Reading the Bible Fun Thoughts Thread

Started by Philip G., January 28, 2022, 12:03:07 PM

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Bernadette

#15
Quote from: Jayne on January 30, 2022, 08:44:34 AM
Quote from: Bernadette on January 30, 2022, 08:38:53 AM
Philip, I think you need a good commentary.

I don't think he wants a good commentary.  His goal does not appear to be discovering the Catholic understanding of Scripture.  He seems to be claiming that it is "fun" to make up interpretations as an exercise in creativity.  This is a deeply anti-Catholic approach to Scripture.

I can't make heads or tails of this thread. It just confuses me.
My Lord and my God.

Miriam_M

Quote from: Bernadette on January 30, 2022, 08:38:53 AM
Philip, I think you need a good commentary.

Yes, especially Philip, because you think that Paul is limiting slavery to the Old Covenant, when rather he is explaining the liberating and voluntary slavery, metaphorically, to the cross of Christ.  He is contrasting two radically different kinds of slavery, elaborating on why the New Covenant frees us from slavery to sin because Christ defeated sin and thus broke mankind's chains.

Philip G.

Quote from: Miriam_M on January 29, 2022, 02:49:09 PM
but remember that slavery among equals (equals as creatures) has no bearing on "slavery" of human beings to our God on whom we are dependent in every way -- for every grace, for every blessing, for circumstances positive and negative He allows, and for life itself.

If slavery among equals has no bearing on slavery of human beings to God, then find another word to use. 
For the stone shall cry out of the wall; and the timber that is between the joints of the building, shall answer.  Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and prepareth a city by iniquity. - Habacuc 2,11-12

TerrorDæmonum

Quote from: Philip G. on January 30, 2022, 12:33:14 PM
Quote from: Miriam_M on January 29, 2022, 02:49:09 PM
but remember that slavery among equals (equals as creatures) has no bearing on "slavery" of human beings to our God on whom we are dependent in every way -- for every grace, for every blessing, for circumstances positive and negative He allows, and for life itself.

If slavery among equals has no bearing on slavery of human beings to God, then find another word to use.

On the contrary, it is you who must change. The use of the word slave and its meanings are perfectly suitable for spiritual discussions and the Church has affirmed this from the beginning:

Quote from: True Devotion to Mary
These words of the Holy Spirit show that Jesus is the sole source and must be the sole end of all our good works, and that we must serve him not just as paid servants but as slaves of love. Let me explain what I mean.

There are two ways of belonging to another person and being subject to his authority. One is by ordinary service and the other is by slavery. And so we must use the terms "servant" and "slave". Ordinary service in Christian countries is when a man is employed to serve another for a certain length of time at a wage which is fixed or agreed upon. When a man is totally dependent on another for life, and must serve his master without expecting any wages or recompense, when he is treated just like a beast of the field over which the owner has the right of life and death, then it is slavery.

Now there are three kinds of slavery; natural slavery, enforced slavery, and voluntary slavery. All creatures are slaves of God in the first sense, for "the earth and its fullness belong to the Lord". The devils and the damned are slaves in the second sense. The saints in heaven and the just on earth are slaves in the third sense. Voluntary slavery is the most perfect of all three states, for by it we give the greatest glory to God, who looks into the heart and wants it to be given to him. Is he not indeed called the God of the heart or of the loving will? For by this slavery we freely choose God and his service before all things, even if we were not by our very nature obliged to do so.

There is a world of difference between a servant and a slave.

...

No other human state involves belonging more completely to another than slavery. Among Christian peoples, nothing makes a person belong more completely to Jesus and his holy Mother than voluntary slavery. Our Lord himself gave us the example of this when out of love for us he "took the form of a slave". Our Lady gave us the same example when she called herself the handmaid or slave of the Lord. The Apostle considered it an honour to be called "slave of Christ". Several times in Holy Scripture, Christians are referred to as "slaves of Christ".

Granting this, I say that we must belong to Jesus and serve him not just as hired servants but as willing slaves who, moved by generous love, commit themselves to his service after the manner of slaves for the honour of belonging to him. Before we were baptized we were the slaves of the devil, but baptism made us the slaves of Jesus. Christians must be either the slaves of the devil or the slaves of Jesus Christ.

Philip G.

#19
Quote from: Pæniteo on January 28, 2022, 01:19:51 PM
Quote from: Philip G. on January 28, 2022, 12:22:06 PM
The spiritually side of the discussion would be evident in the scripture passage.  Whether there is any truth to it in a culturally accepted practice such as simple ear rings is debatable.  But, take the practice piercings to the extreme, and I think one can definitely associate it with something not good.

That chapter is clearly treating slavery as a practice that is not condemned. Read the first two verses...you can buy people to serve you.

You are not fit to comment on scripture: it is very dangerous and bad for you and anybody who reads it.

Quote from: 2 Peter 1:20
Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation.

You are using your personal hidden revelations to make judgements and have "insights" that nobody else has. Mental illness leads to such clear and convincing thoughts.

And your own convictions are disordered and inconsistent. If you cannot even explain your own statements, how can you ever hope to make any sensible commentary on any other writings?

BUMP.  This coward says such hasty things about me, and then doesn't have the integrity to back up his claim.  It is not like I had to scour the scriptures for this, it is the direct footnote reference to the passage he tried to whack me over the head with.  He says because one was allowed to buy a hebrew servant, Moses locuta, causa finita. 

However, Jeremias 34:4, which is a footnote citation of the passage he is referring to tells us a different story about the virtue of that passage/mosaic law.  "At the end of seven years, let ye go every man his brother being a hebrew, who hath been sold to thee, so he shall serve thee six years, and thou shalt let him go free from thee, and you fathers did not hearken to me, nor did they incline their ear.  And, you turned to day, and did that which was right in my eyes, in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and you made a covenant in my sight in the house upon which my name is invocated.  And you are fallen back, and have defiled my name, and you have brought back again every man his manservant, and every maid his maidservant, whom you had let go free, and set t liberty.  And you have brought them into subjection to be your servants and handmaids.  Therefore thus saith the Lord, you have not hearkened to me, in proclaiming liberty to very man to his brother and every man to his friend.  Behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the lord , to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will cause you to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth."

The reason why buying and selling of humans in any manifestation is a mistake is because the proof is in the pudding.  The old covenant approved/tolerated practice was harmful to the superiors/slave owners.  Because, when the time came for them to honor God's commands of limiting the practice to six years, they all failed the test.  They failed to comply.

There are numerous examples in sacred scripture where the master of another does not honor the terms of service/God's conditions, and becomes abusive when the time comes for them to be made "an equal".  Think of pharoah.  God hardened his heart over an over again, and drowned him in the depths of the sea to illustrate God's displeasure with slavery.  Like the giants preceding and warranting the deluge, the evil dominating all the earth warranting the flood was most likely slavery.  God's mini deluge the Egyptians is likely the testament to this. 

Think of Jacob(I think) it was who had to serve his uncle for a certain amount of time to receive his uncle's daughter to be his bride.  When the years of servitude were up, his uncle did not honor the contract. 

The Lord/slave relationship harms both parties.  No surprise.
For the stone shall cry out of the wall; and the timber that is between the joints of the building, shall answer.  Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and prepareth a city by iniquity. - Habacuc 2,11-12

Miriam_M

Quote from: Philip G. on January 30, 2022, 12:33:14 PM
Quote from: Miriam_M on January 29, 2022, 02:49:09 PM
but remember that slavery among equals (equals as creatures) has no bearing on "slavery" of human beings to our God on whom we are dependent in every way -- for every grace, for every blessing, for circumstances positive and negative He allows, and for life itself.

If slavery among equals has no bearing on slavery of human beings to God, then find another word to use.

The contrast and comparison is made by St. Paul, not I.
;)
I wouldn't dream of rewriting either Scripture or great literature.

St. Paul finds the analogy useful, both theologically and spiritually.  If the metaphor were heretical or scandalous, his writings would not have been included in the Canon.

That's fine if you wish to discuss human-to-human slavery alone, and it that case I will bow out of this discussion if you wish me to, and I apologize if I misinterpreted.  It's just that I thought that originally, you had wished to discuss what is to you an inappropriate metaphor in Louis de Montfort (and perhaps in the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans?), when the metaphors being used on the spiritual, not concrete, plane are merely paradoxes.
:)

TerrorDæmonum

Quote from: Philip G. on January 30, 2022, 12:58:32 PM
BUMP.  This coward says such hasty things about me, and then doesn't have the integrity to back up his claim.

I am a coward? I repeated asked you to explain what you wrote about me and you did not do it.

As for hasty, do you forget?

Slavery and Catholics and Morality of Slavery are two different threads where you repeated posted and I responded. And I made this thread for historical slavery.

What did I ever write in haste on this matter? What claim have I never explained? When did I refuse citations?

You accuse me of random things, but you don't explain it.

Philip G.

#22
Quote from: Miriam_M on January 30, 2022, 01:58:23 PM

St. Paul finds the analogy useful, both theologically and spiritually.  If the metaphor were heretical or scandalous, his writings would not have been included in the Canon.
:)

St. Paul also drew an analogy with boxing.  I spent many years of my life boxing.  And, even I can recognize that there is an element of scandal in it, which is why you do not find me salivating over the threads on this forum discussing it.  Boxing is in many if not most respects a brutal blood sport.  But, it is in my blood, and that is not insignificant.  Riding dirt bikes is in my blood.  The culture is quite base, but riding is in my blood.  You don't see me forming sacred analogies from these, because I don't want to take the name of the Lord in vain. 

The same is to be said of any potential slavery analogy.  If st paul used an endorsing analogy of slavery, which I don't believe he did as you and others interpret, as a result of cultural and contextual influence, it still doesn't sanctify it.  An action doesn't become sacral because a fallible man who became a saint drew an analogy from it or wrote a book about it.  Even if it is in the canon, it doesn't raise it to that stature.  Divine revelation is not sourced from the canon/scripture alone, it is sourced from the canon/scripture, and sacred tradition.  What is sacred tradition?  In contrast with it's partner in determining divine revelation, which is scripture, we know what sacred tradition is by what it is not. 

Only Christ's parables are significant and unique in this respect.  Everything else takes on at the very least a twofold relationship.  The tunnel vision of trads in this regard is their flaw, and their undoing.



For the stone shall cry out of the wall; and the timber that is between the joints of the building, shall answer.  Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and prepareth a city by iniquity. - Habacuc 2,11-12

Miriam_M

Long before Vatican II, when the men in Rome running the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith could be counted on for their orthodoxy in matters theological and liturgical, the Roman Catholic Church interpreted all of the works within the Scriptural Canon and recommended all of them to the faithful for our spiritual edification and catechesis.  Now, I will grant you that some symbols in both the OT and NT, as well as some ancient figures of speech and cultural contexts may be less appealing to some of us than other ways of speaking and other comparisons, but the same can be said of some of the sayings of Our Lord Jesus Christ -- some of the language He uses, forms of address, etc., that can be off-putting when we read them through Western eyes, a couple of millenia later. 

Louis de Montfort's theology in itself is less important, even though he was canonized before the Council, in the old and more reliable process of canonization, so there is no reason for us to doubt his sainthood.  However, Louis relied for his own theology on orthodox scripture, and if he consciously or unconsciously drew from St. Paul in his own use of metaphors, that would not be terribly surprising. Like Paul, he was a product of his time, and in Louis's case, that meant vigorously opposing an anti-Marian trend in Christianity, to which he was reacting. 

Paul was opposing quite a bit, too!  His letters are filled with accounts of contention in the early Church and his defenses of his positions on some of the controversies therein. Yet the Church long ago and through today recognizes all of the human writers of the Bible as instrument's of divine authorship, and clearly that would include Paul.  He is so revered by the Church that he is considered inseparable from Peter:  Where Peter is, there is Paul. 

That does not mean that you or I have to like Paul's style.  Style is very different from message, and from the early Church on, the hierarchy has exhorted the faithful to read all of the books of the Bible for the messages.  If you prefer the Epistles of Peter and James, being that they lack metaphors like boxing and slavery --I'm not a runner, for example, so I can't relate to Paul's running a race metaphor -- then you should follow your inclinations. (The Church also exhorts the individual Catholic to be guided by the Holy Spirit in what we read more of and less of.)

But what cannot be true is that the early Church somehow got it wrong when establishing the Canonical books in the 5th century because of some way you, today, disapprove of Paul's language in his epistles. Those books are part of the permanent deposit of faith.

TerrorDæmonum

Quote from: Miriam_M on January 31, 2022, 01:13:38 AM
Long before Vatican II, when the men in Rome running the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Considering the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" did not exist under that name until after Vatican II, that would have been quite tricky!

Pre-Vatican II, it would be The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (after 1908), and previously Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (since 1542, when it was founded).

Severinus

Greater love has no man than this, that he give up his life for his slaves?

Miriam_M

#26
Quote from: Pæniteo on January 31, 2022, 01:22:54 AM
Quote from: Miriam_M on January 31, 2022, 01:13:38 AM
Long before Vatican II, when the men in Rome running the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Considering the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" did not exist under that name until after Vatican II, that would have been quite tricky!

Pre-Vatican II, it would be The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (after 1908), and previously Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (since 1542, when it was founded).

Yes, I often forget the technical name change.  I should have simply referred to the doctrinal offices and functions, pre-V2 !

Philip G.

Quote from: Miriam_M on January 30, 2022, 01:58:23 PM

I wouldn't dream of rewriting either Scripture or great literature.


Scripture says "and your young men shall dream dreams".  Women aren't the "dreamers" Miriam.  Women are the ones that "dare".  I am not dreaming when I say that if you translate "slave" across the board in all contexts from the word "servant", you are daring to rewrite scripture. 
For the stone shall cry out of the wall; and the timber that is between the joints of the building, shall answer.  Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and prepareth a city by iniquity. - Habacuc 2,11-12

Philip G.

#28
Quote from: Severinus on January 31, 2022, 07:41:07 AM
Greater love has no man than this, that he give up his life for his slaves?

Exactly, we know what Tradition is by what it is not.  And, that has never been translated or interpreted as what Jesus said or meant.
For the stone shall cry out of the wall; and the timber that is between the joints of the building, shall answer.  Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and prepareth a city by iniquity. - Habacuc 2,11-12

TerrorDæmonum

#29
Quote from: Severinus on January 31, 2022, 07:41:07 AM
Greater love has no man than this, that he give up his life for his slaves?

Quote from: Philippians 2:5-9
Hoc enim sentite in vobis, quod et in Christo Jesu qui cum in forma Dei esset, non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalem Deo sed semetipsum exinanivit, formam servi accipiens, in similitudinem hominum factus, et habitu inventus ut homo. Humiliavit semetipsum factus obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis. Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum, et donavit illi nomen, quod est super omne nomen ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum,

Were we not told to follow Him?