MetaCatholic

Although overall, I’m more with Mark Goodacre on the Wikipedia debate than with Ben Witherington or Jim West, I found it mildly ironic that the Wikipedia article on the synoptic problem points to the need for a very careful sifting of Wikipedia’s information. To say the least, it could certainly do with Mark overhauling it and rendering it into a coherent argument and readable English.

I often use Wikipedia as a jumping off point for things, never as a final court. And any similar resource will always need to be used with caution, and the more so while people who could contribute knowledgeably to it, prefer to turn up their educated noses, and stick out their academic tongues. One of the more bizarre references in the synoptic problem page is not placed with the main solutions (let the reader understand) but has the appearance of a later more fundamentalist edit.

A handful of researchers, such as Eta Linnemann, argue that each of the evangelists are independent of one another and that the apparent literary similarities are merely coincidental. This theory agrees with the Christian belief that the whole Bible, including the Gospels, was inspired directly by the Holy Spirit and that therefore no intermediate or source documents between books are required because “all scripture is God-breathed”

I would have remained cheerfully ignorant of Linneman’s existence or views but, intrigued by this drivel, dug around. His Her demolition of Q says

The gospels report the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus. They do this partly through direct eyewitnesses (Matthew, John) and partly by those who were informed by eyewitnesses (Mark, Luke).30 In that case the similarities as well as the differences are just what one expects from eyewitness reminiscence.

I’d almost rather see Q reign unchallenged than see this put forward as a serious argument. But it gets worse:

I was a theologian for decades but did not know about the inspiration of the Holy Scripture. I had to be born again to find this out … As a theologian, I was steeped in historical-criticism. If the Lord had not taken me out of it, I would still be in it. … For many years I had taught my students the historical-critical theory that there is a synoptic problem, whose only solution is the two-source theory. I taught that Matthew and Luke copied Mark, and then added their own information from another source. Now I found this had no basis.

Obviously this highlights the need for those who combine personal faith with academic rigour to be showing a better way generally. But I will risk putting Jim West’s and the Wiki sceptics’ noses out of joint (and Jim should be more put out that this man woman was taught by Bultmann, was an associate Professor at Marburg, and still says this stuff). It seems to me that if people like Jim West and Ben Witherington and many others don’t engage in the public information forum that is Wikipedia, then the field will be left to those for whom rigorous academic engagement and true faith have at best nothing to do with each other, and at worst are opposed. And it’s too important for that.

The first reading at today’s Mass was the story of Jephthah and his daughter (Judges 11:29-40). I have to say that my first reaction was surprise that this most unedifying story was included in the lectionary. But it also drew my attention to what I’d overlooked on Sunday, that Jephthah is included in the list of the heroes of the faith enumerated by the write to the Hebrews. That is not a judgement I think we can easily share.

I’d like to attribute this, but can’t remember whose blogs I read it on, but I’ve seen several posts recently on Augustine’s hermeneutic principle:

Accordingly, in regard to figurative expressions, a rule such as the following will be observed, to carefully turn over in our minds and meditate upon what we read till an interpretation be found that tends to establish the reign of love.  Now, if when taken literally it at once gives a meaning of this kind, the expression is not to be considered figurative. (On Christian doctrine Ch 15)

While I think that Augustine’s subtlety far outshines those who think that the Bible that enshrines the story of Jephthah and his daughter gives straightforward guidance for marriage, sexual ethics and the upbringing of children, I’m inclined to think that even this generally wise hermeneutic principle meets its match in this narrative.

Perhaps sometimes we need to acknowledge that not everything can be interpreted for our edification, where interpretation tends to a spiritual domestication of the violence, patriarchy and stupidity of the human beings with and in whom God still manages to work, and on whom he never gives up.

Yet this story is also read (and this is where I return to the idea that the primary place for reading scripture is in the gathered eucharistic assembly) at Mass, where the ultimate focus is on the sacrifice of him who shows us the better way. In Christ we celebrate the gift of self-sacrificing love, chosen over and against the cycle of violence returned for violence. But more, we celebrate also the sacrifice of the one who is able to give meaning and future to Jephthah’s daughter (and the one who knows and calls her by the name the author omitted), and the one who by that same sacrifice is able to redeem Jephthah from his sins and stupidity.

Then the importance of reading this scripture in Mass is less that it edifies us by a meaning recovered or created by ingenious hermeneutics, but rather it points us more strongly than many readings to the one who can embrace and empower the victim, redeem and transform the victimizer, and offer the hope of a just restoration to a relationship apparently broken beyond all repair.