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Scripture

Are Gospels Myth or History?

Carl Olson

January 22, 2019 9:19 am January 22, 2019

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Any Catholic who spends time reading popular atheist literature will soon encounter the claim that the Gospels are works of myth and legend, devoid of much or any historical fact….

Any Catholic who spends time reading popular atheist literature will soon encounter the claim that the Gospels are works of myth and legend, devoid of much or any historical fact.

One of my favorite examples of this popular — that is, both non-scholarly and widespread — atheist ignorance comes from a filmmaker, Brian Flemming, who recently produced a documentary titled “The God Who Wasn’t There.” The documentary, he explained, is to show that the “biblical Jesus” is a myth, created whole cloth by superstitious, unlearned early Christians. Asked to summarize the evidence for his stance, Flemming said: “It’s more a matter of demonstrating a positive than a negative, and the positive is that early Christians appeared not to have believed in a historical Jesus. If the very first Christians appear to believe in a mythical Christ, and only later did ‘historical’ details get added bit by bit, that is not consistent with the real man actually existing. … I would say that he is a myth in the same way that many other characters people believed actually existed. Like William Tell is most likely a myth…. Of course, [Jesus] is a very important myth.”

“All I’m saying,” Flemming added, “is that [Jesus] doesn’t exist, and it would be a healthy thing for Christians to look at the Bible as a work of fiction from which they can take inspiration rather than, you know, the authoritative word of God.”

Actually, it would be helpful and healthy if skeptics like Flemming would put in the time and effort demanded by the evidence. As examples of such efforts, I’ll mention just three recent, impressive works: “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony,” by Richard Bauckham (Eerdmans, 2006); “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach,” by Michael R. Licona (InterVarsity, 2010); and “The Historical Jesus of the Gospels,” by Craig S. Keener (Eerdmans, 2012). These detailed, lengthy works highlight three basic facts.

First, the Gospels were written by men who knew the difference between myth and historical fact. The author of the Second Letter of Peter makes this abundantly clear: “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” (1:16). The opening verses of Luke’s Gospel shows that Luke sought “to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us,” so that “you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received” (Lk 1:1-4). Thus the Gospels and other New Testament texts include numerous references to secular rulers (Caesar Augustus, Pontius Pilate, Herod, et al.), as well as Jewish leaders (Caiaphas, Ananias) — names unlikely to be used inaccurately or even show up in a “myth.” As such, the historical content of these works should be judged not against mythologies, but against other first-century works of history.

Second, the Gospels are a combination of biography and history following the structure and approach taken by Greek and Roman authors to the same literary genres. The German historian Martin Hengel wrote that Luke was “a historian and theologian who needs to be taken seriously. His account always remains within the limits of what was considered reliable by the standards of antiquity.” As Keener shows, ancient historians — including the Gospel writers — had high standards for accuracy, even if they didn’t always employ the same techniques as modern historians. For example, ancient historians sometimes changed chronologies, or presented their works in a topical, not chronological, manner.

Third, the uniqueness of the Gospels has less to do with the literary form and much more to do with the radical identity of Jesus Christ. And this, really, is the ultimate point of conflict. Atheists begin with the philosophical assumption that there can be no divine intervention in history. Thus the Gospels must be myth. Christian historians, however, while acknowledging their belief in God, are willing to begin by examining the Gospels as historical texts, and then follow the evidence where it leads. In doing so, they are being truly open-minded.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight. He and his family live in Eugene, Ore.

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Sacraments

Why Do Catholics Believe in the Real Presence?

Carl Olson

December 11, 2018 2:07 pm December 11, 2018

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As a fundamentalist, and later as an evangelical, I took it for granted that the Catholic Church held to the most un-biblical, illogical and offensive beliefs about the Eucharist. But…

As a fundamentalist, and later as an evangelical, I took it for granted that the Catholic Church held to the most un-biblical, illogical and offensive beliefs about the Eucharist.

But there came a point when I began to wonder, “What do Catholics believe about the Eucharist?” This meant taking Catholic doctrine seriously, rather than mindlessly repeating anti-Catholic rhetoric from questionable sources.

I discovered that Irenaeus of Lyons, writing in the second century, stated, “Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking” (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1327). I read Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, which described the Eucharist as “the source and summit of the Christian life” (No. 11). And I saw that the Council of Trent had declared that “in the blessed sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially contained under the appearances of those perceivable realities” (Thirteenth Session, ch. 1).

So, I wondered, “Why do Catholics believe in the Real Presence?” I quickly learned the reasons are many and interrelated, but can be generally described as biblical, historical and theological. The biblical reasons were of primary interest to me and came in large part from the nagging suspicion that Jesus’ insistent, shocking words “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55) were not metaphorical at all, as I believed as a Protestant. The larger context of John 6 — during the Passover (see v. 4) — and the striking escalation in Jesus’ teaching about His identity and the need to eat His flesh and drink His blood pointed to something far deeper, unsettling and astounding.

If Jesus had allowed some disciples to depart over a misunderstanding regarding metaphors (see Jn 6:66), what sort of teacher and Savior would He be? If the apostle John, writing his Gospel in the late first century, also failed to clarify Jesus’ intentions, what sort of apostle and Evangelist was he? And did it make sense that the Old Covenant could boast of manna — physical food given by miraculous means — but the New Covenant had a physical symbol only? No, it didn’t. In addition, the Catholic (and Orthodox) belief in the Sacrament of the Eucharist helped make sense of other passages of Scripture, such as Jesus’ words at the Last Supper — “Take and eat; this is my body” (Mt 26:26) — and St. Paul’s warning to the Christians at Corinth that “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27).

While the biblical evidence cracked the door, the historical evidence blew it open. I recall rather vividly standing in a bookstore reading a passage written by St. Ignatius of Antioch that was penned around A.D. 107, which renounced the Docetist heretics because “they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ” (Letter to Smyrna, No. 7). Many other passages from many other writers followed, written over many centuries, each professing the same belief that the Eucharist is the true Body, Blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. In fact, no orthodox Christian interpreted the words of Jesus and Paul about the Eucharist in a metaphorical fashion until a thousand years after they were written.

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Science

Catholicism and Science

Carl Olson

December 10, 2018 1:53 pm December 10, 2018

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I recently perused a book with an eye-catching title: “God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). The author, Galen Guengerich, is a Unitarian pastor…

I recently perused a book with an eye-catching title: “God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

The author, Galen Guengerich, is a Unitarian pastor who claims to have found a balanced, middle ground between atheism and fundamentalism. However, the theological musings in the book are about as deep as a mud puddle in Death Valley, and the history isn’t much better. At one point, Guengerich asserts, “It took five hundred years for the Roman Catholic Church to forgive Nicolaus Copernicus for looking into the night sky and reporting what he saw.”

Since Copernicus died in 1543 — less than 500 years ago — that’s quite a claim. At least Guengerich exhibited more restraint than Dan Brown did in his novel “Angels & Demons” (Pocket Books, 2000), in which one of the good guys observes: “Outspoken scientists like Copernicus … [were] murdered by the church for revealing scientific truths. Religion has always persecuted science.” However, Guengerich does insist that Galileo was “tortured,” which is only accurate if he means Galileo endured having some of his theories rejected because he could not muster the necessary proofs for them. Copernicus, by the way, died an old man, in the good graces of the Church, in which he served as a canon lawyer.

Science, it turns out, is a convenient stick for many of those who dislike and wish to dismiss the Church. The famous, misunderstood case of Galileo has long been the centerpiece exhibit for those claiming, as Brown’s character does, that religion hates science. Yet Galileo was a devout (if rather arrogant) Catholic who enjoyed support by many in the Vatican, and his essential problems were hubris and impatience.

The atheist Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of the new version of the television series “Cosmos,” relies less on Galileo and more on another supposed scientific hero, Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), a Dominican friar and mathematician who was executed by the Roman Inquisition. It sounds like a slam dunk, and deGrasse Tyson spends a good chunk of time working the apparently fallow ground. But, as the Jesuit philosopher and educator Father Robert Spitzer has noted, the Dominican’s trial “had very little to do with Bruno’s beliefs about heliocentrism or scientific method; he was, after all, following Copernicus.” In fact, Bruno’s trial “centered on five theological heresies: his pantheism, denial of the Trinity, denial of the divinity of Christ, denial of transubstantiation, and denial of the Virgin Birth.” We may understandably lament execution for heresy, but we must keep in mind there were many actions punishable by execution in the 1600s.

More to the point, Bruno was not a martyr for science. Yet the myth of the “scientific revolution” eventually overcoming the Dark Ages is a popular and dramatic one, with roots in both Enlightenment-era works intent on undermining the Church, and Protestant “histories” devoted to portraying Catholicism as a crude, superstitious religion with no connection to true, pure Christianity.

In his new book, “How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity” (ISI Books, 2014), sociologist and historian Rodney Stark (who is Lutheran), debunks this nonsense. “Just as there was no ‘Dark Ages,’” he writes, “there was no ‘Scientific Revolution.’ Rather, the notion of a Scientific Revolution was invented to discredit the medieval Church by claiming that science burst forth in full bloom (thus owing no debts to prior Scholastic scholars) only when a weakened Christianity no longer could suppress it.”

Stark focuses on 14 philosophers and scientists (there are more, of course), beginning with Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253), an English bishop described by one historian as “the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford,” and concluding with Copernicus. None, he notes, were “rebel secularists” — all were devout Christians and “they all were priests or monks — even bishops and cardinals.” And all of them were educated in Scholastic universities.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com). He and his family live in Eugene, Ore.

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Religious Life

Why Can’t Women Be Priests?

Carl Olson

November 4, 2018 12:23 am November 4, 2018

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The news stories are so commonplace in recent years I could write one in my sleep if asked… An elderly lady, perhaps a former nun, is going to be “ordained”…

The news stories are so commonplace in recent years I could write one in my sleep if asked…

An elderly lady, perhaps a former nun, is going to be “ordained” a “Catholic priest,” citing her lifelong desire while denouncing the prejudice and bigotry of “the Vatican” for saying women cannot, in fact, be ordained priests. The details vary, the essential appeals to sentiment, modernity and equality do not. Explaining the Church’s teaching about priestly ordination is difficult because supporters of women’s ordination begin with premises different from those of the Church and often in direct opposition to them. Yet those assumptions are also widespread in the dominant culture.

The Church insists she must follow the example given by Jesus Christ, who specifically selected 12 men to be His apostles. That decision was not arbitrary, nor was it directed by cultural norms or societal pressures. While women were not allowed to be priests within the Jewish religion, it was also the case that Jesus’ approach to women taking part in His ministry was unusual. Yet He chose men only to be apostles, and those apostles then chose men to be bishops and priests. Thus apostolic succession has followed the same criteria for 2,000 years.

There is an essential matter of humility and obedience for Catholics when it comes to women’s ordination. The prevalent belief among those who push for such ordination is, when push comes to shove, that the authority of Christ and His Church should submit itself to the authority of current notions about women’s rights and equality between the sexes. Some liken the Church’s supposed “sexism” to racism. Yet Christ never founded a doctrine on race or ethnicity; more importantly, the underlying assumption is that the Incarnate Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, somehow made a mistake — that is, He was not, in fact, expressing divine wisdom. The issue, in sum, is very much one of faith.

In addition, the ordained priesthood is viewed by many as a profession, or a position of temporal power. They fail to recognize, as Orthodox theologian and bishop Kallistos Ware has insightfully observed, these three intertwined truths: just One is one priest; all are priests; and only some are priests. In other words, Jesus alone is the high priest of the New Covenant. All those who are baptized form a “royal priesthood” (1 Pt 2:9) and share in a “common priesthood” (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 1141-1143, 1546-1547). And the ordained, or ministerial, priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood of the faithful, and is conferred on certain men who receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

While the common priesthood is a real sharing in the work of Christ, especially through growth in holiness, the ministerial priesthood partakes in the work of Christ in a unique way, and only a priest, who acts in persona Christi (“in the person of Christ”), is able to celebrate Mass, consecrate the Eucharist and hear confessions. He is a “sign,” or “icon,” of Christ, and “his priesthood exists solely,” as Bishop Ware states, “in order to make Christ present.” Such a sacred sign must be readily understood and perceptible; a female priest would cause confusion and make light of the fact that Christ was, is and always will be a man.

Finally, the Church believes — contrary to faddish trends — that men and women are truly different and complimentary. There is a covenantal, nuptial reality built into creation, reflected in God’s covenants with humanity. In the Old Testament, God is described as a husband married to His chosen people. In Ephesians, Christ is described as the groom and the Church as His bride (see 5:21-32). The entire Church is feminine in character, responsive to her head and groom. The 1976 document Inter Insigniores (from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) pointed out that no one — including a man — has a “right” to the priesthood; the priesthood “stems from the economy of the mystery of Christ and the Church.” The priesthood is not a pawn in social experiments or political conflicts. Besides, that document emphasized, the “greatest in the kingdom of heaven are not the ministers but the saints.”

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com). He and his family live in Eugene, Ore.

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Lent

Pray your way through Lent: Year B

Carl Olson

October 7, 2018 9:03 am October 7, 2018

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When you think of Lent, what comes to mind? I think it is safe to say many of us immediately think of giving up something. And that “something” usually involves…

When you think of Lent, what comes to mind?

I think it is safe to say many of us immediately think of giving up something. And that “something” usually involves food, which is in keeping with the emphasis on fasting during the Lenten season. But we all know fasting is just one of three acts we are called to focus on during Lent. “In the Lenten period,” said Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his 2008 Lenten message, “the Church makes it her duty to propose some specific tasks that accompany the faithful concretely in this process of interior renewal: these are prayer, fasting and almsgiving.”

Each of these involve some sort of giving. In fasting, we give up certain foods. In almsgiving, we give money and aid to those who are in need. But what about prayer? What are we giving when we pray?

St. Paul, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, exhorted his readers: “Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thes 5:17-18; cf. Eph 5:20). The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “‘we have not been commanded to work, to keep watch and to fast constantly, but it has been laid down that we are to pray without ceasing.’ This tireless fervor can come only from love. Against our dullness and laziness, the battle of prayer is that of humble, trusting, and persevering love” (No. 2742). Lent is a journey in love, and prayer is an essential part of both that journey and that growth in love.

The journey of Lent is a pilgrimage toward the profound and joyful mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That journey begins in the wilderness. As the catechism says, “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert” (No. 540). As Pope Benedict stated in his first Lenten message in 2006: “Lent is a privileged time of interior pilgrimage toward Him who is the fount of mercy. It is a pilgrimage in which He himself accompanies us through the desert of our poverty, sustaining us on our way toward the intense joy of Easter.”

With this in mind, what follows is a Scripture-focused guide to praying during Lent. It is meant for personal reflection and prayer, and to accompany the public, communal and liturgical prayers of the Church, all of which are ultimately focused upon and find their deepest meaning in the Eucharist: “the source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC, No. 1324). Key themes and ideas from each week of Lent are given, drawn from the Mass readings, and a particular focus is given to the “Our Father,” for it “‘is truly the summary of the whole gospel,’ the ‘most perfect of prayers.’ It is at the center of the Scriptures” (CCC, No. 2774). In addition, each section contains a prayer selected from Church tradition that can be prayed during that specific week.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Catholic World Report.

See the full version of the Lenten calendar here.

This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor.

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Byline: Carl Olson

Are Gospels Myth or History?

Why Do Catholics Believe in the Real Presence?

Catholicism and Science

Why Can’t Women Be Priests?

Pray your way through Lent: Year B

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