Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 239.  Thu  1-30-92 22:13  (NO KILL)  (MAILED)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Jim Cox
 Subject: Scripture

+-
| Fr. Mateo,
|  
| Thank you for your response.  As to the question about the footnote, I
| have gotten my answer from other answers you have given, so I don't
| really see a need to pursue that question.
|  
| But your response about the NJBC as to not trusting it, I am interested
| in knowing why?  It has the nihil obstat and an imprimatur.  What's the
| problem, or rather who's the problem with this book?
|  
| My interest is that I am of the opinion that, while the basic Gospel
| message is and always has been the same, the different authors of the
| written Gospels adapted what they wrote according to the audience to
| which the Gospel is addressed.  The difference in dates show a
| development of application.
|  
| You must allow some of this if you can recommend such a book as this:
|  
| >Hans - Herbert Stoldt. History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothes
| >Paperback. $8.95 + $2.00 postage (+ $.75 tax if you live in Califor
| >Stoldt attacks the "in" doctrine that Mark was written before Matth
| >You may order the book from Catholic Answers, P.O. Box 17181, San D
| >CA 92177.
| >
|  
| Jim
+-[JC=>FM]
 
Dear Jim,
 
To work backwards in your message of January 15, 1992, you put words in
my mouth when you say I "recommended" Stoldt's book.  My word was "a
reference to a book".  I knew of Stoldt's book, I knew it had to do
with the dating you like to study, so I told you about it.  That's not
"recommending".
 
My reaction to your statement that "the different authors of the
written Gospels adapted what they wrote according to the audience
to which the Gospel is addressed" is this: you have bought an unproven
assumption.  We know St. Luke wrote for an audience of one because he
said so (Luke 1:3-4; Acts 1:1).  About the other three Gospels, what
influenced their shape?  The personality, ability, and religious
experience of the writers?  The available sources?  The audiences?  The
scholars' discussions of these matters remind me of the hippos dancing
about in tutus in Disney's "Fantasia".  I find it amusing, no more,
unless I'm trying to write a homily or an article or an "Ask Father"
response.  Then I go to the commentaries and get no help, and this
irritates me.
 
Also I resent the Catholic scholar who wastes his time playing liberal
Protestant.  We have the Word of God here, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
NJBC 43:76 says: "In (Luke's) gospel he is not writing about the
Pharisees at the time of Jesus of Nazareth but of Christian Pharisees
in his communities."  This directly contradicts Luke's own account of
his historic methodology in 1:1.  Furthermore, it says that the Holy
Spirit is lying when He says that Jesus talked to these Pharisees of
His own time.  Because Luke's Gospel is the speech of God.  God wrote
it, using Luke.  And Luke was scholar enough to find out what the
Pharisees of 40-50 years before his time were like.  He didn't have to
blow smoke.
 
NJBC has the nihil obstat and imprimatur.  When we had the Index of
Forbidden Books, the huge majority of the books on that Index had
diocesan imprimaturs.  The diocesan imprimatur is notoriously easy
to come by.  (All this is only another proof---if one needs another
proof--that censorship of any kind never works!)
 
                                Sincerely in Christ,
 
                                Father Mateo