some scholars have thought that he’s thinking of the Incarnation as the moment that Christ was “made sin,” for he elsewhere refers to God “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3).
  3. The verse says that God “made” Jesus “sin.” If you understand “sin” in its normal sense then the verse is a poetic expression of some kind. Jesus is a Person, and he did not literally become sin (an abstract concept). Similarly, we do not literally become “the righteousness of God” (another abstract concept).
  4. Many scholars have proposed that Paul means God made Jesus “a sin offering.” This is because the Greek word for “sin” (hamartia) is used as a translation of the Hebrew word khatta’t, which means both “sin” and “sin offering.” Thus the Greek Septuagint frequently uses hamartia to mean “sin offering” (Exod. 29:14, 36, Lev. 4:20, 21, 24-25, 32-34, 5:6, 7-9, 11, 6:17, 25, 30, 37, 7:27, 8:2, 14, 9:2-3, 7-8, 10, 15, 22, etc.).

Because of these ambiguities, this passage cannot be used to prove penal substitution. You can assume it and read it into the text, but you can’t prove it from the text.

 

God “Condemned Sin in the Flesh”

In Romans 8:1-4, we read:

(1) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

(2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

(3) For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, (4) in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The key part of this is the statement that God “condemned sin in the flesh,” which advocates of penal substitution hold to be a reference to God punishing Jesus on the Cross.

This passage also has a poetic feel to it, and it certainly includes non-literal elements. Physical flesh (Greek, sarx) did not literally weaken the Law of Moses, or any other law. Laws belong to a fundamentally different and abstract category than physical flesh, which has no ability to literally weaken them.

Neither, with respect to the phrase “sinful flesh,” is physical flesh literally sinful. Sinfulness is a quality that persons have, not a quality of meat.

Similarly, there is a metaphor involved in saying that Christians “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Actually, we do walk using our leg muscles.)

These non-literal elements become clearer when one realizes that Paul uses the term “flesh” metaphorically as a reference to fallen human nature, though scholars have found it difficult to determine the precise nuances with which he uses it.

As before, it’s difficult to use a text incorporating ambiguous, poetic elements to establish a technical point, and this is especially true when the key, ambiguous and poetic element is part of the crucial phrase: God “condemned sin in the flesh.”

That could mean any number of things. Just what “flesh” is being referred to? Christ’s physical flesh (i.e., his physical body)? The physical flesh of mankind in general? Fallen human nature as the abstract concept in which sin is depicted as residing?

The first is what advocates of penal substitution need Paul to be saying, but given the way he uses the term flesh, the last is more likely what he means: That is, God condemned the sin that is part of human nature.

Then we need to deal with the meaning of “condemned” (Greek, katakrinô). Advocates of penal substitution need this to mean “punished,” but that’s not what the term means.

As the standard reference work A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed.) by Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich notes, the basic meaning of katakrinô is “pronounce a sentence after determination of guilt.”

This could mean a number of things, but it need mean no more than God issued a legal finding that sin is wrong/a bad thing/abhorrent/something to be rejected—and even that appears to be as a legal metaphor since we don’t literally have a courtroom setting.

This is seen, with particular clarity, when we consider the time that Paul points to when he says God issued this finding. He says God did it “by sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Although he also says God did this “for sin” (peri harmartias; i.e., concerning sin or with reference to sin), the point at which God sent his son was the Incarnation, not the Cross.

Thus what advocates of penal substitution need this passage to say is “God punished Jesus in his physical body on the Cross,” but it doesn’t say that.

Given the known meanings of the terms, the key part of the passage more probably means: By sending his Son in the likeness of sinful humanity at the Incarnation, in order to deal with sin, God expressed disapproval of the sin that is part of fallen human nature.

This passage thus also is not a successful prooftext for penal substitution.

 

Jesus and “the Curse of the Law”

Finally, in Galatians 3:13-14, we read:

(13) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree”—(14) that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

“The Law” that Paul refers to is the Law of Moses, as illustrated by the quotation he gives. It is from a passage in Deuteronomy that deals with how the Israelites were to treat the bodies of men after execution for their crimes:

(22) And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, (23) his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance (Deut. 21:22-23).

According to this translation, “a hanged man is accursed by God,” and consequently “his body shall not remain all night upon the tree” because otherwise this would “defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.”

It is not clear why letting the body remain on the tree overnight, as opposed to a shorter time, would defile the land. Perhaps the thought is that any hanging of a man on a tree defiles the land, but leaving the body for a longer time does so in a more egregious way.

Alternately, the defilement may come not by the hanging of the body but in the denial of proper burial, which according to Jewish custom was done on the same day. Some have thus translated the phrase for “accursed by God” (quillat elôhim) as “an insult to God,” “a repudiation of God,” or “an affront to God” (so the Jewish Publication Society’s Tanak Version). As the Jewish Publication Society notes:

The present translation reflects a rabbinic explanation that the criminal’s body may not be maltreated since that would be an offense against God in whose image even the criminal was created (JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy, at 21:23).

Also, it should be noted that, unlike the case of Jesus, hanging on the “tree” (the Hebrew word can mean just a wooden stake or structure) was not the method of execution. Crucifixion was not practiced in ancient Israel. The text presupposes that execution has been carried out by the normal means—stoning or the sword—and what is envisioned is a display of the body after death for purposes of deterrence or posthumous humiliation.

With this as background, how does Paul apply the passage to Jesus’ situation? Several points should be made:

  1. The passage is not an exact fit for what happened to Jesus since in his case the method of execution was crucifixion; his body was not simply displayed after he was executed by other means.
  2. Paul adapts the quotation to avoid saying that God cursed Jesus. In the Septuagint, the passage says “all who hang on a tree are cursed from God” (Lexham English Septuagint), but Paul conspicuously removes the reference to God, apparently precisely to avoid saying that God cursed Jesus.
  3. Instead, Paul identifies the source of the curse as the Law of Moses. He says that Jesus redeemed us from “the curse of the Law” so that “the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles.” He then goes on in the following verses to describe the Law as an inferior and only partial expression of God’s will: “This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. . . . It was ordained by angels through an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one; but God is one” (Gal. 3:17-20).
  4. The passage in Deuteronomy is a minor piece of legislation that does not sum up or serve as a capstone to the Mosaic Law. It is an obscure passage that has been employed here because it mentions a curse and has a partial similarity to the situation of Christ’s death. It thus represents an accommodated application rather than a direct one of the kind needed to make a key point about the nature of the atonement.

What advocates of penal substitution need Galatians 3:13 to say is that God cursed Jesus—and even that might not be enough, because to curse someone could merely mean passing a negative legal sentence rather than actively punishing. Yet Paul conspicuously avoids saying this and instead identifies the Law as the source of the curse.

In view of the discontinuity between Jesus’ situation and the one envisioned in Deuteronomy, Paul’s avoidance of the needed statement, and the general ambiguity of the passage, it is not a solid basis for the claim that God literally punished Jesus.

We thus see that none of the three passages we have considered provide proof of penal substitution, which is already very problematic on other grounds.