The turning point occurred during the reign of Pius XII. In his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, Pius thought it beneficial to allow Catholic biblical scholars to use the tools of what is known as "historical criticism." If you are not familiar with that term, it is the art of applying scientific analysis to a written document. Is the document authentic? What is its date? Who wrote it? Did the author borrow from other sources? What type of literature is it? How much is the author influenced by his culture? Did the author make up things, exaggerate, or embellish his story? These and many other questions the historical critic brings to his document. The document studied can be any piece of literature of historical worth - a sonnet by Shakespeare, a Greek tragedy by Homer, or even the United States Constitution. In a word, the historical critic tries to read between the lines, as it were, so that he can find out the real truth of what occurred, or at least, what he thinks is the real truth.

Historical criticism is not bad in itself. When used properly it can be a great asset to studies in literature. Unfortunately, when good things come into the hands of evil men, bad things usually happen. Catholic liberals, who had been seething in the pot of dissent since the late 1800's, took advantage of Pius XII's encyclical and eventually turned biblical scholarship into a three-headed monster - a creature so ghastly that Pius XII would have turned his head away in utter disgust were he alive today. It has gotten to the point in the higher echelons of Catholic scholarship that hardly anything the Bible says is taken as face value. Everything from the resurrection of Christ, to the Virgin Birth, to the function of the papacy and the priesthood is questioned today, or even rejected, based on the "historical critical" approach to Scripture.

Essentially, liberal critics claim that Scripture is so full of historical errors, human biases, religious prejudices and fictional stories that little of it can be taken as factual, and what little is true is confined to "matters of salvation," (so they claim from their distorted reading of Vatican II's Dei Verbum 11), but even that is no great concession, since liberal theology has already redefined "biblical" salvation to be little more than a human consensus of God's existence from which God will save all mankind.

Let me bring this home to you even more so that you can see the importance of this series of articles I will write. Let's apply the historical critics' newfound view of Scripture to two hot-bed issues broiling in the Catholic Church today: women priests and homosexuality. Most liberal Catholics see no problem with allowing both. With statistics showing up to 50% of the priesthood being homosexual, and of those, mostly all welcome the idea of women priests, it is no surprise to see liberal Catholic biblical scholars trying to support these cultural upheavals by a reinterpretation of Scripture. The historical critic will try to convince you that, since Scripture contains "historical errors, human biases, religious prejudices and fictional stories," and since Scripture is only free from error when it deals with "matters of salvation," then in non-salvific matters (e.g., women priests and homosexuality), the Bible is nothing more than an expression of the religious preferences and cultural biases active during the time of the biblical author's writing. Since we in modern times have come of age, as it were, and know that such biases are unecumenical and judgmental, then it is high time we change our interpretation of Scripture. Historical criticism is just the needed tool to do the job.

For example, as St. Paul commands in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 that "women are to keep silent in the churches...let them subject themselves...and if they have any questions, let them ask their husbands at home," or tells the bishops in 1 Timothy 2:11-12: "let the women learn in quietness with all subjection...I do not allow a woman to teach or have authority over a man," the historical critic will have no problem in claiming that such injunctions are examples of the misogyny prevalent in Paul's day, and they will simply dismiss any theological underpinning to the reason Paul prohibited women from assuming authority in the churches. The liberal will claim that his "historical critical" approach to Scripture, approved, he studiously informs us, by none other than Pius XII, allows him to make such interpretations, especially since, as he reminds us, Scripture is prone to error in matters outside of soteriology.

Similarly, if St. Paul condemns homosexuality, this is the result of his lack of sensitivity to alternate lifestyles. If Scripture is prone to error in matters of science, including psychology, biology, or any other modern discipline; and modern science tells us that homosexuality is caused by genetic predisposition, then science trumps Scripture, since in regards to chromosomes and genes, Scripture is way out of its parameters of inerrancy. Thus, as good a man as he was, St. Paul, when he condemned homosexuality, was way beyond his expertise, for only when he spoke about salvation was he guided by inerrancy. Paul had no recourse to modern science, and therefore he had no way of knowing about a genetic basis to homosexuality. Yes, this is what is being taught in our Catholic seminaries.

If there is one man in Catholic biblical scholarship who has led as the tour de force of these modernistic exegetical ideas it is Fr. Raymond E. Brown, a Sulpician priest who spent most of his distinguished career teaching at Union Theological seminary, one of the most liberal Protestant seminaries in the world. As one obituary stated: "His long partnership with J. L. Martyn at Union Theological Seminary in New York was perhaps the perfect expression of the rapprochement between Catholic and Protestant biblical scholars in America." Up until his death in 1998, Brown was upheld by many as the premier Catholic biblical scholar. Unfortunately, despite his well-recognized scholarly erudition, he has probably done more to undue all that we have held sacred in biblical studies than any one single person in Catholic history. This is quite ironic, since Fr. Brown was appointed by John Paul II to the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1993 and served as its head until his death. That a man with such a liberal background and radical ideas could actually make it to the top of his field in Catholic biblical scholarship gives you some indication of the sad state of affairs both at the Vatican and Catholic academia.

Let me give you an example of Fr. Brown's methodology so that I can prove my point right at the outset. As I stated earlier, "historical critics" will use their scholarly tools to reinterpret passages of Scripture to their own liking by claiming that the biblical author was unduly influenced by his own culture, or some other prominent idiosyncracy. Concerning the issue of women priests, for example, Fr. Brown proves my point quite well. As I quote him, I will interject my comments in brackets. In his 1975 book "Biblical Reflections on Crises Facing the Church," Fr. Brown states:

"...This may displease some who think that the Christian answer to the problem of ordaining women lies in a text like 1 Cor 14:33-34...or perhaps farther back, in the creation story of Genesis. But here we enter the realm of hermeneutics [i.e., historical criticism]. Since the Bible contains the word of God in the words of men [i.e., God did not choose the words of Scripture, only men did, emphasis his], these texts reflect the sociology of God's people respectively in the first century A.D. [i.e., Paul had a cultural bias towards women] and the eleventh century B.C. [i.e., so did the Genesis author]. They cannot be repeated as normative today in a different sociology [viz., we moderns have been liberated from such archaic practices] without first investigating whether the change of social condition [i.e., they were quite barbaric and uneducated in Paul's day] does not require a different expression of God's will for His people [i.e., since many women today want to be priests, this forces us to accommodate them].¹

Fr. Brown goes on to prove my thesis in the next sentence:

"It is precisely this question of hermeneutics that I shall try to grapple with, faithful to my title 'The Meaning of Modern New Testament Studies for the Ordination of Women,' by showing how the acceptance or refusal of NT criticism [i.e., historical criticism] shapes one's ecclesiology, and how one's ecclesiology or view of the Church is often decisive as to whether one thinks that women can or should be ordained."²

In other words, Fr. Brown knows what the biblical text of 1 Cor. 14:33f actually says, but the question is whether we have to accept it as such. In an attached footnote he more or less proves that his intentions are to find some way to avoid Paul's literal words. Brown writes in the footnote:

"It has been suggested that this text [1 Cor 14:33-34] is not genuinely Pauline but was added as a polemic against the Montanist movement where women prophets played an important role; if so, it would offset 11:5 which permits a woman to prophesy. The question needs more study."

In other words, Fr. Brown does not hesitate to entertain the proposition - brought to him by another historical critic - that St. Paul didn't even write the passage in question! Hence, whatever way he can, whether it is by claiming that Paul's "sociology" was primitive, or that Paul didn't write the piece in question, Fr. Brown will find someway to neutralize the clear literal meaning of the words to accommodate the modern appetite for innovation. That is what he calls "biblical exegesis."

Usually absent from such re-interpretation of Scripture is a recognition of the safeguards St. Paul and the other New Testament writers built into their texts to ward off such "sociological" interpretations. These safeguards are especially prominent in the New Testament's treatment of the role of women. For example, in 1 Cor. 14:34-38, there are about a half dozen such safeguards included in the text, none of which Fr. Brown, in all his verbosity on this topic, so much as mentions.

First, in verse 34, Paul makes it quite clear that the commands for women to keep silent in the churches is not a product of his culture or his own personal feelings, rather, it is "as the Law also says." Immediately following, he adds the phrase "the word of God" in verse 36 showing that "the Law" to which he makes reference is indeed God's law, not man's. As regards the "Law," Paul could be referring to any number of references in the Old Testament, including Genesis 3:16's injunctions against Eve, or Isaiah's lament in Is 3:12: "O my people! Their oppressors are children, and women rule over them. O my people, those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths."

So as Paul reiterates these commands to the churches, obviously it is his intent to tie together the divine commands from the past with his inspired teaching in the present to show that the command for women to keep silent is an all-pervasive truth that does not change with time. To reinforce this Paul goes on to say in verse 37 "the things I write to you are the Lord's commandment." That is, somewhere along the way, whether it was information Paul gleaned from the Gospels himself or received directly from the Lord (cf., 2 Cor 12:1-7), it is abundantly clear that the strictures regarding a women's role in the churches is not a product of Paul's "sociology," rather, it is a divine mandate that will never change. In accord with his usual practice of giving us "two or three witnesses" to a solemn truth (cf., 2 Cor 13:1), here Paul has given us three witnesses, the witness of "the Law," the witness of "the word of God" and the witness of "the Lord" to show that he had absolutely no intention of making his commands to women relative to the culture of the day.

In fact, Paul has a few choice words for people like Fr. Brown who think they know better than Scripture, or who think they can alter its words with their scientific theories. Immediately after Paul gives his command for women to keep silent in the churches, he then addresses those in the church who apparently had been ignoring the established rules regarding a women's role. In verses 36-37 Paul writes: "Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only? If any one thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment." Similarly, it is today's "historical critics" who think only they have discovered the true meaning of Scripture, and that because of this talent only they are the truly "spiritual" among us, yet all the while failing to realize that the very things they propose are directly against "the Lord's commandment."

Fr. Brown was quite adept at claiming that only he and his "historical critical" colleagues had the right understanding of Scripture, and he wasted no verbiage castigating traditionally-minded exegetes as "fundamentalists," "right wing vigilantes" or "ultra-conservatives," while his cohort John Meier called them "Neanderthal know-nothing types."³

We can also prove our point by observing how St. Paul includes the same safeguards into his teaching in 1 Timothy 2:11-14. As Paul commands women to be quiet and not to teach or have authority over men, he bases his words not on anything having to do with the culture in which he lived, rather, as he did in 1 Cor 14:34-35, he immediately goes back to the original divine mandates. In 1 Tim 2:13, Paul's first line of substantiation is the fact that: "...it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve." In other words, the order in which the first humans were created set for all time who would be in authority and who would be in submission. It has nothing to do with Paul's "sociology" or his personal views of women.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7