Note on Genesis 8:7 and the meaning of "until" (‎עַד/ἕως) in the verse

  

Keating’s use of Gen 8:7 is unfortunately based on a bad translation of the Hebrew and does not make the point Keating thinks it does. Keating cites the Douay-Rheims version of the passage (“went forth and did not return, till the waters were dried up”) and then states: “In fact, we know the raven never returned at all” (Catholicism and Fundamentalism, 285). The Hebrew וַיֵּצֵ֤א יָצוֹא֙ וָשׁ֔וֹב עַד־יְבֹ֥שֶׁת הַמַּ֖יִם, however, is better reflected in the newer Catholic translation the NAB: “it flew back, and forth until the waters dried,” which is essentially the same rendition given by the NIV (“it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up”) and the NASB (“which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up”). Obviously, the flying back and forth could have lasted only until the water dried up and need not have continued after that point, making Keating’s use of this passage precarious. (Eric D. Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism [Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001], 285 n. 45)

 

Why Mariology Matters: Oliver Treanor on Mary being the Spouse of the Spirit and Relationship to the inner processions of the Son and Spirit

  

. . .the Virgin has been caught up in an extraordinary way in the life and being, work and missions of the Holy Trinity. Even in her earthly existence she already participates in the mystery of the divine perichoresis, the inner processions of the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Father, the mutual indwelling of the three in one, their giving and receiving of the divine substance, their accepting and reciprocating the divine love. Drawn into the heart of that eternal communion, she beholds at once God as he is in himself and her own self as she is in her knowing her.

 

Obedient daughter to the Father, beloved mother to his Son, faithful spouse to their Spirit, she is all things to him who is all in all to her. (Oliver Treanor, “Mary as the Sacramental Matrix of Ecclesial Personhood in Christ,” in Brendan Leahy and Séamus O’Connell, eds., Having Life in His Name: Living, Thinking and Communicating the Christian Life of Faith [Dublin: Veritas, 2011], 91-120, here, p. 92)

 

Since Mary is completely free from sin there is no obstacle to her to this many-personed process of the Trinity’s self-revelation. Her humanity is perfectly poised for God’s work; her virginal emptiness a vacant space for his fecundity; her capacity for communion with him untrammelled by rival relationships; her personhood open and available for the reception of his divine will. Dwelling within the mutual indwelling of him who is three, she is overshadowed by the Spirit, impregnated with the Son, drawn to the Father by the inclination and attraction of grace as she recognises truth and beauty and goodness in their absolute form as God. In Mary, the eternal takes concrete shape historically so that what has become for us doctrinal and sacramental is for her existential and primordial, an original experience of the deposit of faith. (Ibid., 97)

 

Jacob Hansen Interviews Joseph Lawal on Joseph Smith's Philosophy

Jacob Hansen, on his "Thoughtful Faith" youtube page, has recently posted two videos featuring my friend Joseph Lawal:

Joseph Lawal - LDS Philosophy Pt 1: Who is Joseph Lawal?

Joseph Lawal - LDS Philosophy Pt 2: Joseph Smith's Philosophy

Notes for D&C 137 and 138

As many know, I was scheduled to be in the USA today, but was told I cannot enter yesterday (my work is too substantive for an ESTA so have to wait until the work VISA goes through . . . sad face . . . )

I was scheduled to teach Gospel Doctrine this Sunday and had notes prepared for D&C 137 and 138, as well as notes on related issues. I have put them on DropBox, so for those who wish to go through them, here you go:

D&C 137 and 138 Notes

Another Example of a Latin/Creedal Trinitarian Slipping into Unitarianism

  

Scripture is a written form of revelation. It “must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings, for the sake of salvation” (Dei Verbum, 11). Scripture addresses both faith (e.g., God is One and is a Person) and morality (e.g, that we should love God). (Stephen K. Ray and R. Dennis Walters, The Papacy: What the Pope Does and Why it Matters [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018], 50, emphasis in bold added)

 

Augustine and Chrysostom on John 19:26-27

 Augustine

 

Tractate 8, 9: “He commends His mother to the care of the disciple; commends His mother, as about to die before her, and to rise again before her death. The man commends her a human being to man’s care.”

 

Tractate 120, 3: “Ought we not the rather so to take the words, ‘From that hour the disciple took her unto his own,’ that everything necessary for her was entrusted to his care? He received her, therefore, . . . to his own dutiful services, the discharge of which, by a special dispensation, was entrusted to herself.”

 

Chrysostom

 

Homily 85, 3: “When He Himself was now departing, He committed her to the disciple to take care of. For since it was likely that, being His mother, she would grieve, and require protection, He with reason entrusted her to the beloved.”

 

The Number of Women at the Cross in the Gospel of John: 2, 3, or 4?

  

John’s account, however, is much more ambiguous. Carson suggests that it is possible to see in John’s account two, three, or even four women (D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 615). The second two references may be in apposition to the first two (i.e., “his mother and his mother’s sister; namely, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene”), hence portraying only two women. The fact that και occurs only between the first and second references and the third and fourth references (being omitted between the second and third references) strengthens this view. But this view suffers from several weaknesses, including: (1) that Mary is now to be seen as remarried to Clopas, after the death of Joseph; (2) that there are two sisters named Mary in the same household; and (3) that someone already identified as “his [Jesus’] mother” would need any further designation (such as “wife of Clopas”) to identify her. These reasons—not to mention the fact that it is nowhere else hinted that Mary Magdalene is the sister of Jesus’ mother—should suffice safely to eliminate the view that John portrays only two women at the cross.

 

Another possibility is that John sees three women at the cross (“his mother, his mother’s sister, [namely] Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene”). Again, the absence of και between the second and third references (“his mother’s sister”/”Mary the wife of Clopas”) may suggest that the third reference is in apposition to the second. But the same problem that plagues the first view (namely, the existence of two sisters named Mary in the same household) plagues this view as well, and we may reject this view on the grounds that it would be “highly improbable that two sisters should have borne the same name” (McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament, 232).

 

The final option is that John sees four women at the cross—two named and two unnamed (“his mother and his mother’s sister, [and] Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene”) (This is the majority view of scholars today. See Ceroke, “Mary’s Maternal Role in John 19, 25-27” (Marian Studies 11 [1960]: 129) and C.K. Barrett (The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd. Ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978], 551)). The absence of και between the second and third references may be explained on the grounds that John distinguishes between named and unnamed women, and perhaps sees closer ties between the first and second references and the third and fourth references than he does between either one in the first set and either one in the second. (Eric D. Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism [Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001], 96-97)