Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsThumbs up from a conservative Catholic
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2014
I have read several of Bart's books, and though I can take issue with him here and there (as other reviewers have on certain points) I find them uniformly clear, informative, and well written.
I would quibble with Bart about all the Gospels being written in Greek. Certainly the versions we have were written in Greek. But there is reason to think that Matthew, at least, was written in Aramaic and then translated into Greek. Some scholar, whose name I have forgotten, translated Matthew into Aramaic, and then back into Greek. In the process he realized that a lot of the phrasing, vocabulary, etc. was influenced by the Aramaic "original." The sources Bart lists (Q, L, M, etc.) may well have been in Aramaic--there's no evidence either way. St. Paul--clearly a Greek speaker--was very careful about the use of Greek words that translated Aramaic terms, showing he was aware of the underlying Aramaic. And although Bart keeps talking about the Apostles as illiterate peasants, I'm not sure they couldn't read or write. Matthew was a tax collector; doesn't that imply a degree of literacy? Jews of the time in general were expected to be familiar with scripture; doesn't that imply some degree of literacy? But of course we don't know one way or the other for sure.
As a conservative (I am a Cardinal Ratzinger groupie) Catholic, I see nothing in his arguments to contradict my own faith. Note that Bart cites Fr. Raymond Brown in this book as well as many others of his books. Fr. Brown's writings all had the "nihil obstat" and "imprimatur": official Church approval. And Bart and Fr. Brown see eye to eye on many issues. This may be shocking to more evangelical Protestants, so let me give some examples and reasons.
But first let me say that I am not a Biblical scholar, do not know Greek or Aramaic, and am not intimately familiar with all the nuances of various arguments. On the other hand, I have been a practicing Catholic for 66 years, took two years of theology at Georgetown (as we all did in the 60s), and have read a fair amount of theology since. But if some priest or bishop wants to set me straight on something, it's fine with me.
First, I agree with Bart entirely that you cannot divorce either Jesus, the Apostles, or the writers of the New Testament from their own time and place ("sitz in leben" or "setting in life" as we learned in theology class). They all talk and write as people of their own time, and thus some of their concerns (Does the actual body rise from the dead? Should we pay taxes to Caesar?) are concerns of their particular period of history. The surprise is, in fact, that almost all of the New Testament is so universal, and not bound up in its own period. In other words, it does not seem "dated," as even a US history book 50 years old would. The fact that there are different styles of writing shows that each writer contributes to his work--these are NOT dictations from God (see encyclical of Pius XII). To what extent certain passages are the writer's own is an open question. Scripture is "written by God," but (as Bart would appreciate!) what this means is not precisely clear. It is an evolving definition within the Church.
All canonical scripture is considered inspired. So if, as Bart says, certain passages were added later, or Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn't really write the Gospels, and St. Paul really didn't write all the letters attributed to him, the Catholic response is "So what?". If, for example, the passage about the woman taken in adultery is an addition, it is still considered inspired because it was accepted as part of the canon by the early church. If you literally believe that every word has to be absolutely true in every sense, and if your faith is based (as Bart's was) on the complete inerrancy of these texts, your faith obviously takes a beating when various contradictions, additions, etc. are pointed out. However, Catholics see scripture as only one source of faith. Another is the consensus of the believing community. If the great majority of believers believed x in the year 75, then we believe x too. It's the idea that the Holy Spirit is guiding the church as a whole: "I will be with you always..."
Likewise, the "exact" words of Jesus that the Jesus Seminar searches for so earnestly, and that even Bart yearns to discover (can't seem to shake that evangelical past), don't really matter. As Bart points out, John quotes various "speeches" that are all--in style--clearly written by John. Of course! Does anyone seriously think a shorthand stenographer was trailing Jesus around taking dictation? What is the story of the Prodigal Son (for example) about? Does it matter how many years the prodigal son spent away from his family? Does it matter how many cattle his father killed for the feast? Does it matter what the father said to him when he saw him for the first time? No. There is a simple point to the story: You can sin, be sorry, and be forgiven. That's it. The rest is embellishment and irrelevant. If some of the parables are told in slightly different versions, so what? The point they make is the same.
Having said that all scripture is inspired, there is evolution in the understanding of scripture. This, of course, is what Bart's book is about--how the understanding of Jesus developed. As a Catholic, I have no problem with the historical development of beliefs. This is precisely why theologians still write books! But there's one catch: once something is declared a dogma, you can't go back and change it. So, for example, Catholics believe that Jesus is God (with all the qualifications Bart pointed out). So a theologian can't come along and say Jesus isn't God. That would be heretical. But--this might surprise some of our Protestant friends--the Church is very careful and deliberate about declaring something an article of faith. For example, the belief in the Immaculate Conception (that Mary was born without original sin), was a commonly held belief throughout history, but it was only declared a dogma in the 19th century. To give a more modern example, if, as a Catholic, you want to believe in the miracles of Fatima and Lourdes, good for you. But this belief is not an article of faith--I personally am very skeptical of all these visions to shepherd children. But that doesn't make me a bad Catholic. It's my choice to believe or not.
Let's use a secular analogy to explain evolution of understanding: the US Constitution. Obviously those who wrote it in the 18th c. had specific ideas in mind, but, as with the writers of scripture, they were people of their own time. Their language is slightly different. What is a "militia" for example? Do "free men" include African Americans? And, while their concept of freedom of speech may have encompassed books and newspapers, they didn't know anything about the Internet and e-mail. That's why we have a Supreme Court: to decide what the Constitution means in the context of the present. It evolves over time (Dred Scott, the legality of wire tapping, etc.), and--just as in religion--words or concepts are given more and more precise meanings as people think about them. As Bart quite rightly kept saying, "In what way was Jesus God?" As you start thinking about it in more detail, you run into issues that weren't clear at first.
Finally, Bart makes a big deal of the various "contradictions" in the story of the resurrection: who arrived at the tomb first, who did they see (1 angel? 2? A boy?, etc.), and where did Jesus say he would appear to them: Jerusalem or Galilee? Again, "So what?". Bart should (and probably does) know better. Why were the Gospels written? To give a precise, historically accurate account of what happened? No. The authors couldn't care less. They were written to tell people about the message of salvation Jesus preached. And, of course (!) the authors were concerned to tie Jesus to Old Testament writings every chance they could, to show that Jesus was not coming out of nowhere, but was foretold by, and a fulfillment of, previous scripture. What is the essence of the Gospel teaching in the various stories of the resurrection? That Jesus rose from the dead; that his body (you can quibble about what type of "body" it was) was resurrected; and that by His resurrection He set Himself apart from previous prophets. Who saw him first, where he first appeared, whether there was one angel or two at the tomb--these are nice details and make a nice story, but they're irrelevant to the main message. In a similar way, fundamentalists get hung up on Genesis and the story of creation. It's a cute story that makes for nice children's picture books, but what, exactly is the essence of the story? Only two things: 1) God created everything. 2) Creation is good. That's it. All the other stuff really doesn't matter.