This is a post linking to pieces that are part of an ongoing series I’m working on about the “dark passages” of Scripture–passages that tend to take modern readers aback (for example, because of the violence contained in them).
I’m also including passages that some find difficult even if they aren’t “dark.”
Here I’ll link to the individual posts in the series at their current locations. That will make it easier for me to link each one of those posts individually back to this one to provide a continually-updated post to help people find what they’re looking for.
Matthew 2:23 says that Jesus was raised in Nazareth “that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.'”
But this statement does not appear in anywhere in the Old Testament.
Does this mean that Matthew just invented the prophecy?
Recently a Muslim author responded to me by claiming just this.
Let’s look into the matter . . .
The Background
Recently I made a video posing the question “Did the New Testament Authors Feel Free to Make Stuff Up?” (click here to watch it).
I looked at several lines of evidence showing that they did not feel free to simply invent material about Jesus, unlike the authors of the Gnostic gospels that were written in the second and third centuries.
The British blogger and convert to Islam Paul Williams posted a response on his blog, Exploring Life, the Universe, and Everything (he’s also apparently a Douglas Adams fan, which I can appreciate), where he wrote:
Yes Jimmy, there is evidence they did [make stuff up] from time to time. Consider Matthew 2 for example:
“There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’”
There is no such prophecy anywhere in the Bible [emphasis in original].
Lost Prophecies?
I became aware of Matthew 2:23 when I read through the New Testament at age 20. The Bible I was reading had footnotes revealing where various quotations from the Old Testament could be found, and I was surprised to see that there was no Old Testament reference for the prophecy given here.
What did this mean?
What was Matthew quoting?
Was it a source that had been lost?
We know that there were many prophets in ancient Israel who genuinely spoke for God, even though their prophecies are not recorded in the Old Testament. 1 Kings even indicates that there were as many as a hundred prophets at once!
And Ahab called Obadi’ah, who was over the household. (Now Obadi’ah revered the LORD greatly; and when Jez’ebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, Obadi’ah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, and fed them with bread and water) [1 Kings 18:3-4].
Could it be that some of this material was passed down in the form of oral tradition, and this is what Matthew was referring to?
Many people of conscience view Halloween with some suspicion, and the way it is often celebrated today, that’s understandable.
Some have chosen not to celebrate Halloween at all, and that’s a respectable choice.
Others have chosen to invert the popular celebration by dressing up–or having their children dress up–as entirely wholesome figures, like doctors, nurses, and firemen or even as historical figures, like saints.
But what about scary Halloween costumes? Are those okay?
“Oh, No! It’s a Clown!”
Drama is a human universal. It’s something that people in all cultures appreciate, and it’s something that we participate in from our earliest days.
As soon as children are able to play, they start playing pretend, and their games involve drama.
My own earliest memory–or my earliest clear one–is of such a game.
I was four or five years old, and I put on a clown mask and jumped out to scare my parents.
Playing along, my mom clutched my dad and said, “Oh, no! It’s a clown!”
Did the gospel writers feel free to make stuff up?
Some people hold the view that the writers of the four gospels felt free to basically make stuff up, to freely shape the narratives they were writing about Jesus’ life by either manufacturing stories about his deeds or making up teachings and putting them on his lips.
The idea is that they used the figure of Jesus as a vehicle for their own ideas, and they made up material to serve the perceived needs of their local Christian communities.
It’s easy to show that by the second century there were a lot of people identifying themselves as Christians who did exactly this. That’s why there were so many Gnostic gospels dating from the second to the fourth century.
But what about the first century, canonical gospels?
Let’s take a look . . .
What We’re Talking About
I should say a word about what I mean and what I don’t mean.
I’m talking about making stuff up out of whole cloth–the kind of things that the authors of the Gnostic gospels did, telling stories and making up sayings that have absolutely no relation to the historical Jesus and what he said and did.
I’m not talking about paraphrasing what Jesus said–using different words to express the same thing. Or simplifying a story by choosing not to record certain details about what happened. Or telling a story from a certain point of view or bringing out an implication, nuance, or meaning that others might not have brought out. Or using a bit of literary artistry or reorganization in how the material is presented.
The gospel authors did all of those things, as is easy to show. John did a bit more of them than the other three.
What I’m talking about is fundamentally different. I’m talking about making stuff up.
While the Gnostics may have been into that kind of thing, there are very good reasons to think that the authors of the canonical gospels weren’t.
The number of the beast is 666, but what is the number of Jesus?
We’ve all heard that, in the book of Revelation, the number of the Beast is 666.
Whatever does this mean?
And if the Beast has a number, do others?
Does the name of Jesus have a number?
Does the name of God have a number?
Here’s the story. . . .
Modern Numbers
Today we are used to having a different set of characters to represent letters and numbers.
Our alphabet of letters runs from A to Z, and our system of numbers–or basic numbers–runs from 0 to 9.
But in the ancient world they didn’t have two sets of characters for these. Instead, the letters of their alphabets doubled as characters representing numbers.
Latin Numbers
That’s why, for example, Roman numerals are composed of letters.
In Latin, some of the letters did double duty as numbers, so I meant 1, V meant 5, X meant 10, L meant 50, C meant 100, D meant 500, and M meant 1,000.
To get other numbers you had to combine these in various ways, like using II for 2, III for 3, and IV for 4.
What about the number of the Beast and the number of Jesus?
Was it St. Peter the greatest of Jesus’ original Twelve disciples?
St. Peter is certainly the most commonly mentioned of the original Twelve. He always stands at the head of the list whenever the names of the Twelve apostles are listed in the Bible. And he was clearly part of Jesus’ inner circle, even within the Twelve. He is, unquestionably, the most prominent of the Twelve.
But did Jesus give him a special role among the Twelve, a special position, or was he just more active than the others?
Jesus gives us an answer to this question, and in an unexpected place . . .
Who Is the Greatest? Round 1
Jesus took three disciples with him to the Transfiguration: Peter, James, and John. These three were uniquely privileged to witness the Transfiguration, and they–together with Peter’s brother Andrew–formed Jesus’ inner circle within the Twelve.
After these three received the special privilege of seeing their Master’s glory, it’s not surprising that a dispute broke out among the Twelve concerning their relevant ranks. This provided Jesus with an occasion to give them both a lesson in humility and a lesson in true leadership. In Luke 9, we read . . .
Luke 9
[46] And an argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest.
[47] But when Jesus perceived the thought of their hearts, he took a child and put him by his side,
[48] and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me; for he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”
Lessons Learned
It’s possible for us to learn several lessons from Jesus’ response to the disciples’ quarrel.
One is that it was foolish–although still very human–for the disciples to be concerned with rank in this way.
A second is that, as so often is the case, the nature of Christian truth is paradoxical. The one who is great in God’s eyes is not automatically the one who is great in man’s eyes. It can even be the one who is least in the eyes of man, like a little child.
That is why it is important to receive even the least of God’s people with Christian love, for to do so is to receive Christ and to receive his Father.
Another Lesson?
But there is another lesson that some may be tempted to draw out of this passage, which is that the apostles weren’t just foolish to question who was the greatest among them because it revealed a preoccupation with pride and position rather than service to others.
Instead, this view would hold, it was foolish for them to ask the question because there simply was no greatest among them, that they were all equals, with none having any special position.
That would be a little hard to square with the fact that Jesus had just taken three, who we know from other passages were members of his inner circle, to witness the Transfiguration.
Indeed, Jesus himself indicates that some are greater than others in God’s eyes, and who they are have to do with who serve others.
But we don’t have to leave the matter there, surprisingly, it comes up again in Luke’s Gospel, and the second time, Jesus gives a specific answer to the question.
You sometimes encounter the charge that the Catholic Church wrongly “changed the sabbath” from Saturday to Sunday. This claim is often made by Seventh-Day Adventists, for example. But even if one isn’t accusing the Church of wrongdoing, the question can still arise: Why do Catholics worship on Sunday rather than Saturday? Here’s the story . . .
What Day the Sabbath Is
First, let’s clear away a potential source of confusion. While it’s true that people sometimes speak of Sunday as “the Christian sabbath,” this is a loose way of speaking. Strictly speaking, the sabbath is the day it always was–Saturday–though it should be noted that traditionally Jewish people have celebrated the sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Sunday is a distinct day, which follows the sabbath. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:
2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ.
Why We Celebrate Sunday
That same paragraph explains why we celebrate on Sunday. For Christians the ceremonial observance of Sunday replaces that of the sabbath. Properly speaking, we’re not celebrating the sabbath on Sunday. We’re celebrating something else, but it’s something that the sabbath points toward. As the Catechism says, the Jewish sabbath announces man’s eternal rest in God and prefigures some aspects of Christ. Sunday thus fulfills what the sabbath pointed toward.
In many parishes it has been common for the cantor or choir to extend the Lamb of God by adding additional statements, known as tropes, to it.
The Holy See has been taking an increasingly firm line against this, and now they’ve issued a clear mandate that it stop.
Here’s the story . . .
What’s Supposed to Happen
According to the Order of Mass, after the sign of peace,
129. Then [the priest] takes the host, breaks it over the paten, and places a small piece in the chalice, saying quietly:
May this mingling of the Body and Blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ
bring eternal life to us who receive it.
130. Meanwhile the following is sung or said:
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,
grant us peace.
Or: The invocation may even be repeated several times if the fraction is prolonged. Only the final time, however, is grant us peace said.
Got that?
If they need to extend the Lamb of God, they’re supposed to keep repeating “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us” until they’re ready to finish it with a “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.”
And extended versions of the Lamb of God have been more common because in many parishes Communion is being distributed to a large number of the faithful under both kinds, and it takes longer to divide it up for the different people who will be distributing it.
But they haven’t been extending the prayer in the way that’s indicated in the text.
What’s Been Happening Instead
In many parishes they’ve been using musical settings by Catholic publishers that have a bunch of different tropes beyond “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.”
For example:
Jesus, Bread of Life, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Prince of Peace, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Son of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Word of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Tree of Life, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Fire of Love, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Bread of Peace, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Jesus, Hope of All, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
