Confidence in Scripture

In Catholic School s and my college Newman Center, I “learned” many things about the Bible. I “learned” Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by, well, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I “learned” a functional embarrassment of anything in the Old Testament that isn’t up to date with modern 21st Century Democratic standards. I “learned” that we just stop listing to Paul whenever we are dealing with sex, marriage or women. And I learned a theory of biblical interpretation that emphasized the “overarching themes” and “big ideas” of scripture whilst being willing to, well, blow off anything that was too outdated.

Paul condemns homosexuality? Maybe in historical context he just means temple prostitution! Jesus only picks men for disciples? Well maybe in historical context he knew that people just weren’t ready for woman leaders at the time! Incorporate the veil, in some way, into our modern understanding of modesty and gender dignity? Remember we just ignore Paul on sex, marriage and women. He is “talking in the culture of the times.”

This theory of biblical interpretation where we view the Bible as a sociological artifact, and a “problematic” one at that, is foreign to authentic Christianity.

The Lord Said to My Lord

Look at how confident Christ is in Scripture:

Douay-Rheims Bible Chapter 22

41 And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them,

42 Saying: What think you of Christ? Whose son is he? They say to him: David’s.

43 He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying:

44 The Lord said to my Lord: Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool?

45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?

46 And no man was able to answer him a word: neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

‘The Lord said to my Lord’

. . .

‘The Lord said to my Lord’?!?- this has got to be the most oddly specific detail in scripture for Christ to zoom in on. It’s a quotation from Psalm 110. If a biblical scholar made this theological argument today, it would not be taken seriously. First enlightened theologians would deny that it was written by David, then, since its a Psalm (and not a prophecy as such), they would not even find it relevant, and even if they took the time to read it, they would focus on the “personal experiences” of the Psalmist and view it as a model of how to pray, not a potential source of Christological truth.

I can hear it now -

Believe that Psalm 110 reveals the heart of King David??? - but that’s not up to date with the latest historical-critical debates on authorship! *Gasp* Doesn’t he know that Psalm 110 went through a heavy level of scribal transmission and the meaning of the passage changes if we view it as part of the Bandersnatch Source Document . . .

He That Curseth Mother or Father

In another place, whilst confronting the Pharisees, Jesus shows a willingness to cite the Law - a Law that, well, isn’t very “Constitutional” by today's standards.

Douay-Rheims Bible Chapter 15

THEN came to him from Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees, saying:

2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

3 But he answering, said to them: Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition? For God said:

4 Honour thy father and mother: And: He that shall curse father or mother, let him die the death.

5 But you say: Whosoever shall say to father or mother, The gift whatsoever proceedeth from me, shall profit thee.

6 And he shall not honour his father or his mother: and you have made void the commandment of God for your tradition.

What scripture is He quoting?

Douay-Rheims Bible Chapter 20

8 Keep my precepts, and do them. I am the Lord that sanctify you.

9 He that curseth his father, or mother, dying let him die. He hath cursed his father, and mother: let his blood be upon him.

10 If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and defile his neighbour’s wife: let them be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress.

Now lest we worry that kids were being regularly killed by their parents, the law probably refers to cursing as such, invoking the unspeakable Divine Name against your parents. (Not just being a brat - bratty-ness can be solved by warning kids that bears will eat those who don’t respect their elders (4 Kings 2:23-25 [DR] / 2 Kings 2:23-25)

That being said, I doubt there is any Law in the Scriptures that was never enforced. This is a death penalty law. Someone was stoned because of it. And Jesus quotes it as God’s Law, without any “psychoanalytical” or “sociological” escape ropes.

Today scholars would reflect on how slow the moral development of Man was. . . implying that people, and not God, wrote it. Now Christ does speak of laws “written for hardness of heart”, so there is no doubt that the level of moral development possible for the time is to be taken into account when reading Old Testament Law. But Christ’s willingness to cite this verse in a theological argument shows that He does consider it part of the Word of God as such. He’s not embarrassed by it. He will perfect it in His teaching, but he doesn’t try to “wash God’s hands” of the Old Testament - even there his trust in Scripture is unwavering. Even there, eternal clues to the heart of God are to be found.

Well speaking about hardness of heart . . .

One Flesh

Douay-Rheims Bible Chapter 19

3 And there came to him the Pharisees tempting him, saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

4 Who answering, said to them: Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, made them male and female? And he said:

5 For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.

6 Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

7 They say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away?

8 He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

9 And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.

Here again we see Christ interpreting Scripture - and once again he shows a radical confidence in it. The phase “one flesh”, combined with the authorship of God in making Man and Woman is enough to provide a basis for forbidding divorce. Quite a heavy matter!

Now granted, Christ being, well, the only begotten Son of God from all eternity, has the right to be definitive in His interpretations. He can be utterly bold and firm in declaring HE knows the meaning. In this chapter especially, he shows divine authority by “trumping” the Law of Moses.

But it is still telling that He invokes Scripture to affirm His teaching. To make this theological argument, Christ had to view the stories of Genesis as the Word of God, not mere sociological ‘mystery stories’ that show how the backwards bronze age peoples reflected on things.

That doesn’t mean that the Earth was made in exactly 7 days, or that we believe in talking snakes. But it does mean that we can’t merely write Genesis off as “out of date” - when Genesis speaks, God is speaking. It is written by Him, HIM as GOD, not merely a “shared faith experience.”

It is only if seen in this definitive light that the Bible can be trusted to teach us anything on marriage. Or anything on anything for that matter.

Christ has more authority than any theologian after him - but he is still the model we are to follow, however humbly. We are to trust Scripture. All the authors of Scripture. On all the topics Scripture teaches on. Down to the details.

A Second Old Testament

Today there is a drive by some to turn the New Testament into a second Old Testament. There’s no denying that Christ, by his divine authority cast the Old Testament in a new light. But his ability to do that reinterpreting was still based on Scripture and only possible because of his Divine Authority.

The New Testament stands firm until the end of time.

Douay-Rheims Bible Chapter 8

3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is necessary that he also should have some thing to offer.

4 If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest: seeing that there would be others to offer gifts according to the law.

5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. As it was answered to Moses, when he was to finish the tabernacle: See (saith he) that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount.

6 But now he hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is a mediator of a better testament which is established on better promises.

7 For if that former had been faultless, there should not indeed a place have been sought for a second.

When we speak of certain verses in the New Testament as “reflecting the culture of the times”, we are not listening to God. We, rather, are looking at the faultless covenant and are having the audacity to ask God for a Third.

We already have God’s answer on that.

Douay-Rheims Bible Chapter 24

35 Heaven and earth shall pass: but my words shall not pass.

In Conclusion

Should we always read the Bible in context? Yes. And with the teaching of the Saints and Church teaching. And yes we should be aware of “literary genre” and “historical circumstance.” And all other things considered, for a high-stakes issue, I am going to want more than one phrase before I believe something - whether that “more” is to be found in a passage of the bible that handles an issue at length, or in seeing a repeated pattern, or calling upon Natural Theology will depend on the issue and what is available to us.

All these acknowledgements notwithstanding, we need to recover the belief that when the Bible speaks, it is God who is speaking. All of Christ’s biblical interpretations fall apart if we adopt the current idea that God is “directing” all this, but occasionally we need to “chip away” certain sociological debris to find the “real meaning.”

If we do that, our interpretations won’t be able to stand any weight or pressure from the world.

Maybe “one flesh” is just a poetic flourish of the time. Maybe we should just skip over Leviticus. Who knows who “my Lord” is referring to?

For Christ this strange, unsettling collection of books is not a mere sociological document. It is a Divine document, one that should cause us to tremble. And it is a document that is always, in some way, speaking about HIM.

If the Bible says do something, do it. If the Bible says don’t do something, don’t do it. Don’t lawyer up and try to argue that “man has come of age” and that we today, somehow, need spiritual medicine than the Saints before us.

Doing this doesn’t make you a fundamentalist. It just makes you obedient.