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The Mystery of Christmas
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16 years 6 months ago
Fr. Martin: Your openness to the historicity of the Gospel Infancy Narratives and your suggestions that Brown and Meier are the go-to guys for studying up don't match, for as detailed and fascinating as both are, both also conclude that most of the details of the Infancy narratives, from the birth in Bethlehem to the Angels to the Magi, are nothing more than midrash and post-Resurrection credal reflection. Which might be true, but neither would agree with Witherington,and that's my point. Catholic scholars are notably more skeptical about the historicity of the narratives than Protestants like Witherington.
16 years 6 months ago
Another good resource is a new book, The Christmas Week, by John Dominic Crossan and W. Borg. It footnotes Raymond Brown's work. Basically, they review the Lucan and Matthean nativity stories by starting with the question - "it is not fact or fable?" rather the question with the nativity stories is: "What is the meaning?" That gets us away from arguing about precise, literal events, time, objects, etc.
16 years 5 months ago
Thanks for that quote from Nouwen. As someone a bit lost on the Catholic journey I found it really comforting to read about a fellow journeyer, who wants to listen to my rants! It is a very peace-giving quote. Margaret
16 years 6 months ago
Good point! But what I was recommending was having readers take a look at Brown and Meier, sift the evidence, meditate on the church's tradition, and decide for themselves which pieces of the story are historically accurate. And in many cases in his book, for example, Father Meier uses the category of "non liquet," which (though my Latin is non-existent) I understand to mean that the matter is not able to be proven. In any event, I like to know what the historical-critical method reveals, but then remind myself that with God all things are possible. And I tend to think that, though I am no scholar, many of these pieces of the story that cannot be proven conclusively (and even those elements that find echoes in other traditions, which is often a reason for scholars to "reject" their claims) are usually based on traditions that may very likely have a great deal of basis in fact.
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