Exegesis

Questions and Answers

What do you think of this essay, particularly its assertion that dogma is more certain than Scripture study?

The dogmas of the Church largely amount to solemn definitions of how we are to read and interpret the Scriptures. There are vast number of problems in the Scripture about which we have no certitude. A few easy examples:

• Joseph and Mary's home town (Mt: Bethlehem, Lk: Nazareth).
• The Last Supper (Mt, Mk, Lk: the Passover meal; Jn: the day before Preparation Day).
• Date of Jesus' death (Mt, Mk, Lk: the day after Passover; Jn: Preparation Day).
• Divinity of the Holy Spirit (the evidence in Scripture is very weak and easily controverted).

Are there any orthodox biblical scholars you would recommend?

Francis Martin is magnificent.

Anything from Ignatius Press is reliably orthodox.

In online reading and discussions, I have noticed that sola scriptura soon becomes sola philologica and solus doctor. That is, an approach of "Scripture alone" really means that historians and linguists (with their passing, debatable theories) determine the content of the Christian faith.

Yes.

Many Protestants seem to still use a "magisterium" of sorts, but one which is not really acknowledged and which, despite its huge role in determining Protestant doctrine, formally claims no infallibility.

All Protestants are self-referentially inconsistent. They maintain many of the Church's authoritative teachings while authoritatively denying the authority of the Church to teach authoritatively.

In principle, all Protestants are their own pope. That's why non-denominationalism and churchless "spirituality" are so popular today. People are drawing out the logical conclusion of "private judgment."

It's funny how, when I've challenged Calvinists online concerning the canon (e.g. "How do you know, for certain, that Romans is divinely revealed?"), they quickly resort to a kind of fideism, quoting things like John 10:27 ("My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.") which /any/ Christian group could cite if they didn't want to have an argument. It's basically an appeal to one's own election.

Yes. You could also call it a form of gnosticism: people claim to just "know" that the Scriptures are the word of God, without acknowledging that this faith is dependent on the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

I've read that the French Oratorian Richard Simon began his Old Testament research as an apologetic effort against Protestantism. He argued that, on a textual level, the differences in the Bible (e.g. Masoretic text vs. Septuagint, different readings of the same verses, vagaries in our knowledge of the Hebrew language) meant that sola scriptura was impossible in practice.

I think he's right.

Note, too, that "sola scriptura" is a non-scriptural doctrine.

If it is true that all doctrine must come from a literal reading of the Scriptures, then "sola scriptura" is false.

The basic divide in Protestant interpretation of the Scriptures began with the issue of whether any innovations not explicitly prohibited by the Scriptures were acceptable (e.g., the seven sacraments and the liturgical celebration of them). That was Luther's view. The Calvinists said that anything not explicitly commanded by Scripture is unacceptable; hence the reduction of the sacraments to two (Baptism and Eucharist) and the radical reduction of the liturgy to its bare essentials.

Other pages

• The Christian De-literalization of the Old Testament
• Determining the canon of the Scriptures