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Father Most, huh? okay, need to look him up. and like I said in an earlier post, tne NAB does let itself wallow in the mire of liberal "scholarship". the whole idea of Liberalism is to dwell on anthropocentrism raher than on theocentrism. the Liberals deny categorically that there is a Divine origin of Scripture. Liberals hold that the Bible is humankind's search for God (whoever or whatever that is). my response to these Liberals are: did they find the god they were looking for? does this god fit their projected criteria? (Freud must have had these people in mind when he spoke of God as being a projection)was this god they were looking for lost? was he hiding (what a naughty god)? and so on. I can't remember off hand who it was that said that a god who did not reveal himself was an evil god, I did a paper some years ago in Seminary, but that paper is in storage, thus I do not have immediate access to it. I believe in the God Who reveals himself in an objective sense. Liberals rely on their subjective feeloings on the god they want. Schleiermacher said that humankind feels a need for God, a dependency on God. while the father of Liberal Protestantism may have a good point or so, he fails to recognize that at the same time, God must reveal Himself so that humankind can have a realistic understanding of the expectations of God. the most complete revelation of God to humankind is in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity in flesh. Liberals see the Incarnation as the faith of the Church, rather than an objective reality. the so called faith of the Church is really a collection of pious opinions of what people wanted Jesus to be (He was like God, He was so wise, kind, etc.). I do not base my faith on someone's pious subjective opinions, but on revelation by the means of the Holy Spirit as in the testimony of the inerrant written Word of God. so may I advise people to read the blather of Liberals with this in mind, so that there will be no misunderstanding of the battle between Liberalism and Christianity when it comes to Bible scholarship, or any other matter of faith. An illustration: do I believe in a Second Isaiah? no. the same Isaiah wrrote the entire book of the prophet when he lived. the Orthodox rabbis never taught a Second Isaiah, there is no division in the book. the Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah to see far in to the future, to the time of the Exile, and beyond. I suggest a good conservative commentary that holds to the integrity of Isaiah. we are not told how and by what mechanism the Holy Spirit came to Isaiah, but I hold to the integrity of the book. this is what Liberals deny, the Divine inspiration of Scripture. they may talk about the Bible being inspired, but hold it to be merely human.
Much Love,
Jonn

John,

Where do we place the Incarnation and "incarnational" Christianity?
Joe

I'm not sure what you mean by incarnational. I have my own ideas, but I would need to understand yours before I could giva an answer.
Much Love,
Jonn

"At one point in my life, I felt that I wanted to go back to school and learn theology properly. But a mystic told me - not to do that. He said that with the light that God had given me - I would not be able to tolerate most classes. My philosophy and theology teachers would consider me a pain in the ass (he did not use those words) and I would finally drop out from deep frustration. Even if I had determined to keep my mouth shut and regurgitate on que exactly what they wanted me to � the credentials are not worth it. The light would move away from my heart and into my head and become useless - just - knowledge - nothing more than clutter. We all have too much - clutter."

Dear Ray,
There is real wisdom here. It sounds like something I'd expect to come across in the sayings of the Desert Fathers or something. Thanks for sharing.

Dear Steve,

Thanks for your reply:

You wrote: "I disagree that the fathers are NOT scientists. The fathers used the latest scientific knowledge of their day to engage scripture and preach the good news. They used the most advanced techniques of science to analyze scripture and present the findings to the community."

reply: I don't think the Fathers in their teaching were embracing "the latest scientific knowledge" but rather utilizing a philosophical system that was utilized by men of faith before them. Is it really right to compare philosophy to Biblical Criticism as if they are something similar? Are we comparing apples to apples here? Besides, it is not science per se which I am referring to. Nor am I condeming things simply because they are "modern." Rather, it is the modern faithless science which BC springs from and utilizes that is problematic. I won't repeat my comments about BC again here b/c I don't want to be redundant. I think the article does a good job at exposing the deep problems with BC.

you wrote: "These are not random selections, but a conscience use of "modern" techniques to advance the gospel. Perhaps the clearest example is Basil�s Hexaemeron. I believe that if Chrysostom or Basil were alive today they would be using all of these modern critical tools in the service of the gospel, just as they did with the techniques of their own day."

I don't pretend to know the minds of these great saints, but I dare say that I think they might be much more inclined to condemn these faithless approaches to Holy Scripture becuase they are so opposed to the way the Church approaches the Bible (again see article). As one Latin-Roman Catholic priest said to me about Biblical Criticism, "it is like the act of masturbation: there is very much activity but very little fruit."

You say BC has made you stronger in your faith? I nearly lost my faith due to it. Picture this: a young Evangelical Christian, who believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God, becomes a Roman Catholic. He then begins to read his beautiful Roman Catholic Bible (NAB) with a shinning impramatur on it (thus telling him he can trust it has the Church's approval). He then begins to read it, along with the notes and finds out that Moses didn't write the first five books. Rather it was written and "redacted" by dozens -even hundreds of people. The Book of Job is completely re-written via verse re-arrangement. All the notes in the Psalms undermine messianic prophesies. Infact the Church's historic Christological approach to the entire Old Testament is completely abandoned (contrary to the conviction of the Fathers). Many messianic verses themselves are translated away (Is 7:14, Ps 21, etc., etc.). Then we get to the New Testament and proceed to find out that none of the Evangelists really wrote them (which was the only reason they were canonized in the first place). Nor did the apostles write most of the Epistles (except MAYBE James). If this is not enough, we find that Jesus didn't say many of the things He's recorded as saying in the Gospels. Infact, according to Fr. Raymond Brown, Christ didn't even do half of the things He's recorded as doing. The so-called "evangelists" just put those stories in there to make it look like He was fulfilling these so-called prophesies. THIS IS THE FRUIT OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM! And you dare say the Fathers would've embraced this garbage??? You must be kidding me. This crap is nothing but heterodox teaching which leads to a dead faith (much more akin to the fanciful interpretations of the Gnostics who -like modern "scholars" all thought they were in the know too). I can't see how any person even remotely familiar with the Father's teachings could not see that Biblical Criticism is the antithesis of patristic biblical theology. The very fact that modern Biblical Criticism abandons the very men we are writing of is itself proof of this. Scan the pages of modern Catholic Bibles and find which Fathers are quoted in them.

If this is what "academics" lead to, Lord please deliver me from them.

Trusting in Christ's Light,
W. Ghazar Der-Ghazarian

my good brother William the Armenian Catholic;
I couldn't have put what you said any more eloquently. you have hit the nail on the head. the sorry effort of some "scholars" in our Catholic midst to play up to the Liberals in a pathetic ecumaniacism where the lowest common denominator is sought makes Rome look as though it is playing the whore, much to the glee of ultra fundamentalists who see the Catholic Church as being the Great Whore of Babylon.We Catholics need to borrow a page from the conservative Evangelicals and learn to defend the inerrancy of Scripture. what is to be questioned next, Tradition? but even then, Tradition has parallels in Scripture, so guess hwere this all can be headed. we do not need to follow humanistic Liberal blasphemers, and I have already discussed Liberalism in earlier posts in this thread.Oh, many of the critics seem to follow the Hegelain school of thought that has lent a spiritual dimension to evolution, particularly in the idea that our idea of God "evolved' as the thesis met the antithesis, leading to a synthesized theology.

Much Love,
Jonn

Dear Jonn,

I can appreciate what you write. The only thing is, I'm not an Armenian Catholic but rather Armenian Orthodox. I entered into Communion with our Mother See in Holy Etchmiadzeen a couple years back (just to let you know).

then you are my Orthdox brother, already

then you are my Orthodox brother, already

Yes I am. Yes I am.

Well said.

I would rather say that Biblical Criticism outside of the Apostolic Tradition leads to a dead faith. In fact in its extreme it leads to no faith at all or even apostasy and a reversion to Paganism as I have seem many times. The sad, very sad and tragic thing is that some of them remain within the visible structure of the Church, rather than being really honorable and leaving like they should.
Stephanos I
Unworthy Monk and Arch sinner.