Although I disagree with him on many
issues, Trent Horn is one of my favourite Catholic apologists. What I
appreciate about him is that he tends to know what the other side has to say on
various issues, as evidenced by his The Case for Catholicism (Ignatius Press,
2017). In a recent article and podcast, he has appealed to Ben Witherington’s
III’s claim that the “woman” in Rev 12 was, at least in some sense, Mary, not a
corporate personality merely:
Is
Mary the Woman in Revelation 12?
Counsel of
Trent: Defending Mary's Assumption (note: Horn makes a small error—it was
defined *1st* November, not *12th* November 1950)
Horn is accurate in this use of
Witherington’s book, but it should be noted that, for a Catholic, what
Witherington gives, he also takes away. Note the following from the same work, What
Have They Done to Jesus? which would be contrary to Catholic Mariology and
Marian devotion (esp. the Immaculate Conception):
On John 2 and the
Wedding at Cana
Now let’s
look at he story in a bit more detail. According to verse 3, Mary goes to Jesus
when the wine runs out and simply says, “They have no more win,” clearly
implying, “Do something.” Now this is interesting at several levels. It shows
that Mary knows that Jesus can perform miracles, even though in the Johannine outline
Jesus has yet to perform one. It also shows that Mary was not above trying to
pressure her son into helping, to avoid having the families of the bride and
bridegroom shamed at their own wedding party. In short, her intentions were
surely good.
The
attempt to assert maternal influence on Jesus produces a rather abrupt and
surprising response, however. The Greek of the next verse can be translated
literally, “What to me and to you, woman?” Scholars debating the nuances of
this question have suggested a variety of possible interpretations: (1) “What
is that to me and you?” with the implication that it is someone else’s problem;
(2) “What do you have to do with me?” but that seems too abrupt and goes beyond
the strict grammar of the sentence; (3) “Why are you involving us in this
matter?” a looser reading; or (4) “That is your business; do not involve me.”
What all of these readings make clear about this phrase is that it’s
off-putting. It’s some sort of rebuke, even if a gentle one. When a phrase like
this occurs elsewhere in the Greek Bible, it surely indicates an attempt to
disengage from something or some request.
Notice as
well that Jesus calls his own mother “woman.” Now while this is a respectful
form of address, it is not the normal way one would address one’s mother;
indeed, it seems to be a form of disengagement from maternal authority. Mary
seeks to assert her authority, but Jesus indicates that this is not
appropriate, at least at this juncture. Though Jesus uses the respectful “woman”
form of address with other women in other accounts (John 4:21; 20:13; Matt.
15:18; Luke 13:12), there are no known precedents in other sources for someone
using such a term for one’s own mother. Jesus addresses Mary this way only here
and from the cross in John 19 . . . But this is not all of Jesus’ response. He
adds, “My hour has not already come,” or—if we take it as a question, which the
syntax and grammar allow—“Has not my hour already come?” The latter seems unlikely
in light of the initial response to the request and the fact that elsewhere in
this gospel Jesus’s “hour” refers to the climax of his ministry and what
happens on the cross. That is likely what is meant here as well. The
implication is that while Mary does not now have a claim on Jesus, in his “house”
she will have such a claim, and Jesus will do something for her personally—which
turns out to be handing her over to the Beloved Disciple.
And yet,
and yet…Jesus does respond to the situation . . . Thus we can say about
his tory that Jesus responds in a way that distances him from Mary’s maternal
authority but does not fail to respond to the need of the moment . . . In the
Johannine depiction, Mary is portrayed as not yet a disciple (in fact, verse 12
distinguishes her and the brothers from the disciples) but perhaps on the way
to becoming a disciple. (Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with
Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History [Oxford: Monarch Books,
2007], 116-17, 118)
Mark 3:21-35
This
unflattering interpretation of Jesus’s family’s understanding of him seems
confirmed in verses 31-35, where Jesus contrasts his physical family with the family
of faith (that is, “whoever does the will of God”). This contrast between the
two families would have no real force if Jesus’s family did not share the crowd’s
opinion that Jesus had taken leave of his senses. Jesus’s language leaves open
the door for his physical family to join the family of faith, assuming they opt
to do the will of God; but Mark does not suggest that the family, even later,
walked through that door, nor does Mark 3 suggest that Jesus granted his
physical family an audience on this occasion. In fact, Mark 6 continues the
picture of misunderstanding and rejection . . . (Ibid., 120)
Mark 6:1-6
More
surprising than the crowd’s lack of faith is the fact that Jesus’s family does
not stand up for him—not even his mother! This suggests . . . that Mary was not
held in very high esteem in this town. It also supports the earlier conclusion
that Mary and the brothers and sisters were not within the circle of the
disciples at this juncture. In addition, this story provides further rather
strong evidence that Mary did go on to have other children after having Jesus.
(Ibid., 123)
Horn also refers to Stephen Shoemaker’s
work, which I will also plug here, as it is the best work on the topic (and,
for what it is worth, one of my favourite books on Mariology [I have many in my
personal library]):
Ancient
Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption
To be fair, Horn does a very good job at
refuting James White’s claim Gelasius condemned the belief in the Bodily Assumption.
I have never got the argument that the decree means Gelasius condemned the
Assumption simply because (assuming its authenticity, which Shoemaker calls into serious question) just means that the Transitus
literature. If a modern Pope were to condemn the New World Translation,
would that mean that, as the NWT teaches God created the world or that Jesus
personally pre-existed mean that the pope is denying such? Think about it. The
arguments of White, Webster, et al., are not that good on this score.
