Week 1: Preface and First Homily > Likes and Comments
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His words are always such a treasure! There were a couple of points which really stood out to me:This paragraph reminded me of our Methodist friends. They have said more than once that most of the stories/events in the Bible are symbolic only. From Pg. 7 "Along with this there is another disquieting consideration. For one can ask: If theologians or even the church can shift the boundaries here between image and intention, between what lies buried in the past and what is of enduring value, why can they not do so elsewhere—as, for instance, with respect to Jesus’ miracles? And if there, why not also with respect to what is absolutely central—the cross and the resurrection of the Lord?"
From Pg. 8: "Holy Scripture in its entirety was not written from beginning to end like a novel or a textbook. It is, rather, the echo of God’s history with his people. It arose out of the struggles and the vagaries of this history, and all through it we can catch a glimpse of the rises and falls, the sufferings and hopes, and the greatness and failures of this history. The Bible is thus the story of God’s struggle with human beings to make himself understandable to them over the course of time; but it is also the story of their struggle to seize hold of God over the course of time."
Just the thought of God's struggle with us...
I found his thoughts on separate civilizations, particularly the last sentence, to be thought-provoking. From Pg. 10: "...even in the moments when monotheism was eclipsed, all the great civilizations always knew of the Creator of heaven and earth. There is a surprising commonality here even between civilizations that could never have been in touch with one another. In this commonality we can get a good grasp of the profound and never altogether lost contact that human beings had with God’s truth."
I found these words very comforting... well the Creation Narrative is so comforting to me, because God did this for us, out of selfless love. Here is my favourite part:"... the faith was, from its very beginnings greater, broader, and deeper [than natural sciences]. Even today faith in creation is not unreal; even today it is reasonable; even from the perspective of the data of natural sciences, it is the "better hypothesis", offering a fuller and better explanation than any of the other theories."
I was thinking about the discrimination of the Creation Narrative that I hear in historian and academic circles. It is felt and it's sad, but it's encouraging to stand by it.
Sorry, I've been wanting to dive into the discussion but it seems every evening this week I've had something come up that prevented me from putting thoughts together "on paper." Well, that's a bit old fashion. It doesn't seem like many today put thoughts together "on paper." Today we put thoughts together on a screen and not with a pencil or pen but with typing fingers that translates punching keys into digits. :)
Cardinal Ratzinger initiates the homily with the fundamental question of the truth of Genesis, specifically the creation story, Gen 1:1-19.Yet these words give rise to a certain conflict. They are beautiful and familiar, but are they also true? Everything seems to speak against it, for science has long since disposed of the concepts that we have just now heard—the idea of a world that is completely comprehensible in terms of space and time, and the idea that creation was built up piece by piece over the course of seven days. Instead of this we now face measurements that transcend all comprehension. Today we hear of the Big Bang, which happened billions of years ago and with which the universe began its expansion—an expansion that continues to occur without interruption. And it was not in neat succession that the stars were hung and the green of the fields created; it was rather in complex ways and over vast periods of time that the earth and the universe were constructed as we now know them.
Do these words, then, count for anything? In fact a theologian said not long ago that creation has now become an unreal concept. If one is to be intellectually honest one ought to speak no longer of creation but rather of mutation and selection. Are these words true? Or have they perhaps, along with the entire Word of God and the whole biblical tradition, come out of the reveries of the infant age of human history, for which we occasionally experience homesickness but to which we can nevertheless not return, inasmuch as we cannot live on nostalgia? Is there an answer to this that we can claim for ourselves in this day and age?
“Are these words true?” That is the central question of this first homily.
Ratzinger provides the standard contemporary answer in one long paragraph which I will quote by cutting to the essential sentences.
One answer was already worked out some time ago, as the scientific view of the world was gradually crystallizing; many of you probably came across it in your religious instruction. It says that the Bible is not a natural science textbook, nor does it intend to be such. It is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it…. One must distinguish between the form of portrayal and the content that is portrayed. The form would have been chosen from what was understandable at the time—from the images which surrounded the people who lived then, which they used in speaking and in thinking, and thanks to which they were able to understand the greater realities. And only the reality that shines through these images would be what was intended and what was truly enduring…. Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing: God created the world. The world is not, as people used to think then, a chaos of mutually opposed forces; nor is it the dwelling of demonic powers from which human beings must protect themselves. The sun and the moon are not deities that rule over them, and the sky that stretches over their heads is not full of mysterious and adversary divinities. Rather, all of this comes from one power, from God’s eternal Reason, which became—in the Word—the power of creation.
Ratzinger ratifies this view: “I believe this view is correct,” and then with his ability to always go beyond everyone the standard view with, “but it is not enough.” What the reader is left with under this hermeneutic is an open question that if left unanswered creates an unresolved tension. If the creation story and other stories in the Old Testament are not literally true, then why should I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He performed miracles and died for our sins and rose from the dead?
His answer is interesting. He states that “Holy Scripture was not written from beginning to end as a novel or a textbook.” Its intention is not to end with Genesis.
It is, rather, the echo of God’s history with his people. It arose out of the struggles and the vagaries of this history, and all through it we can catch a glimpse of the rises and falls, the sufferings and hopes, and the greatness and failures of this history. The Bible is thus the story of God’s struggle with human beings to make himself understandable to them over the course of time; but it is also the story of their struggle to seize hold of God over the course of time. Hence the theme of creation is not set down once for all in one place; rather, it accompanies Israel throughout its history, and, indeed, the whole Old Testament is a journeying with the Word of God. Only in the process of this journeying was the Bible’s real way of declaring itself formed, step by step. Consequently we ourselves can only discover where this way is leading if we follow it to the end. In this respect—as a way—the Old and New Testaments belong together. For the Christian the Old Testament represents, in its totality, an advance toward Christ; only when it attains to him does its real meaning, which was gradually hinted at, become clear.
So, in other words, one cannot understand the Old Testament until you have completed the New Testament. The Old Testament only makes sense in the light of Christ, His life, death, and resurrection. That is the answer right out of the catechism.
To any who wish to comment: yesterday I read a remark by a Jewish scholar that rather stunned me. He said that, if you remove Jesus’s words, Christianity is revealed as a Roman mystery cult. I have no response to that because it seems so strange to me. I wonder what Cardinal Ratzinger would say to that. Please don’t think I am pressing any one in the group to come up with an answer, but if any of you want to comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Christology as a CriterionFor the Christian the Bible can only be properly understood with Christ in mind. The Old Testament with all its laws and rituals is not to be seen as complete in itself. The fullness of Truth is only revealed with Christ.
Modern historical thinking is only interested in the probable origins of the individual texts, getting lost in minutia while forgetting the Bible as a whole.
The reasonableness of the universe provides us with access to God’s Reason, and the Bible is and continues to be the true “enlightenment”, which has given the world over to human reason and not to exploitation by human beings, because it opened reason to God’s truth and love.
Frances wrote: "To any who wish to comment: yesterday I read a remark by a Jewish scholar that rather stunned me. He said that, if you remove Jesus’s words, Christianity is revealed as a Roman mystery cult. I have..."This fits perfectly into our discussion!
I have heard of this claim before, especially on the various cable channels who like to pick all things Bible and Christian apart according to modern sentiments. Now it is true there were a number of mystery cults in the Middle East during antiquity. They all had some sort of initiation involved and not much is known about them because they were so secretive. I don't think this comparison fits Christianity very well. Nothing what Christians do is secret and never was. It also wouldn't fit Christ's command to go and baptize the nations.
What is interesting is that I was faced with this very same question in my Adult Faith Formation class at my parish. Over the years, the literal interpretation of the Old Testament came up as a dispute in the class. There were those on one extreme that believed literally the stories presented in the Old Testament. There are those that have a hard time believing any of it but want to do so. So I wrote an essay outlining how a Catholic is supposed to read the Old Testament and take the Truth away. I posted the entire essay on my blog, here: https://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.... I think it agrees quite well with Pope Benedict. Here is how I start the essay.The Bible is the inspired word of God. It is God speaking to His people.
What does inspired mean? It means that the Holy Spirit had a hand in the writer’s generation of the work. It means that there is a Truth in the writing and then under the Holy Spirit the work was selected because as St. Paul says it “is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:14) No where does it say it has to be literally true. It has to have truth.
God talks to His people in various ways, in various forms of communication, that is in various genres of literature. Some of the genres included are legend, history, moral laws, liturgical rubrics, prophecies, poetry, song, apocalyptic literature (dream states), maxims, fables, and more. One of the most frequently found in the Bible is history, but it is not a history as the modern person would grasp. It is a history that is focused on where the author prioritizes a moral to be learned over the exact facts of what happened. The truth is the moral, not necessarily the facts.
Every genre speaks truth but it is the truth dictated by the form of the genre. Truth is in one of the four modes to read the Old Testament: literal, spiritual (allegorical, moral, anagogical). The text does not always provide truth in all four modes. The writer is writing in a genre.
So there are four ways to read the Old Testament. This is right out of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
For a Catholic to read and understand the Old Testament requires you to read it as knowing the New Testament, that is in the light of Christ. You have to know and understand Jesus to know what the meaning of the OT passage/book is, otherwise you will be reading it as a Jew, and even then you will be missing the cultural context of Judaism. You cannot really understand the OT without understanding Christ first.
Christ overturns the OT Himself on more than one occasion.
-The woman caught in adultery. By OT laws she should have been stoned to death but Christ did not allow it. Jesus doesn’t exactly say there but the implication was that the OT was lacking.
-But on divorce not only does Jesus overturn the OT but He explains the theology. Read Matthew 19:3-8.
The key words “Moses permitted you.” What Moses wrote down is not necessarily what God intended. But God allowed it to be written down. Why? At least two reasons: (a) it still contained truth. Marriage was still an important truth. (b) Because the people at the time were not ready to accept the hard truth of the real meaning of marriage. “Because of the hardness of your hearts…”
So you should not take the Old Testament literally like a fundamentalist Protestant. The earth was not created 5000-something years ago, Adam and Eve could not have populated the entire world in something like five generations, and Noah’s ark is absolutely impossible for a number of reasons. These are legends inspired to understand God’s plan. Here’s how I phrased it in my essay.
Why is Genesis in the genre of legend and myth? Because the moral and religious concepts (a) would have been difficult if not impossible to convey if written into a non-fiction book form, (b) would not have been accessible to a people living in 1500 BCD, and (c) would not have been culturally integrated into a people’s heart. [Side note: Nothing against St. Paul but if we only had the letters of St. Paul to understand Christ and no Gospels, Christianity would never have taken root in people’s hearts.]
I remember hearing a Rabbi speak on Genesis and why it was written the way it was, especially the seven days of creation. His theme was, did you expect God to come to earth and present mathematical formulas, chemical equations, and astrophysics to the people living in the desert? He spoke to them with what they could understand.
And then I turned to the same point Pope Benedict makes: why should we believe the New Testament then? I think I actually answered more fully than the Holy Father answers it in his first homily. Here’s how I answered it but I’m going to refer to the quotes. Either look them up or go to my blog post where I actually quote them.
So if Genesis is in the genre of legend and speaks in spiritual truths, why should I not believe in the Jesus and the Gospels as not just spiritual? Because the Gospels are not in the genre of legend. The Gospels are very specific as to their genre. They tell you. Here are a few places:
Luke 1:1-4
John 1:6-7
John 21:24
1 John 1-5
This is not just the genre of biography. It is the genre of eyewitness testimony. It’s of facts, of witness, almost a testimony in a court room. People have analyzed the Gospels as evidence gathered by detectives for a courtroom process. (See Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham, published in 2006) You can still disagree with the validity of the testimony, but the genre speaks of witness. If you are a Christian, you are obligated to believe it. It is not legend or myth or even moral fable. Witnesses went to their death refusing to disavow that Christ lived and performed these miracles. This is very much different than anything in the Old Testament.
I hope this helps and is congruent with Pope Benedict's homilies.
In this context I think one of the big stumbling blocks is the understanding what myth is. Today it is synonymous with a tall tale, a story not quite believable, a story lacking facts, but this is not how the ancients saw it. A myth is a true story of the collected memory of a people, of how a people understood themselves. Not all events recounted in the myth have to be factual in our modern sense to be true.
I’d like to add to Kerstin’s comments. The following sentences were written by Philip Wheelwright in an essay titled ‘’The Uses of Myth.’’ The article is so richly nuanced that I regret I can’t copy it all.‘’It is the habit of secular thought to dismiss myth either as fiction or as allegory. . . On either interpretation myth becomes regarded as an archaism with no function of its own . . . What I want to stress is that this secular attitude toward myth appears to me quite inadequate to explain the facts. . . It ignores or deprecates that haunting awareness of transcendental forces peering through the cracks of the visible universe that is the very essence of myth. It blandly overlooks the possibility, which to Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare and many others was an axiom of assured faith, that myth may have a function of its own — that myth may express visions of truth to which the procedures of the scientists are irrelevant. . . ‘’
I don’t know how familiar Wheelwright was with the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, but I encourage our members to listen to the short (about 15 minutes) article “On the Power of Fiction,” by the late Timothy Keller, which beautifully shows Tolkien’s interpretation of myth, and how it led to the conversion to Christianity of his good friend C.S. Lewis. You can find the essay on You Tube. Thank you, Kerstin, for directing our attention to the subject of myth.
I love the notes, especially the ones about myths! I was about to mention J. R. R. Tolkien's view of myths, and especially the 'true myth' of the Gospels, but Frances was quicker!My thoughts might be shallower than yours, but I especially liked when in his essay Manny talked about the way how God speaks to us in different ways, in different genres, and how it can help us understand and better read the Creation myth in Genesis, because God spoke to me through literature, too, and it wasn't the Bible at first. I think a lot of people (my peers especially, college students) cannot grasp the way we ought to understand the Creation myth and instead label us this way or that and disregard us altogether.
But thank you everybody for you wonderful thoughts.
Thanks and I agree with all three of your comments. I think CS Lewis also had something to say on myths and legends. I think his conversion from atheist came about once he understood how myths spoke to truth of religion.
Manny wrote: "Thanks and I agree with all three of your comments. I think CS Lewis also had something to say on myths and legends. I think his conversion from atheist came about once he understood how myths spok..."Yikes, I just realized I repeated what Frances said at the end of her comment. I didn’t read all the way to the bottom until after I wrote.
Manny, do you mean to tell me that you didn’t read my every word?😥
Frances wrote: "Manny, do you mean to tell me that you didn’t read my every word?😥"
LOL, I did eventually. I read at least half if not more and then I had the urge to comment. I commented and returned to finish reading to my surprise that I had repeated what you said at the end. :)
Ellie, there is nothing shallow about you. Manny, I look across the room at the pages and pages I’ve learned from you, my friend.Here is something else that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to C.S. Lewis concerning myth, from the biography of Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter: ‘’Just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, myth is invention about truth. We have come from God, and the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed, only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man ascribe to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall.’’
That’s very deep, but that was J.R.R. Tolkien.
This is an introduction to the series of homilies presented in 1981 at the Liebfrauenkirche in Munich in response to the prevalent secularist, scientist, and reductionist view of the creation story in Genesis.
First Homily: God the Creator
The focus of this first homily is the beginning of the creation account, verses 1-19, up to the creation of the fourth day. While these words are familiar and poetic, are they true? Science gives us so many details about our universe, can the words in Genesis still have resonance or are they simply “the reveries of the infant age of human history”?
The Difference between Form and Content in the Creation Narrative
But Scripture is not a science book. It tells us of one Creator who with his Word spoke the cosmos into being.
The impression we get from today’s culture is that in the face of science and reason Christianity has been trying to defend the indefensible for the past four hundred years.
The Unity of the Bible as a Criterion for Its Interpretation
The Bible is neither a novel or textbook. It is “God’s history with his people.” The Exile experience taught the Israel that this God of Creation is not a God of just one particular geographic place. In contrast to prevailing creation myths where demonic powers fight over dominance before humans appear, the Genesis tells us ,”the earth was without form and void.”