Historical-critical method

Book of Ruth: Historical-Critical Commentaries. Was Ruth an Old Testament Illegal Alien?
Bible Stories and Parables

Book of Ruth: Historical-Critical, Patristic, and Rabbinical Commentaries. Was Ruth an Old Testament Illegal Alien?

09/13/2024 Bruce Strom 0

Was Ruth an Old Testament version of an illegal alien? Marriages between Jews and Moabites were definitely illegal under Jewish law, and Ruth was seen as a sojourner, which is the Biblical term for immigrant, or alien. Ancient Jews were just as suspicious of Moabites just as many Americans are suspicious of Mexicans. Ruth emigrates to Judah because of economic hardship, just as hardship drives many Mexicans to seek to enter the United States.
Is the term illegal alien a misnomer? Are illegal aliens criminals because they are doing illegal things? We can all agree that someone who robs a bank or steals a car or shoots or beats his neighbor is a criminal, but is someone who is fleeing gangs who threaten their lives a criminal? Is someone who flees grinding poverty to take his chances swimming the Rio Grande truly a criminal? […]

History

Ratzinger Report, by Future Pope Benedict XVI, Preparing for Catholic Catechism

01/13/2023 Bruce Strom 1

Cardinal Ratzinger teaches us: “Every council that bears fruit must be followed by a wave of holiness. Thus it was after Trent, and it achieved its aim of real reform for this reason. Salvation for the Church comes from within her,” not solely “from the decrees of the hierarchy. Whether Vatican II and its results will be considered as a luminous period of Church history will depend upon all the Catholics who are called to give it life. As Pope John Paul II said in his commemoration of Charles Borromeo in Milan, ‘the Church of today does not need any new reformers, the Church needs new saints.’” […]

History

Milestones: Memoirs of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Future Pope Benedict XVI

01/06/2023 Bruce Strom 0

Archbishop Ratzinger teaches us that “this psalm from the wisdom tradition shows the straits of faith that comes from the absence of earthly success. When you stand on the side of God, you do not necessarily stand on the side of success.” “When the psalmist stands in before God, in the presence of God, he grasps the ultimate insignificance of material wealth and success and recognizes what is truly necessary and what brings salvation.” […]

Biblical Interpretation

Biblical Interpretation in the Catholic Church, the 1994 Pontifical Biblical Commission Decree

03/16/2018 Bruce Strom 1

Historically, the Catholic Church has defended itself from attacks, both real and imagined, from enemies of the faith, and this defensiveness also extended to Biblical studies. The twentieth century saw a relaxing of this defensiveness, culminating in the decree Dei Verbum pronounced by Vatican II, encouraging Catholic scholars to use more modern methods of interpreting the Scriptures, under the guidance of the Vatican office, the Pontifical Biblical Commission. […]

Historical Jesus

Historical Jesus Blog 4, Views of Historical Jesus Scholars

01/01/2018 Bruce Strom 1

We will not be talking about the Jesus of Meier because he respects the Tradition of the Church.  Witherington credits Meier’s work with “caution and careful, detailed argumentation.”  Unlike many other modern scholars, Meier does not dismiss the spiritual Gospel of John as a source of historical data about Jesus.  Like the other historical Jesus scholars, Meier uses criteria to sift through the Gospel material, but he does not use the criteria to discard material, and he uses the criteria more conservatively.  Most importantly, Meier sees the resurrection as a happening in the spiritual realm rather than the historical realm, but that this does not disprove the resurrection. It is still very real to the believer.  Like Johnson, he distinguishes between the historical Jesus and the real Jesus, the Jesus of faith, Jesus who is truly the Son of God. […]

Historical Jesus

Historical Jesus, Blog 2, Modern Search for Historical Jesus

12/09/2017 Bruce Strom 1

What is the theological agenda for this third historical Jesus movement? Opposition to fundamentalism. They do not want the fundamentalists to monopolize the airwaves, so they shamelessly promote their views so they fit in thirty second sound bites. They value radical academic independence, and denigrate subservience to tradition, and have no fear for ignoring Scripture they personally do not judge is historical, and for elevating newly discovered gnostic writings over Scripture in their quest for the historical Jesus. Witherington quotes Funk as saying, “methodology is not an indifferent net – it catches what it intends to catch.” […]

Historical Jesus

Historical Jesus, Blog 1, Let us vote on what Jesus really said

12/09/2017 Bruce Strom 3

Let us vote on each of the sayings on Jesus, a red bead for each truly authentic saying of Jesus, a pink bead when the saying sure sounds like Jesus, gray, maybe, a black bead for a saying Jesus could not have said, although centuries of biblical scholars thought and taught otherwise. Using this voting method, the self-appointed members of the Jesus Seminar in 1985 pronounced that only fifteen sayings were truly said by Jesus, while another seventy-five sayings were probably words of Jesus. […]