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Loading...I was very sorry today to learn that Carlo Martini passed away. He was an important textual scholar who was best known for other things — in particular for being in the very higher reaches of the Roman Catholic church hierarchy. He was the cardinal of Milan (Italy) and for a while was thought to be a candidate to be the next pope. He was 85 at his death.
I never met him, but I long knew of him and actually had correpondence with him when I was a graduate student. He was a terrific scholar of the Greek New Testament, an expert in the Greek manuscripts. He wrote a very important book (in Italian) on one of the most important biblical manuscripts, codex Vaticanus. As one of the premier experts on the text of the New Testament, he was a member of the five-person committee that was responsible for editing the version of the Greek NT that is used everywhere throughout hte world today. Metzger was another member of the committee, and so they had a very long and cordial relationship.
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There is something that has puzzled me about Catholic theologians and biblical scholars. Nowadays they have fully embraced historical-critical scholarship, with some of their ranks in the forefront of scholarship. Although they would not endorse biblical inerrancy as defined by the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy (not least because of its anti-Tradition sola scriptura stance), the Catholic Church officially espouse the infallibility of scripture. I once heard a short sermon delivered by a Jesuit priest (who was also an Oxford academic) at Mass on the nativity accounts in the gospels, which he nonchalantly remarked could not be reconciled. The same remark would have raised eyebrows if not an uproar at an evangelical church service. My question is: how do Catholic scholars reconcile the doctrine of biblical infallibility with findings of critical scholarship, and why in contrast, evangelicals scholars are so insistent on inerrancy.
Another question: the Church Fathers have thought and written much about various core doctrines including the doctrines of creation, atonement and the Trinity. Have they said much about the doctrine of scripture? No doubt they viewed the apostolic books and the Septuagint as authoritative. But what was their view of scripture, in relation to notions of infallibility and inerrancy?
It’s a great question. I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. On the churcxh Fathers, yes indeed, they talk a lot about Scripture. But it’s too much to discuss in an answer to a blog question. If you’re interested, start with Origen, On First Principles. Very interesting indeed!
I plan to investigate the historical development of Christian doctrines of scripture among different traditions of Christianity. I suspect the Catholic Church is less anxious about inerrancy because they hold scripture alongside Tradition as sources of authority. It must be something to do with this dynamic dual nature of authority…though I cannot yet quite put my finger on the issue.
Perhaps another reason is that historically there has been a greater reliance on allegorical interpretation in the Catholic Church, which by its very nature de-emphasises the factual, plain-reading elements of the text. Hence the text, on face value, could be riddled with factual inaccuracies yet retained in some nebulous sense its “infallibility” – i.e. the underlying spiritual message is untarnished.
The Catholic Church cultivates a number of distinct approaches to scripture, such as Lectio Divina – prominent in Ignatian spirituality. By identifying different legitimate approaches, there is greater self-awareness of one’s hermeneutical method when reading the Bible (though the Bible doesn’t play as prominent a role in the life of Catholic communities compared to evangelical ones, and many lay Catholics seldom read the Bible on their own or in groups). The problem with evangelical churches is that despite of (or because of) the immense emphasis placed on the Bible, there is a lack of self-aware of one’s hermeneutical presuppositions – too often, a plain reading is presumed to be the only and the obvious approach, what appear to be historical accounts must be read as inerrant historical accounts.
Some years I attended a London lecture by the eminent sociologist of religion, Peter Berger about the role of religion in American elections, including the evangelicals’ role in helping George W Bush secure a second term. As evangelicalism isn’t as prominent in public life here in UK, he had to define what it is to the audience: “evangelicals are Christians who reject historical-critical scholarship”. At that time, I thought it was a very idiosyncratic definition, one that evangelicals won’t recognise, and one that isn’t very informative to outsiders on what evangelicalism is all about. Over time, although I still thought it was not a useful definition to outsiders unfamiliar with evangelicalism, I came to realise the definition did capture a very accurate feature of evangelicalism in practice.
I presume most of your critics of books like Misquoting Jesus and Jesus interrupted are evangelicals. Are you aware of any Catholic writer or debater who attacked your views on biblical inerrancy? I would imagine Catholic scholars would take issue with your argument that pseudepigraphy amounts to deception and forgery, even though they may accept the books in question are pseudepigraphy.
No, I don’t know of any. But I don’t ktry to keep up with such things!
Saw in the news this AM and posted to all my friends on Facebook. Then came here. Too bad he didn’t get to be pope.
Please do go a bit more into the ins and outs.
I tried to take the link to the archbishop’s obituary that you posted at the end of this essay, and found that it is not available.
Correction: I should have written “cardinal” rather than “archbishop.” Sorry for the error.