Who can you thank for all of this? Fr. Brown and the historical-critical exegetes coming out of the Vatican II era. Today's Catholic clerics, ex- and non-ex, know little else when it comes to biblical exegesis. The idea that the Gospels were written and edited by remote scribes of the second century is taken as an apriori assumption among historical critics. To support this view, in his book, Biblical Reflections on Crises Facing the Church, Fr. Brown calls as his sole witness the 1964 Pontifical Biblical Commission (which was then an authoritative arm of the Church). He consistently asserts that the 1964 PBC taught that the Gospels were redacted and edited, and thus were not literal accounts of Jesus' words.⁴² He writes:

However, as we all know, an enormous change began in Catholic circles with the papal encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) [which I cited earlier in my article] and culminated in the Instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission The Historical Truth of the Gospels (1964). In the latter document Catholics are told that the Gospels are the product of a three-stage development that involved many changes and that, therefore, the Gospels are not literal accounts of the words of Jesus.⁴³

Ladies and gentlemen, let me make this very clear to you. Fr. Brown's above statement is one of the biggest falsehoods ever perpetrated on unsuspecting Catholics. Brown is doing the same thing with the 1964 PBC that we saw him do with Dei Verbum 11 when he, without citing the actual outcome of the decisions, concluded that the council taught Scripture is inerrant only in matters of salvation. As most liberals do, Brown shades the truth to suit his own liberal agenda. If one reads the 1964 PBC honestly and without Brown's bias, it neither teaches that the Gospels were "developed"nor "are not literal accounts of the words of Jesus."

Brown elaborates on his assertions regarding the 1964 PBC in an appendix. He writes:

...Stage Two recognizes that the christology of the early Church was post-resurrectional in origin and was read back into the accounts of the ministry. It allows for development within the pre-Gospel stage of the Jesus tradition, and is a stage of formation close to what scholars isolate by form-critical analysis. Stage Three acknowledges considerable freedom of authorship by the evangelists. It is a stage of formation close to what scholars isolate by redaction criticism. Note that the Roman Catholic Church has gone on record stating that the Gospels are not literal or chronological accounts of the words and deeds of Jesus.⁴⁴

Notice that, in commandeering the name "Roman Catholic Church," Fr. Brown wants you to believe that his interpretations of the PBC are one and the same with the Church's official teaching on Scripture. Now let's see what the 1964 PBC really teaches. Suffice it to say, it never makes the conclusions that Fr. Brown makes. I will underline the places Fr. Brown emphasized, since he thought that these sentences supported his view that the Gospels were written by unidentified scribes and thus were not the literal words of Jesus:

Stage Two: The Preaching of the Apostles

VIII. The apostles proclaimed above all the death and resurrection of the Lord, as they bore witness to Jesus. They faithfully explained his life and words, while taking into account in their method of preaching the circumstances in which their listeners found themselves. After Jesus rose from the dead and his divinity was clearly perceived, faith, far from destroying the memory of what had transpired, rather confirmed it, because their faith rested on the things which Jesus did and taught. Nor was he changed into a 'mythical' person and his teaching deformed in consequence of the worship which the disciples from that time on paid Jesus as the Lord and the Son of God. On the other hand, there is no reason to deny that the apostles passed on to their listeners what was really said and done by the Lord with that fuller understanding which they enjoyed, having been instructed by the glorious events of the Christ and taught by the light of the Spirit of Truth. So, just as Jesus himself after his resurrection 'interpreted to them' the words of the Old Testament as well as his own, they too interpreted his words and deeds according to the needs of their listeners. 'Devoting themselves to the ministry of the word,' they preached and made use of various modes of speaking which were suited to their own purpose and the mentality of their listeners. For they were debtors 'to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish.' But these modes of speaking with which the preachers proclaimed Christ must be distinguished and (properly) assessed: catechesis, stories, testimonia, hymns, doxologies, prayers - and other literary forms of this sort which were in Sacred Scripture and were accustomed to be used by men of that time.

Stage Three: The Writing by the Evangelists

IX. This primitive instruction, which was at first passed on by word of mouth and then in writing - for it soon happened that many tried 'to compile a narrative of the things' which concerned the Lord Jesus - was committed to writing by the sacred authors in four Gospels for the benefit of the churches, with a method suited to the peculiar purpose which each (author) set for himself. From the many things handed down they selected some things, reduced other to a synthesis, (still) others they explicated as they kept in mind the situation of the churches. With every (possible) means they sought that their readers might become aware of the reliability of those words by which they had been instructed. Indeed, from what they had received the sacred writers above all selected the things which were suited to the various situations of the faithful and to the purpose which they had in mind, and adapted their narration of them to the same situations and purpose. Since the meaning of a statement also depends on the sequence, the Evangelists, in passing on the words and deeds of our Saviour, explained these now in one context, now in another, depending on (their) usefulness to the readers. Consequently, let the exegete seek out the meaning intended by the Evangelist in narrating a saying or a deed in a certain way or in placing it in a certain context. For the truth of the story is not at all affected by the fact that the Evangelists relate the words and deeds of the Lord in a different order, and express his sayings not literally but differently, while preserving (their) sense. For, as St. Augustine says, 'It is quite probable that each Evangelist believed it to have been his duty to recount what he had to in that order in which it pleased God to suggest it to his memory - in those things at least in which the order, whether it be this or that, detracts in nothing from the truth and authority of the Gospel. But why the Holy Spirit, who apportions individually to each one as He wills, and who therefore undoubtedly also governed and ruled the minds of the holy (writers) in recalling what they were to write because of the pre-eminent authority which the books were to enjoy, permitted one to compile his narrative in this way, and another in that, anyone with pious diligence may seek the reason and with divine aid will be able to find it."

X. Unless the exegete pays attention to all these things which pertain to the origin and composition of the Gospels and makes proper use of all the laudable achievements of recent research, he will not fulfill his task of probing into what the sacred writers intended and what they really said. From the results of the new investigations it is apparent that the doctrine and the life of Jesus were not simply reported for the sole purpose of being remembered, but were 'preached' so as to offer the Church a basis of faith and of morals. The interpreter (then), by tirelessly scrutinizing the testimony of the Evangelists, will be able to illustrate more profoundly the perennial theological value of the Gospels and bring out clearly how necessary and important the Church's interpretation is.

Now, let's place all the underlined sentences side-by-side since they are the ones he used to support his position that the Gospels were written by someone other than the four Evangelists and thus do not contain the literal words of Jesus:

"After Jesus rose from the dead and his divinity was clearly perceived"

"...the apostles passed on to their listeners what was really said and done by the Lord with that fuller understanding which they enjoyed"

Here Brown is implying that the apostles did not write the Gospels but "passed on to their listeners" the Lord's words, and these "listeners" then passed it on to others and eventually one group of listeners put in writing what they heard. But Brown is simply reading into the text, since the PBC is saying nothing more than the fact that Jesus promised divine help directly to the Apostles in order that they could understand more clearly the truths of the faith, and naturally, they would write about these new insights after they received them. (John 14:17-18; 15:26; 16:13; Acts 2:1-24).

"...they too interpreted his words and deeds according to the needs of their listeners..."

"From the many things handed down they selected some things, reduced other to a synthesis, (still) others they explicated as they kept in mind the situation of the churches"

These don't prove anything for Fr. Brown, since the PBC's sentence makes no indication that the Apostles themselves did not make the selections and synthesis for their hearers. In fact, the only non-apostle to write a Gospel, Luke, makes it clear that he received his information directly from eyewitnesses, which he then selected and synthesized (Luke 1:1-4). We know from the epistles that Luke lived in the same generation as the eyewitnesses (cf., Col 4:14; 2 Tim 4:11; Phm 1:24). Of course, we must realize that Fr. Brown also impugns the integrity of the epistles, since he believed St. Paul wrote only seven of the thirteen epistles ascribed to him. In fact, Brown assigns to Paul only three epistles more than the liberal Protestant Ferdinand Baur - the originator of the historical-critical method from the Tübingen school in Germany in the late 1800s.

Here is the next selection Fr. Brown makes from the PBC:

"For the truth of the story is not at all affected by the fact that the Evangelists relate the words and deeds of the Lord in a different order, and express his sayings not literally but differently."

Again, this provides nothing for Fr. Brown's case. As far as the 1964 PBC is concerned, the "Evangelists" to which it refers are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, since it gives no indication it wishes to identify, or even suggest, some other group of Gospel writers.

Second, the PBC makes no suggestion that the accounts do not contain the exact truth of what occurred. The only emphasis the PBC makes is that each Evangelist decided on the particular "order" he wanted to record the Lord's words and deeds. By then quoting from St. Augustine, the PBC makes abundantly clear what their precise intent is in referring to "order." St. Augustine mentions twice that the Gospel writers have differences in the "order" they express things, but he makes no suggestion that any of the Evangelists wrote inaccurately or that the Gospels contain historical errors. Surely the PBC wouldn't have quoted from Augustine if they did not fully intend to embrace his view of biblical inerrancy, which, as we already cited in the last issue of CFN, admitted to no errors in Scripture, including history.

Hence, when the PBC says "and express his sayings not literally but differently" they are not saying that there are historical errors in the Gospels, or that someone other than the four Evangelists wrote the Gospels, or that the actual words of Jesus are not recorded, since, by the PBC's own words, "differently" refers to "order," "selection" and/or "synthesis," not error. For example, one Evangelist says that Jesus cured one blind man on his way out of Jericho (Mk 10:46), while another Evangelist says he cured two blind men on the way out of Jericho (Mt 20:29), and still a third says He cured one blind man while going into Jericho (Lk 18:35). Here the Evangelists are, what the PBC terms, "selecting" or "synthesizing." This results in each of them giving a different "order" to the events, but there is no error, since no one Evangelists gives us ALL the events that transpired in their proper sequence. If we were to give the proper sequence of all the events, it would go something like this:

The two blind men call out to Jesus as He leaves Jericho. Here Lk 19:1f inserts the meeting of Jesus and Zaccheus while Jesus "passed through" Jericho. It is late in the day. Jesus tells Zaccheus that He must "stay at his house" that night. Thus Jesus returns to Jericho where Zaccheus lived. On His return to Jericho, the two blind men are cured. Make and Luke ignore the second blind man since only one of the blind men speaks to Jesus.⁴⁵

Unfortunately, when liberal exegetes like Fr. Brown see a loaded phrase such as "not literally but differently" in the 1964 PBC, they do the same thing to it that they did to the phrase "for the sake of our salvation" in Dei Verbum 11 - use the ambiguity to change the meaning to something that neither Vatican II nor the PBC ever intended. By this insidious approach to Scripture, Fr. Brown has poisoned a whole generation of biblical scholars.

Not surprisingly, there is one particular passage Fr. Brown did not highlight from the 1964 PBC - the one stating that historical accuracy was of the utmost importance to the Gospel writers. It reads: "With every means they sought that their readers might become aware of the reliability of those words by which they had been instructed." How convenient that Fr. Brown just skips over this.

Lastly, Fr. Brown selects this PBC statement:

"that the doctrine and the life of Jesus were not simply reported for the sole purpose of being remembered, but were 'preached' so as to offer the Church a basis of faith and of morals"

Again, this provides no help for Fr. Brown, since the PBC says nothing that would indicate the Apostles did not preach their own message before or after they wrote it.

Now that we have exhausted Fr. Brown's appeals to the 1964 PBC, let's observe another classic case of how he shades the truth to suit his own agenda. Note the difference between what the 1964 PBC says regarding "forms" as opposed to what Fr. Brown says:

1964 PBC: "But these modes of speaking with which the preachers proclaimed Christ must be distinguished and assessed: catechesis, stories, testimonia, hymns, doxologies, prayers - and other literary forms of this sort which were in Sacred Scripture and were accustomed to be used by men of that time."

Fr. Brown: "In the Bible there are passages of poetry, song, fiction, and fable where the matter of inerrancy does not even arise."

The 1964 PBC neither includes the word "fiction" in its list of literary forms nor does it suggest that there are places in Scripture "where the matter of inerrancy does not even arise," but somehow Fr. Brown insists that both are there. From this manufactured assistance, Fr. Brown's New Jerome Biblical Commentary, a main-stay for Catholic seminaries and universities, claims about a dozen times that Scripture contains "fiction," without one honest note to the reader that the Church has never once issued such a teaching. Parables, of course, are the "stories" to which the PBC is referring, and we know they are of such a genre because Scripture painstakingly introduces their literary form by indicating the account is a "parable" (cf., Mt 13:18; Mk 4:2; Jn 10:6; Ezk 17:2). But Fr. Brown does not limit "fiction" to parables; rather, he ascribes it to any historical narrative in Scripture of his choosing. Brown usually makes such determinations based on whether he agrees or disagrees with what is being taught in the narrative. If he disagrees, the narrative is assigned to the world of make-believe. Unfortunately for him, Brown cannot cite any official Church teaching that says historical narratives can be regarded as fiction, so his only recourse is to the 1964 PBC, but as we have seen above, his conclusions about the PBC are totally baseless.⁴⁶

Hence, we wonder why, on the one hand, Cardinal Ratzinger once said of Fr. Brown: "I wish I had a hundred bible scholars just like him," yet Fr. Kenneth Baker, editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review, recently concluded:

...according to Fr. Brown, most of the books in the NT were not written by those whose names are on them...The implication throughout is that Jesus did not say and do what the Gospels attribute to them...I do not doubt the Catholic faith of Fr. Brown, but his rationalistic scholarship, in my opinion, is a recipe for skepticism. Vatican II (Revelation #12) and the new Catechism (#111-114) say that Catholics should be attentive "to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture"; the should read the Bible within "the living Tradition of the whole Church"; and they should be attentive to the "analogy of faith"....All three are missing in this book. Therefore, if it is consulted, it should be done so with great caution.⁴⁷

As we complete our series on Fr. Raymond Brown and the demise of Catholic biblical scholarship we will examine two works that Brown authored and co-authored, respectively: Biblical Reflections on Crises Facing the Church (1988) and The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1990).

Crises Facing the Church can be considered the synopsis of Brown's entire approach to Scripture. It contains a litany of statements highlighting Brown's modernist methodology; his love of Protestant biblical scholarship; and his disdain for "conservative" Catholicism. Brown makes no apologies for his dependence on Protestant scholarship. He writes:

...in recent years I have had the grace of teaching Protestant student for the ministry as well as Catholic candidates for the priesthood. The Roman Catholic Church could not have made its advance in biblical criticism without Protestant aid. If the first third of the century the torch of biblical criticism was kept lighted by Protestant scholars; and when after 1943 Catholic lit their candles from it, they profited from the burnt fingers as well as the glowing insights of their Protestant confreres. It is no accident that Protestant and Catholic biblical scholars have been coming closer together ever since, to the point now of producing common studies of divisive problems....along with the presence of Protestant teachers in many Catholic institutions, brings new knowledge into the Catholic perspective.⁴⁸

Yes, for once Fr. Brown is right. It is precisely because of the incursion of Protestant theology into Catholic academia that liberal Catholics such as Fr. Brown owe much of their present occupation. The ideas, for example, that Scripture contains historical errors; that the Gospels are not literal accounts of the events that transpired in Jesus' day and were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and that St. Paul wrote only four, possibly seven, of the thirteen epistles attributed to him, are all products from the putrefying garbage of liberal Protestants stemming from the 1700-1900s and which Brown and his entourage of Catholic modernists were only too happy to engorge themselves, like flies to dung.

Along with his dependence on Protestants, Brown has a pernicious way of turning the silence of the Church, or the offhand remarks of a Vatican hierarch, into definitive evidence favoring his view of Scripture. Here's how he puts it:

By that time [1950s] the pursuit of the scientific method had led Catholic exegetes to abandon almost all the positions on biblical authorship and composition taken by Rome at the beginning of the century. No longer did they hold that Moses was the substantial author of the Pentateuch, that the first chapters of Genesis were really historical, that Isaiah was one book, that Matthew was the first Gospel written by an eyewitness, that Luke and Acts were written in the 60's, that Paul wrote Hebrews, etc. This dramatic change of position was tacitly acknowledged in 1955 by the secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission who stated that now Catholic scholars had "complete freedom" with regard to those decrees of 1905-1915 except where they touched on faith and morals (and very few of them did).⁴⁹

Notice that, as he did with the 1964 PBC (see the previous issue of CFN), Brown does the same here. He has no official ecclesiastical statements on which to stake his claim, so he resorts to "tacitly acknowledged" appeals to the "secretary" of the 1955 PBC, as if these are dictates from the pope himself. Fr. Brown was an expert at making it appear as if he had the formal backing of the magisterium when, in fact, the Church said very little in official support of his exegesis of Scripture, and usually said nothing at all.⁵⁰ Despite Brown's rhetoric, the Church has made no official reversal of the teachings of the1905-1915 PBC. Consequently, Catholics can continue believing that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (save his obituary); that the first chapters of Genesis are historical; and that the Gospel were written by the Evangelists and give an accurate rendering of Jesus' life, because Fr. Brown has nothing but his biased opinion to claim that these beliefs have been changed.

We see the same distorting of reality in Brown's comment on the 1972 PBC. He writes:

And as a further sign of the Church's commitment to biblical criticism, in 1972 Pope Paul VI restructured the Pontifical Biblical Commission so that scholars, instead of being merely consultors, now constituted the Commission itself.⁵¹

I don't know what was in the pipe Fr. Brown was smoking, but suffice it to say, the above statement is nothing but wishful thinking. Those who know the truth are probably already chuckling at Brown's attempt at obfuscating the events of 1972. When Paul VI "restructured" the Pontifical Biblical Commission it was then that he took away their official status as an authoritative arm of the Church! As a result, the PBC became, and is to this present day, merely an advisory board of scholars that have absolutely no authority over what Catholics are required to believe, which was not the case in 1905-1915. Instead of telling his reader the real truth, Brown gives the impression that the present PBC is not only authoritative, but that liberal scholars like himself constitute that authority! If this is not the biggest snow job I have ever seen in liberal literature, I don't know what is.

Not only did Scripture receive the assault of Fr. Brown's wayward methodology, but Catholic dogma was likewise attacked. He writes:

While doctrinal formulations of the past capture an aspect of revealed truth, they do not exhaust it; they represent the limited insight of one period of Church history when can be modified in another period of Church history as Christians approach the truth from different direction or with new tools of investigation.⁵²

And what does Fr. Brown see as "modified" dogma? Well, we've seen a good portion of his views already in this series of essays, nevertheless, we'll let Fr. Brown speak for himself, once again:

By way of example, the physical sciences have traced patterns of human evolution; biblical criticism has given a better understanding of the type of literature represented by the early chapters of Genesis; and so together the physical sciences and biblical criticism have helped Catholics to see that in the ancient doctrine of God's creation of man it is no longer necessary to maintain that man's body was directly created by God from the earth, or that woman's body was directly created from man's.⁵³

Similar to Teilhard de Chardin and the liberals of the 1940s and 50s, all the way up to today's theistic evolutionists such as Stanley Jaki, evolution is the calling-card of the modern generation of Catholic exegetes. If, besides the fact that they believe Scripture can err, we needed one other common denominator among them to understand the driving force of their entire hermeneutic, it is the concept of evolution - the very aberration about which Pope Pius X warned in his encyclicals against modernism. "To evolution," thinks Fr. Brown, "everything must bow," including Scripture. Without a shred of scientific proof to its claims, evolution is elevated to the status of a demigod. Brown and the liberals have cast their lot with the religion of "Scientism"and bow to it just as the Israelites bowed to a wooden image instead of the One who created in six days (Isaiah 45:16-18). Brown even shows how he carved his icon. In his New Jerome Biblical Commentary he included an entire appendix to a chronology of the earth that stretches back to the so-called "Paleolithic" period of 1.6 million years ago.⁵⁴

But those of us who have studied the true science (not that pseudo-science of such secular icons as Stephen Gould of Harvard and Niles Eldredge of the Natural History Museum) have seen in the last 50 years or so, such overwhelming evidence against evolution - evidence that is consistently denied and suppressed by the secular establishment - it is rather easy to come to the conclusion that scientists who still believe in that childish nonsense are nothing but stubborn fools, and the theistic evolutionists who follow them, such as Brown, Jaki, Vawter, Johnston, et al, are the bastard children of such foolishness. As Sir William Gilbert, writing in the 16th century, recognized very early in the game: "Science has done its utmost to prevent whatever science has done."

As he usually does, Fr. Brown twists and turns the papal statements on this issue to make it sound as if they are on his side. For example, Brown gives the impression that, even after Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis, it is still acceptable for Catholic exegetes to believe in polygenism (viz., that the human race descended from more than one set of parents). Now, dear reader, judge for yourself. Here is Pius XII's statement condemning polygenism:

When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.⁵⁵

Now here is how Fr. Brown distorted this very paragraph to his own advantage (Brown quotes from Humani Generis and then adds a comment in brackets):

As for polygenism, "It is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled" with what has been taught on original sin, viz., that it proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam. [Note, however, that the pope does not absolutely condemn the theory of polygenism].⁵⁶

Notice that Fr. Brown has extracted one sentence from Pius' paragraph and avoided all the rest. Very slyly, Fr. Brown zeroes in on the word "apparent" and gives the reader the impression that Pius XII was not being firm and resolute on his refusal to accept polygenism. Brown does not tell the reader that, in the sentence prior, Pius said "...the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion..." No, as he usually does, Fr. Brown leaves out whatever disagrees with his preconceived notion of truth. This is the kind of subterfuge that is all over his writings. In all my 30 years of study, I have yet to see a Catholic twist and distort words and sentences to his own favor as much as Fr. Raymond Brown does. We can easily see why Fr. Brown states: "...it is no longer necessary to maintain that man's body was directly created by God from the earth, or that woman's body was directly created from man's," or "the bishops have spoken of God's creation of the world, but there is not a word against evolution and no indication that the Genesis account of creation must be taken literally."⁵⁷ To Brown, those who don't accept evolution are "pseudo-scientific antievolutionists."⁵⁸

Not surprisingly, Fr. Brown claims that in Humani Generis "there is virtually no chastisement of biblical scholars. Seemingly to his death Pius XII remained firm in his faith in modern criticism." But those of us who have studied Humani Generis know why Fr. Brown used the qualifiers "virtually" and "seemingly." If one reads the encyclical without Brown's bias, the "chastisement"of modern biblical scholars is very apparent. For example, in paragraph 23 Pius writes:

Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church's vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual...By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.

This is a stinging indictment against Fr. Brown and his colleagues, for it is precisely their hermeneutic which says that the literal details of Scripture are incidental, unimportant and unreliable, and that the "spiritual meaning" is the only thing the author "intended."

In paragraph 38 Pius takes a clear shot at the Wellhausen theory that many Catholic biblicists were using to interpret the Old Testament:

This Letter, in fact, clearly points out that the first eleven chapters of Genesis...do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense...If, however, the sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations...it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.

In paragraphs 25-26 Pius XII shows the damage this new hermeneutic has done:

It is not surprising that novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology....Some also question whether angels are personal beings. Disregarding the Council of Trent, some pervert the very concept of original sin, along with the concept of sin in general as an offense against God, as well as the idea of satisfaction performed for us by Christ. Some even say that the doctrine of transubstantiation, based on an antiquated philosophic notion of substances, should be also modified...

Notice that Pius XII warned about those who "pervert the very concept of original sin." What was Fr. Brown's goal? Listen carefully. This is something you will not hear from his admirers, and which is not well known among his detractors. Fr. Brown's goal is to eliminate, if possible, the Catholic notion that original sin began with a man named Adam who disobeyed God. Fr. Brown, as all liberals have tried to do, was trying to establish that man's condition (i.e., a condition that is hampered by imperfection and a proclivity to savagery) was merely the way he "evolved" into being. Man's hominid ancestors were savages and thus modern man retained some of those negative traits. In other words, man is today the way God allowed him to evolve, not the condition into which God placed man when he sinned in our first parent, Adam. Consequently, the onus is put on God, not man, for man's present condition. This is precisely what is behind the carefully chosen words Fr. Brown uses to describe his desire to reinterpret original sin:

But we should stress that the Genesis story is only a vehicle for the doctrine of original sin and not the substance of the teaching. Moreover, in loyalty to modern biblical scholarship, we should point out that the Genesis story is not an exact historical account of the origins of man. Thereby we prepare students for the possibility that, under the impact of theological reflection, the Church may not always phrase the doctrine of original sin in terms of a sin committed by Adam and Eve as sole parent of the human race...to keep abreast of modern theological discussion, so that the limitations of past understandings of those doctrines are not imposed on the students as if they had to be believed.⁶⁰

This attempt to reorient the doctrine of original sin goes hand-in-hand with Brown's continual praise of the Protestant liberal theologian, Karl Barth, who, having a wide influence on Catholic theologians (especially Hans Küng) believed and taught that "original sin" is merely a way of describing that man is today the way he always was. God allowed him to evolve that way. There was no "fall"of man. Not surprisingly, since Barth put the onus on God for man's condition, then, of course, it is God's responsibility to save all men from the state with which He hampered them, which then led to Barth's teaching of universal salvation. God did it, and thus God is responsible for undoing it. Conservative Protestants are very aware of Barth's theology. Historical theologian Francis A. Schaeffer writes that Barth, without any public repudiation, believed and wrote in his books that Scripture contained historical errors and that man did not have a "space-time Fall" and that he emphasized "the place of universalism in the new theology."⁶¹

If you want to know where the ideas of universal salvation originated that we see so prevalent in Catholic theologians today, including strong suggestions of it in the theology of Cardinal Wojtyla, look no further than the Protestant liberal theologians like Karl Barth and his ilk. Fortunately for us, Fr. Brown makes his acceptance of Karl Barth quite clear so that we don't have to guess what his theological motivations are for advancing polygenism. In fact, in his clever way, Brown tries to pass off Barth as a spokesman against "liberalism" as he writes: "The reaction against liberalism found eloquent spokesmen in Karl Barth in the area of systematic theology and Rudolf Butlmann in the area of biblical study."⁶² Bultmann, along with the other liberal Protestants such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Deitrich Bonhoffer, Emil Bruner, et al, all embraced Barth's elimination of original sin and advancement of universal salvation, and they systematically infected Catholic liberals such as Karl Rahner, Hans Kung, Henri de Lubac, Anthony de Mello, Edward Schillebeeckx, Gabriel Moran, et al, some of the very theologians who were invited as periti at Vatican II. Not surprisingly, many of these theologians lived immoral lives. Why not? If you believe that God made you the way you are and that it was His responsibility to save you, what will stop your savagery from dominating you? You can simply blame it on God, or chalk it up to the fact that you haven't "evolved" to the point of overcoming such tendencies.⁶³ Of course, this is the same reason many of today's bishops and priests advocate, protect and practice the homosexual lifestyle. As you can see, the whole world has been turned upside down by the hermeneutic practiced by Fr. Brown and company.

In the hermeneutic of Fr. Brown, one of his favorite ways of promoting the historical-critical method was to keep drumming into his student's heads that Scripture contains "fiction." The vehicle he used to support this idea was that it was never the biblical author's "intent" to write accurate history. You will see the word "intent" over and over again in liberal literature on Scripture. Even though he has no proof, the liberal critic gives the impression that he knows the intent of the biblical author, and can therefore construct his conclusions accordingly.

Here is a sample of how this plays out in everyday life. In the Good News Bible for Catholics, notice how the liberal editor weaves the author's "intent" in with the view that Scripture is only inerrant when it speaks of salvation. After giving a few examples of Scriptural "error,"⁶⁴ the editor of the Good News Bible writes:

All of this means only that the Bible must be understood in the sense in which it was intended by God and by the biblical authors. And their purpose was not to write a history book in the modern Western sense of that term, but to set forth the history of God's salvation. The Second Vatican Council in its document on Revelation (Dei Verbum, #11) recognized this when it declared that the Holy Spirit through these writings teaches us "that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation" (italics added).⁶⁵

Here, the unsuspecting Catholic who reads this biased and distorted preface will now be primed to read the Bible's narratives as if they were fiction. One will often see appeals to "history in the Western sense of that term" in the liberal literature, and which will immediately be used to claim that the biblical authors didn't know how to write, nor even intended to write, true and accurate history. The liberals think they have the license to teach these things because, according to their distorted interpretation of Dei Verbum 11, real truth only applies to matters of salvation. This is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on mankind, and its home is right in the heart of liberal Catholicism. As we have seen, the true Church, the official Church, has never taught such a blatant falsehood. She has said precisely the opposite in every one of her official statements on Scripture (see previous issue of CFN). Nevertheless, Fr. Brown and his cohorts claim that,

From the very first time the story of Gen 1-3 is told to kindergarten children, they should be taught to think of it as a popular story and not as history, even though the teacher may not wish at that level to raise formally the question of historicity.⁶⁶

As with all attempts at indoctrination, the primary candidates for propagating one's views are children. Many of us baby-boomers who went through the Catholic grade schools of the 60s and 70s know this to be the case, since by that time the liberal hermeneutic had seeped far and wide into Catholic academia. We were taught that the Creation story was a poetic myth, that Adam and Eve were not real, that Moses didn't write the Old Testament and that Jonah was never swallowed by a great fish. Why? If you didn't know it then, you know it now - because it was not the biblical author's "intent" to write history, so we are told.

Brown knows that the "intent" of the biblical author is the crux of the issue. He writes:

On the other hand, church writers interpreted the literal sense of the Bible with great latitude, for they did not have to justify a correspondence between the meaning they found in the text and the author's original intent. The latter outlook has echoes in the sophisticated reaction of some modern literary critics against the historical-critical quest for the author's intent, which they regard as unknowable.⁶⁷

Notice that Fr. Brown feels no compulsion to match the words one reads in Scripture with the biblical author's original intent. They are totally divorced from one another. Why? Because if a person such as Fr. Brown reads words in Scripture which claim, for example, that the world was created in six days, or that Goliath was a nine-foot giant whom David knocked out with a single stone, but he finds them too fanciful and hard to believe, then he can simply dismiss them as being non-factual accounts similar to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and claim that the author never intended otherwise.

Fr. Brown cleverly tries to pass off "fiction" as one of the options available to biblical exegetes by comparing Scripture to other human writing (NB: remember from the earlier part of this essay that Fr. Brown does not believe that Scripture contains the very words of God, since, he claims, that God does not communicate with words). Thus he writes:

In the quest for the literal sense of any writing, it is important to determine the literary form the author was employing. In a modern library, books are classified according to the type of literature: fiction, poetry, history, biography, drama, etc...A history and a novel may treat the same person or event, but we expect different degrees of fact and fiction from them, whereas in regard to poetry the issue of fact and fiction is irrelevant....Factual history is a type of literature; fiction is another; both exist in the Bible...If one correctly classifies a certain part of the Bible as fiction, one is not destroying the historicity of that section, for it never was history; one is simply recognizing the author's intention in writing that section.⁶⁸

If one does not have his antenna raised, Fr. Brown's words might appear innocuous to the average Catholic. But Fr. Brown did something very tricky. Notice how he does not speak of the literal meaning but of the "literal sense." What is a "literal sense"? Obviously, it cannot be the literal meaning, or Fr. Brown would be in our camp, and he assures us he is not. In Fr. Brown's world, "literal sense" is equivalent to "fiction." Here Fr. Brown stretches the meaning of words to the absolute breaking point. The divergence of what we normally understand between the symbolic and the literal, Fr. Brown now bridges by appealing to the author's literal intent to use fiction. In other words, the literal meaning of the text is no longer what we use to judge its meaning; rather, we judge the meaning based on whether the author intended to write fiction. If he intended to write fiction, then writing fiction was what he "literally" intended, and thus fiction becomes the "literal sense" of his words. You have to hand it to Fr. Brown. This is an ingenious way of twisting the issue.

In the end, who is to decide when the biblical writer "intended" to write fiction? Well, Fr. Brown and the historical-critical exegetes, of course. With what criterion will they judge whether it is fiction? On their "scientific" opinions regarding what are the established "facts" of life, of course (e.g., all life evolved over billions of years; men are not swallowed by whales; snakes don't talk; donkeys don't talk; giants like Goliath never existed; strongmen like Samson are a myth; their wasn't enough rain to create Noah's flood; there was not enough room for Noah to put two of every animal on the ark; the angel of death did not kill all the firstborn of Egypt; the Gospel are not historical biographies of Jesus' life; etc, etc).

This is a clever and effective way for liberals to deny the content of Scripture and at the same time dress up their views in intellectual garb so that it can have the appearance of studied research. In reality, it is only Fr. Brown's subjective opinion on the meaning of Scripture. I wonder what Fr. Brown would have done if we interpreted his New Jerome Biblical Commentary in the same way he interprets Scripture - by what we think his "intent" is? We could posit all kinds of sinister motives for Fr. Brown's teachings, none of which he would like (e.g., that he is demonically possessed and is bent on destroying the Catholic faith). He would be the first to claim that we could never know his true intent, since we don't know the inner recesses of his heart.

Fr. Brown goes on:

Literary criticism, however, does not view the text as a "window" onto a historical world...but as a "mirror" reflecting a world into which the reader is invited. In other words, the referent of the text as such is not the "real world" of history (e.g., exodus or crucifixion) but the literary world signified by the text. In the case of the biblical texts, the literary world is generated by the theological interpretation of the reality (e.g., escape from Egypt as divine liberation for covenant life; the death of Jesus as salvific paschal mystery)..."⁶⁹

This is quite ironic. For all the descriptions of a primitive-thinking and cretinous culture Fr. Brown and the historical-critical exegetes foist on the mentality of the biblical writers, they nevertheless allow the same writers to be quite ingenious in dressing up historical events so that the history is minimized and the "literary world" radiantly blooms before our eyes. It seems odd that such primitive-thinking individuals possessed such ease in assenting to this higher dimension of literature. According to Brown, the biblical writers have little ability to "write history in the Western sense of the term" and are hampered with a "naive prescientific outlook," but they have no problem flowering their writing as if they were William Shakespeare himself, indulging their prose with highfalutin literary genres (e.g., "fiction, poetry, drama, biography"). Imagine how much acumen it takes to alter the historical reality of an event and replace it with deep and penetrating philosophical or theological messages. Some of our best university students find this difficult to do, but they usually have little problem in stating the bare facts of an event. To Fr. Brown the biblical writers are so good at producing the world of make-believe one might think that they would have to be educated at Harvard or Yale in order to be so convincing, but none of this lack of tutelage seems to bother Fr. Brown. He can make the biblical writers adept or inept whenever he chooses, that is, whatever supports his higher-critical theories.

As usual, Fr. Brown then has the audacity to seek support from the Catholic magisterium for his flagrant illogic:

...the reference to the author's intention in the definition affirms that those who produced the biblical books had in their times a message to convey to their readers and that it is important for us to have this message in mind when we read the texts and ask what they now mean for us...The quest implied in the definition matches Pius XII's statement in DAS (EB 550): "Let the interpreters bear in mind that their foremost and greatest endeavor should be to discern and define clearly that sense of the biblical words which is called literal...so that the mind of the author may be made clear."⁷⁰

What did Fr. Brown just do? By now you ought to be able to pick it out yourself. Yes, he twisted Pius XII's words, once again. Before he extracted the quote from Pius XII, Brown asserts that the literal words we read in Scripture may have nothing to do with the intent of the biblical author. But is that what Pius XII said? No, in fact, Pius XII said just the opposite. Pius said that in order to know the "mind of the author" we "discern and define" the "literal" sense of the biblical words. That is, we can only know the author's intent by understanding the literal meaning of his words. Pius XII neither puts adjectives on his use of "literal" (e.g., it is not the "literal sense"), nor mentions anything about seeing "fiction" in Scripture, nor about having some precognition of the author's intent apart from the author's literal words. Yet Fr. Brown pulls the magician's cape over Pius XII's words and utters his historical-critical abracadabra, and presto! Pius XII now agrees with Fr. Brown.

Of course, Fr. Brown's emphasis on "intent" eventually reveals its own insidious intent (pun intended) because it results in Fr. Brown's ultimate desire to limit biblical inerrancy to "matters of salvation." He writes: "The distinction between the author's thought world and the message he conveys in writing is important in discussing the limits of biblical inerrancy."⁷¹ A literal reading of Fr. Brown's words shows that his intent in focusing on the "intent" is so that he can say that the biblical author made mistakes in his historical accounting and did not intend to give literal truth.

Lastly, by referring to "matters of salvation" we might think that Fr. Brown has at least salvaged some truth from the Bible. However, being curious about what they really meant by this phrase, I once asked one of his astute admirers how one defines "matters of salvation." His reply was: "Whatever is in the Nicene Creed, that's all."⁷² Anything else in Scripture is up for grabs, and that is precisely why Catholic biblical scholarship has met its demise.

Robert A. Sungenis, M.A.
President, Catholic Apologetics International
May 12, 2004

Endnotes:

1) Please note here also that Fr. Brown believes, in line with the theories of "historical criticism," that Genesis was not written by Moses (even though the Pentateuch states he was the author over a dozen times), and neither was it written during the time of Moses, but rather, was an "eleventh century B.C." document, which historical critics base on it affinity to the Mesopotamian legend about the Babylonian god Marduk. As Fr. Richard Clifford, S. J., states in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (edited by Fr. Raymond Brown): "In Mesopotamian culture, evidently the model for most of the stories in Genesis 1-11, scribes explored beginnings through stories and cosmogonies, not through abstract reasoning....Genesis 1-11 then is a single story, an unusually sustained 'philosophical' and 'theological' explanation of the human race....The biblical writers have produced a version of a common Mesopotamian story of the origins of the populated world, exploring major questions about God and humanity through narrative" (pp. 8-9).

2) Paulist Press (New York, NY, 1975), p. 51.

3) The complete quote from Meier reveals the insidiousness of the entire "historical critical" school in Catholicism. Meier writes: "Ray Brown still takes all kinds of vicious attacks - not from learned conservatives but from the sort of Neanderthal know-nothing types...If they ever knew what some of the rest of us are doing, they'd have a heart attack...Ray has become the lightening rod. One might say he has taken our scholarship upon himself and has born the weight of us all" (National Catholic Reporter, February 22, 1980, p. 20. Cited from The New Biblical Theorists: Raymond Brown and Beyond, by Monsignor George A. Kelly (Servant Books, 1983), pp. 7-8.

4) Encyclopedia of Religion, p. 447.

5) Principles of Christian Theology, 1966, p. ix

6) Historicism and Faith, p. 37.

7) Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity, p. 25.

8) The Bible in Human Transformation, p. 26.

9) America, 11-20-1976.

10) "Polygenism" is the belief that the human race was produced by multiple numbers of first parents who each descended at various times from non-human ancestors. This ruling by Pius XII was, of course, a fatal blow to the infiltration of evolution theory into Catholic thinking, although, to this day, its proponents have a difficult time admitting it.

11) The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, p. 12. Although Fr. Brown follows this with "it will become apparent that I am not inclined in that direction,"we must point out two things: (1) Fr. Brown has no justification for introducing the topic of Christ's bodily resurrection by means of an interrogative, since, if Brown believes the resurrection occurred, there is simply no reason to question it; (2) the fact remains that Brown does not explicitly say that he rejects the historical-critical view that there was no bodily resurrection of Christ, but only that he is "not inclined" to their view. Rather than calling it "heresy," Fr. Brown leaves us with the impression that in the future he has the option of being inclined toward their view.

12) The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, p. 35.

13) The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, pp. 8-9.

14) The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 1169.

15) Walter M. Abbot, SJ, edition.

16) The Austin Flannery edition has a slightly different syntax, which for English readers, lessens the force of the Fr. Brown's argument. Flannery puts the clause "for the sake of our salvation" immediately after "God," thus attempting to indicate God's motivation for giving us Scripture, that is, so that we can be saved. It reads: "...we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures." In the Abbott edition, "for the sake of our salvation" is put at the end of the sentence and thus might lead someone to regard it as modifying "truth" rather than "God."

17) Latin: "directe et necessario sequitur immunitas absoluta abl errore totius Sacrĉ Scripturĉ...cum divina Inspiratio per se ipsam tam necessario excludat, et respuat errorem omnem in qualibet re religiosa vel profana..."

18) Paragraph 124 states: "Equally intolerable is the theory of those who...have no hesitation in maintaining that divine inspiration pertains to nothing more than matters of faith and morals."

19) Cited from Fr. Brian Harrison's essay The Truth of Scripture; Paul VI's Contribution to Dei Verbum 11, pp. 174-175.

20) Ibid., p. 177.

21) Ibid. Paul VI did the same in his Apostolic Exhortation Quinque iam anni in December 1970 as he said: "Even the divine authority of Scripture itself is called in question by a radical application of what is commonly called 'demythologization.'"

22) Against Faustus the Manichean, 33.7; A.D. 400. It is interesting to note that in his books Fr. Brown uses the apparent contradictions between Matthew and Luke to cast much doubt on the reliability of the infancy narratives.

23) Exposition of the Psalms, 147.10; A.D. 392-418.

24) Epistle 82, 3; A.D. 405.

25) Against Heresies 2, 28, 2; 4, 33, 8.

26) Dialogue with Trypho, 65.

27) Nineteenth Festal Letter, 3.

28) Orations 2, 105.

29) Panacea Against All Heresies 70, 7.

30) Homilies on Matthew 1, 6.

31) Letters 27, 1.

32) The references are: (1) Augustine, Gen. Ad Litt., 2, 9, 20; PL 34, 270-271; (2) Epistles 82, 3: PL 33, 227; CSEL 34, 2, p. 354; (3) St. Thomas, De Veritate q. 12, a. 2, C.; (4) Council of Trent, Ses. IV, de canonicis Scripturis: Denz. 127; (5) Leo XIII, Encycl. Providentissimus: EB 121, 124, 126-127; (6) Pius XII, Encycl. Divino Afflante: EB 539. See Flannery edition, page 757.

33) I am indebted to Fr. Brian Harrison for this keen observation.

34) Inside the Vatican, March 1996, p. 20.

35) The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1990), p. 1169. It is rather interesting that the Nihil Obstat given to the commentary was issued by the three editors, namely, Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer and Roland Murphy, which are listed as its "censores deputati" (Emphasis mine). NB: Although Joseph Fitmyer and Roland Murphy are not subjects of my present critique, the reader should be aware that they, and all the contributors to the NJBC, are of the same opinion about Scripture as Fr. Brown. For example, Jospeh Fitzmyer makes it clear in his book A Christological Catechism that he firmly believes there are errors in Scripture (NY: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 8, 10, 15, 19, 22, et al.

36) Inside the Vatican, p. 14, Nov 1995.

37) Originally published in Kairos, June 18, 1998; reprinted in Catholic World Report, Oct. 2001, p. 5.

38) Catholic World Report, October 2001.

39) John Vennari, "The Oberammergau Passion Play," Catholic Family News, Part III, July 2003.

40) John Paul II has endorsed this document, although it is not known whether he specifically endorses the historical-critical theory that the Gospels were written by authors other than the four Evangelists.

41) His Mercy Endures Forever, para. 24.

42) Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Crises Facing the Church (Paulist Press, New York, NY), pp. 7, 25, 55, 65, 91.

43) Ibid., p. 25.

44) Ibid., p. 112. Emphasis mine.

45) Robert A. Sungenis, The Catholic Apologetics Study Bible, The Gospel According to Matthew, Vol. 1 (Santa Barbara, CA: Queenship Publishing), p. 102.

46) For example, Fr. Brown stated in a conversation with Gerry Matatics that he did not believe the events of Caesarea Philippi recorded in Matthew 16:13-20 actually took place, and that Jesus did not say: "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church." This is the type of "fiction" that Fr. Brown sees all over Scripture.

47) Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Editorial, February, 2004, Kenneth Baker, S.J., editor, in review of Raymond Brown's 900 page book, An Introduction to the New Testament (Doubleday, 1997).

48) Crises Facing the Church, pp. ix, 9.

49) Crises Facing the Church, p. 7.

50) NB: I am not condoning the Church's reaction to Brown. They should have clamped down harder on his excesses, but since there is a crises in Church discipline, men like Brown think they have free reign.

51) Crises Facing the Church, pp. 7-8.

52) Crises Facing the Church, p. 11. Emphasis his.

53) Crises Facing the Church, p. 12.

54) NJBC, p. 1203.

55) Paragraph 37.

56) NJBC p. 1171.

57) Crises Facing the Church, pp. 12, 16. For CFN reader's information, Pope Leo XIII's 1881 encyclical Arcanum Divinae Sapientae flatly denies Brown's assertion regarding Eve, stating clearly that she was formed only when taken from the rib of Adam.

58) NJBC, p. 1149.

59) NJBC, p. 1171.

60) Crises in the Church, p. 18.

61) Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy, "The God Who is There" (IL: Crossway Books, 1990), p. 353, chapter 5, note 1.

62) Crises Facing the Church, p. 33.

63) Paul Tillich lived in adultery. Karl Rahner had an illicit relationship with a women. Teilhard de Chardin created false paleontological specimens, etc, etc.

64) The editor, Eugene H. Maly, S.T.D., S.S.D. (deceased), Dean of Theology, Professor of Scripture, Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West, Cincinnati, Ohio, writes: "Again, according to Daniel 5:31 Babylon was conquered by 'Darius the Mede.' Actually, it was captured by the Persians who had already conquered the Medes...But this does not affect the truth of the story that all these kingdoms would one day give way to the messianic kingdom" (The Good News Bible, p. xi, emphasis theirs). Liberal exegetes desire the "Persian" answer because it allows them to say Persia was one of Daniel's "four kingdoms" (Daniel 2:36-40), which would make the fourth kingdom Greece, and thus limit the extent of Daniel's prophecy to the time of 165 BC, well below the time of the Roman empire or to the end of time. To the liberals, Daniel was written by a Greek in the second century BC who already knew the events which took place in the past and wrote the book of Daniel as if Daniel were "prophesying" the events. The reality, however, is that the editor of the GNB has his history eschew. Darius did not come before Cyrus. There were two different men, with the name "Darius." One was Darius the Mede, the other was Darius I, a Persian, but they had nothing to do with one another. Darius I was Persian by birth, and a cousin of king Cyrus. He was not a Mede. Darius the Mede did not precede Cyrus as king of Babylon, rather, he began his reign seven years after the death of Cyrus.

65) Good News Bible with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha, Today's English Version, Second Edition (Catholic Bible Press, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, et al. 1993) with imprimatur from "Most Reverend William H. Keeler, D.D., President, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

66) NJBC, p. 1165.

67) NJBC, p. 1148.

68) NJBC, p. 1151, 1152.

69) NJBC, p. 1159.

70) NJBC, p. 1148.

71) NJBC, p. 1149.

72) Verbatim quote from Fr. Peter Stravinskas, as we were discussing Fr. Brown's commentary on St. John.

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