Second Sunday in Advent

Romans 15:4-13 * Luke 21:25-33

Taking a cue from the opening of today’s Epistle, and the last line from today’s Gospel, and of course the Collect, this Sunday has come to be called Bible Sunday. The Collect speaks of two things, one being the obligation of each one of us concerning the Holy Scriptures to “hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them;” the other being the work of the Holy Spirit as he uses those scriptures to grow within us patience and comfort that keeps us along the path to eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. And, if we think about the Epistle and Gospel for this day, we find that hope to be what our Prayer Book calls “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life.”

Recently, someone questioned me on why we refer to hope of the resurrection; after all, we hope for things that may never happen. I must disagree; we may wish for things that will never happen; but, hope cannot exist in such wishes. Or we may hope for things that might happen, but might not. But, to emphasize the meaning of hope as it relates to faith, we clarify our meaning with the words “sure and certain.” This comes from the Epistle to the Hebrews:

"Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil (Hebrews 6: 17-19).”

It is clear that St. Paul never separated hope from faith, and never separated these from charity. These virtues grow together, and hope depends on faith. Hope believes, and love works; faith hopes and charity labors. What feeds us in our sure and certain hope is the word of God. Faith grows within us when we hear that particular voice, the voice of God that we discern so clearly as he speaks to us now within the scriptures. They cannot become irrelevant. Written so long ago, when they are spoken or read God himself speaks in the present. Never are they worn out.

People have asked about the Holy Scriptures, when were they put together? One very unfortunate mark of our times is the quickness with which misinformation becomes “common knowledge.” Over the last few years some con artists have discovered that one way to make a lot of money in a hurry is to write a sensational, wholly misleading but shocking thesis about the Bible or Christian Faith in general, and then sell it directly to the public. The more revolutionary it is, the better. The more shocking, the more blasphemous, above all the more sensational, the easier it is to draw attention to it, and get it promoted on TV. We have seen these sensational works, all claiming to be a challenge to the Christian Faith, each make its rise and fall before burning out entirely. One very important point about that whole new industry is that none of those authors presents the shocking alleged discovery in the truly scientific arena of the academic world. If they did, they could not make the same amount of money overnight- or ever. If their shocking “discoveries” were put through the genuine process of scientific analysis they would die a quick death and be forgotten, and no one would get to make a killing. This con art was perfected by Elaine Pagels, herself someone taken seriously by the public, but never in the real world of professional academics, where her name is not respected at all. But, if she cries about the bad reputation she has in the academic world, she does so all the way to the bank.

As a result of the sensational, irresponsible and unprofessional, thoroughly unscientific misinformation that has been thrown in the face of the public for the last few years, several people think that the bishops of the Church assembled in Nicea and began cutting books out of the Bible. Most of the people who believe this also think the Emperor Constantine was running the Council of Nicea in 325.

A few facts help to clean up this misinformation. Even though he was the Emperor, and even though the Christians of that time knew that the Edict of Milan in 313 AD had ended two and a half centuries of persecution (a virtual holocaust during the earliest centuries of the Church), and even though they knew that he had the authority to return to the older laws that had made Christianity an offense punishable by death and revive them, he was not given the power to run the Council of Nicea. When the Council met and the Emperor presumed to address the bishops of the Church, they told him that he was not allowed to address the assembled bishops of Christ’s Church. Basically, they told Caesar, the Emperor Constantine to whom they owed so much, to sit down and shut up.

Now, about the Bible, the bishops at the Council of Nicea did not go about deciding which books were scripture, and which were not. All they did was to affirm in unity of mind that the books already perceived to be the Word of God were, indeed, just that. The Old Testament was not the issue at all, because it was declared to be the Word of God by no less a Person than the Living Word of God. These books had been received by the Jewish people for centuries, and were passed on to the Church with sure and certain authority. The process of recognizing these books was, by all accounts, the vox populi of the Jews. The Jewish people knew in what books to find that distinctive voice of God, and so it was that when Jesus Christ walked the earth and referred to the scriptures, in every synagogue of the Jews were those specific scrolls that formed the common library for all of them. We see in Luke that he read from the scroll of the prophets, reading from Isaiah and saying that scriptures spoke of none other but himself, Messiah and hope of the world.

In the earliest days of the Church this Old Testament formed the only Canon of scripture. But, by the early years of the second century we find that twenty-seven additional books were already received and quoted as the word of God; these twenty seven books forming an additional canon of scripture. These books are the New Testament. In some places a few questions were raised about II Peter, Jude and Revelation. But, over time they were received. In a few places some people thought that The Shepherd of Hermas might be part of the Canon of the scriptures of the Church. But, long before the Council of Nicea in 325, the Church had defined its Canon as the books we have now, adding to the Jewish scriptures it had inherited only the twenty-seven books we call the New Testament. Again, as it had been among Israel, when the scriptures were received and recognized vox populi, so it was with the Church of Christ and the canon of the New Testament. There were no books for the bishops to delete, but rather a Canon already established before any of them had been born.

Now, why was The Shepherd of Hermas not among the books of this Canon? Again, by that same vox populi that, by the principle of whether or not the people of God recognized the voice of God, this book had not been under serious consideration. Simply put, our fathers among the Jews and the early Christians simply did not hear the clear and familiar voice of God in any other books as they heard it in the scriptures. They knew the voice of God in the Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom Literature and the Psalms. And, they knew that same voice of God in the four Gospels, the Epistles and the prophecy of St. John the Revelator. They did not hear it as the voice of God in other books (not that most of them were ever aware of the many Gnostic writings given so much undue attention by today’s money making sensation mongers).

St. Paul tells us about the high regard we must give to the Old Testament in today’s Epistle: “Whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Think of that history of Israel, from the calling of Abraham to the coming of Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose again, the history of one people who were never allowed to give themselves over to sin and so be lost among the many pagan nations that served false gods. A people constantly purified by the prophet’s words, and many times by purging and suffering, given to captivity in Babylon but returned to their home after seventy years never to fall again into the worship of idols.

They were a people so purified that among them was found one young virgin who echoed the faith and obedience of Abraham, and more perfectly than the ancient patriarch himself. Written "afore time" was not only this history of the people through whom the Word, Jesus our Lord, would be incarnate, but the predictions made by the prophets of his life, his death on the cross, and his rising again. We all need to read Isaiah about the Suffering Servant by whose stripes we are healed, and who prolonged his days after dying, that he would live forever as the agent of the Lord’s will. We read of his suffering through the words of King David who foresaw the agonies of the Lord’s crucifixion, able to predict them in the first person as though suffering with him. We read also, in the words of this prophet king, of the joy of the resurrection of our Lord whose death was so brief a thing that he never saw corruption.

The Gospel today also gives us this hope, for the Lord himself assures us that his coming again will be our redemption, and that the fears and darkness of this age will disappear in the light of his glory. We are told to lift up our heads, not to look down and hang our heads. His coming to rule over heaven and earth, cleansing this world from all evil, from death and suffering, and all such things that will be no more, is sure and certain. And, if instead of comfort this fills your heart with fear, then consider that fear with genuine care. It means that you must cast off the works of darkness and out on the armor of light, repent from all your sins and turn to the Lord that you may enter that blessed state of sure and certain hope, and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

Does the voice of God fill you with hope or with dread? I hope it does one or the other. For, anyone to be indifferent to these words is the only real danger. As our Lord said in his parable of Lazarus and the rich man, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”1 Our Lord told the Church of the Laodiceans, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”2 

Indifference to the word of God is a danger beyond any other, closing the ears that they cannot hear. But, even if the word brings dread, this too leads to comfort and hope since the Holy Spirit uses what you hear to bring you to repentance, true repentance from the heart, and to faith in Jesus Christ. May God grant ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart to understand, that each one who is lost may turn and be healed. 3

The Epistle today speaks of Christ’s ministry first to his own people of Israel, and his ministry through those people of Israel that believed in him and became his disciples as it extends to all nations.

“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; In him shall the Gentiles trust.”

This brings to mind the words of Simeon, that he spoke when he held Jesus as an infant: “A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” 4 This light and this glory has been known to the world because it is the purpose of God to shine the light of Christ into every dark place. Into the darkness of pagan dread and superstition, into the darkness of ignorance and foolishness, into the darkest places of sin and death. This glorious light of Christ shines into the darkest places where we try to hide from God due to our own sins; and if we respond to his mercy that same light of revelation brings comfort and hope, the sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life. The invitation is extended by his word: come, eat and be filled with the food and drink of eternal life. Come feed on the Living Bread that has come down from heaven, and with hearty repentance and true faith receive Christ through these humble means unto everlasting life with him in glory.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

1. Luke 16:31

2. Revelation 3:15, 16

3. From Isaiah 6:9

4. Luke 2:32

Epistle Study for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Study of the appointed Epistle reading: 
Galatians 6:11-18

It may well be that Saint Paul’s words in this Sunday’s portion of his Epistle to the churches of Galatia, sound a bit strange. All of this talk about circumcision contrasted against the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and people “glorying”- that is, in modern English, boasting- about the “flesh” of these Christians, may well confuse a new Bible reader. It can lead to mistaken ideas. The first mistaken idea is that whatever Saint Paul was talking about cannot be relevant to modern people. The second mistaken idea is that this provides a basis for an anti-Semitic interpretation of scripture. Another mistaken idea would be we have no need for the authority and teaching of the Church.

In fact, let me deal with this third mistake. In so doing, I will have already answered the others. Since we speak in the Creeds of the Catholic Church and of the Catholic Faith, which we believe, we are stuck with the Catholic Tradition- and thank God we are. The Nicene (/Constantinopolitan) Creed says, “I believe One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” Yes, we do believe in the Church, because Christ Himself founded it and is its Head. But, in this great Creed you say I believe the Church; I believe what it teaches.

The scripture, without solid teaching of what it means, can be taken captive by any kook, fraud or con-man. So, when we speak of the Catholic Tradition we must go back to the ancient times, those early centuries when the Church was under persecution, or just emerging from persecution. We are saying that we believe what Christ promised, namely that the Spirit of Truth would guide the Apostles into all truth (John 16:13). And, as that promise of Christ applies to this passage from Galatians, the young Church first had to deal with a heresy that came about so early in its history that we see it addressed by St. Paul. When the Apostles and Elders gathered in Jerusalem, they also, with complete unanimity, addressed and refuted it (Acts chapter fifteen). This ancient heresy taught that, in order to be saved, a Gentile who converts to Christianity must be circumcised and live by all of the 613 commandments of the Law of Moses.

Trendy writers have sold the idea that some controversy raged over what to do with Gentiles converts. They sell the notion that this alleged controversy raged for years, even among the Apostles, pitting Paul against James, and maybe against Peter. They insist that we may infer, from this invented story of theirs, that important questions can go unresolved and debated within the Church for extended years before the Spirit leads us to a right conclusion. They use their false and contrived reading of the New Testament to justify new and outrageous ideas (including women's ordination and same sex blessings, etc.).

But, that tale of a raging and prolonged controversy is pure fiction; and so, like the future, it can teach us no lessons. What we really see in the New Testament is that the Proto-Council in Jerusalem was unanimous in its conclusion, without disagreement among the Apostles and the Elders. At the Council they unanimously affirmed the earlier decision recorded in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Acts, when they all agreed with Saint Peter that he had been right to baptize the new Gentile converts without circumcising them; because when the Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles, gathered that day in the house of Cornelius, God made no distinction between Jew and Gentile. The immediate and unanimous Apostolic conclusion had been, at that time, “Then hath God granted the Gentiles repentance unto life (Acts 11;18).” So, when a new teaching – a heresy- arose, as Gentile Christians were troubled by unauthorized teachers who wanted them to be circumcised and to keep the Law, Saint Paul was in complete agreement with Saint James, and with Saint Peter, and with all the Apostles, that the Tradition of the Church’s Apostolic doctrine (new as that Tradition was, but established nonetheless) had to be defended. What Saint Peter had learned by Divine revelation years before, when Gentiles first converted to Christ, and what his fellow Apostles affirmed without argument (if you simply read the record in the Book of Acts), was the very same teaching proclaimed by Saint Paul, and the same teaching that the Council in Jerusalem upheld for all of the churches everywhere. In short, the New Testament does not show a controversy among the Apostles, but rather that they were in complete unity, agreeing among themselves concerning what it was that the Holy Spirit had revealed. And so, in the New Testament we see the Church teaching the content of Apostolic witness.

What does this mean for you? It means that what the Church has always taught since its earliest days, as recorded in Scripture, is to be believed. In this case, believe and know that you cannot save yourself by your own power. That first heresy, that we are saved by circumcision and by keeping the 613 commandments, suggests that we have the power to save ourselves without God’s help--that we can pull ourselves up to Heaven by our own bootstraps. It teaches that the flesh is strong enough to obey perfectly the Law by its own power (Romans 8:3, Acts 15:10).  A few centuries later, this same idea would reappear in another form from Britain’s very own heretic, a fellow named Pelagius. Pelagius taught that we can, without God’s grace, live holy lives simply by our own will power; that Christ came merely to be our example. The man who worked hardest to refute the heresy of Pelagianism was Saint Augustine. He picked up the teaching of the Apostles back in the first Century, that we cannot save ourselves by our own power; that we need the grace of God.

Today we can speak of the heresies of the Judaizers and of the Pelagians with ease. But, think of what it meant for people back then to hear such teaching. What if Christ had come only to be the example of perfection? Would not we be without hope? We should all know about the problem of sin and death. Death is the flip side, and part of the problem, of sin; sin and death are two sides of one coin. One thing I do not need is a perfect example to make the sting of my condemnation worse. I need a Savior, both to rescue me from the reality of guilt (whether I have the good sense to feel guilt, or not), and to heal my fallen soul of its waywardness. Jesus the Good Example cannot save me; Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the Lord and Savior Who is One with the Father, forever God even as He takes into His own Person our human nature and redeems it, and by grace perfects it, can and does save me. And, no one else can; certainly I cannot save myself. In Christ, however, no longer am I bound for destruction, for an eternity of death without God. Rather, forgiveness is extended, along with grace and power by the Holy Spirit to be transformed, right up until that day when we are made partakers of the Divine Nature (II Pet. 1:4) because the One Who as God was made man, gives us even this very grace.

So, I trust you see that Saint Paul’s words are very relevant to you.

Second Sunday in Advent

Isaiah 55 * Psalm 119:1-16* Rom. 15:4f* Luke 21:25f

“Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away.”

Several years ago I met a man who decided to impress me with his knowledge. He took one look at my collar, and began to tell me about a book he was writing, based upon his idea that the Old Testament has a very different message, and a very different image of God, from the New Testament. He seemed to take this notion of his for granted as a self-evident bit of common knowledge, and he expected me to agree with conclusions he was drawing from this idea. He was shocked when I told him that he was completely wrong.

As you can tell, the Collect has drawn from the Epistle for today. The clear message is that God caused the Holy Scriptures to be written for our comfort. And, we need to know what is meant by comfort. We think of the word “comfort” in a very different way than this older English usage. We think of an easy chair, or lounging on a sofa, or roomy clothes. Well, the definition of the word has shifted, or, rather, its primary usage has changed. In the word “comfort” we find the word “fort.” And “fort” is a form of another word for strengthening, namely to fortify. Fortitude is courage, a fortification is a strong wall of defense, and comfort is to be “strengthened in the inner man,” to borrow a phrase from Saint Paul.

Another point, stated already in the words that the Collect has drawn from the Epistle, is the simple fact that the Holy Scriptures were written because God caused them to be written. In his second Epistle to his son in the faith, Saint Timothy, the Apostle Paul also wrote that the scriptures were, all of them, inspired by God. And, the word “inspired” means that God breathed them into existence, or that the scriptures were created by His Holy Spirit. Saint Peter made it clear that the scriptures were written because holy men were moved by the Holy Ghost. The scriptures are not merely human thought, and not merely enlightened thought. They are the word of God. The scriptures deal with something even more important than life and death; they speak directly to eternal destiny.

We need to know what this means. When the new Testament was being written, the scriptures were the Old Testament, since that was what had been written and received. It is a completely false idea that the Old Testament is inferior, or less the Word of God than the New Testament. When our Lord Jesus Christ spoke of the writings of Moses and the prophets, He commanded respect for those scriptures. He said: “the scripture cannot be broken.” He made it clear that the scriptures spoke of Him, that every one of His public actions was a fulfillment of what God had caused aforetime to be written for our comfort. He identified the Old Testament scriptures with Himself.

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled (Matt. 5:17, 18)."

Consider these words from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Saint John, vs. 37-39:

“And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”

Listen to what Saint Luke writes about Jesus after His resurrection:

“Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24: 25-27)."

Notice, “not all the scriptures concerning Himself” but, “the things in all the scriptures concerning Himself.”

Luke goes on a few verses later:

“And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things (vs. 44-48)."

While walking the earth, the Son of God proclaimed that the Old Testament scriptures were, in fact, actually testifying about Him. He was their subject. After His resurrection He expounded on the meaning of all the scriptures as the things concerning Himself, and opened the minds of His disciples to understand them.

As Saint Augustine put it, “The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.” The Old Testament, you see, is all about Jesus Christ. The absurd caricature of an angry god of the volcano at Sinai, full of nothing but wrath, being replaced by the good God and Father of Jesus Christ, was the anti-Semitic ranting of the ancient heretic Marcion, the worst of the early Gnostics. The God of Moses is our God; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and Christ is One with Him, as is the Holy Ghost. In fact, we can say that Christ gave the Law to Moses, in the words of the great Advent hymn, O’ Come O’ Come Emmanuel:

"O’ Come, O’ Come Thou Lord of might

Who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height

In ancient times didst give the Law

In cloud and majesty and awe."

So, too, the New Testament is rich with the reports of Christ’s actions, His words, His life, His death and His resurrection. They tell us, also, who He is: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God… And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1,2, 14).” It goes on to tell us how His Incarnation is extended in this world through time and space in His Church, founded by Him and indwelt by His Spirit. The doctrines of that Church are forever enshrined in the Epistles, and our hope made firm by the last prophetic Revelation.

I remind you of the Old Testament lesson appointed for Morning Prayer on this Second Sunday of Advent. Let’s take a look at part of that lesson from the 55th chapter of the book of Isaiah, vs. 6-11:

“Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

Often this passage is quoted as an excuse for ignorance. The implication is, we simply cannot know God’s ways, so let’s not form strong convictions about anything; let’s not be dogmatic. But, a careful reading shows the opposite. Wicked and unrighteous ways and thoughts must be replaced by God’s ways and thoughts through serious repentance. The ways and thoughts of God are made known to us, because like the rain and snow, they come down from heaven. His Word goes forth from His mouth. The key words are “ways and thoughts.” Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts…For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” Like the earth drinking up the rain and snow, we must drink up His word that comes down from heaven and that goes forth from His mouth. Our wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts must be replaced by God’s very own revealed ways and thoughts. That will, indeed, comfort us, as in fortify.

And, looking at today's Gospel reading in that light, we see that even the passages about the end times, the close of the age in which we live, were not written to satisfy fleshly curiosity. Like the passage from Isaiah, the message is to repent and be ready to meet the Lord face to face. A lot of time is wasted on useless speculation instead of hearing the clear message to repent and believe.

The Church has a very strong message. We have the scriptures in which we hear the voice of God Himself speaking to man. We can teach their meaning correctly, and no one else can even understand it. Only in the Church can we know how to understand the book of the Church. The scriptures did not simply appear out of nowhere. The Old Testament came through the first Church, which was Israel, the Jewish people. The New Testament has come to us through the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church guided, as Christ promised, by the Spirit of Truth. The Holy Spirit spoke through holy men of the household of God. We know what our book means. It has belonged to us, as God’s gift and deposit, from its inception.

And, on every page of it, whether in words written by Moses, or the Passion narratives written by the four Evangelists; whether the heart felt cries of David in the Psalms, or the patient and passionate teaching of Saint Paul; it is all speaking to us about Jesus Christ, the Living Word and incarnate revelation of God.

DID THE CHURCH PROCLAIM THE CANON?

by Fr. Laurence Wells

Not many years ago the ineffable Bishop Bennison of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania caused great consternation by telling a conservative congregation, when someone quoted a Biblical text to him, “Well, the Church made up the Bible and therefore the Church can change the Bible.”  His blunt statement was widely quoted, and rightly so, as a prize exhibit of where revisionist theology inevitable leads.  If his premise is granted, his conclusion is hard to resist. 

But honestly requires us to face up to the fact that Bishop Bennison’s assumption (“the Church made up the Bible”) is widely shared by many who would be surprised to learn that their view of Sacred Scripture is not very different from that of a radically modernist bishop.  For example, we find Bp. Kallistos Ware writing (The Orthodox Church, New Edition, page 199), “It is from the Church that the Bible ultimately derives its authority, for it was the Church which originally decided which books form a part of Holy Scripture; and it is the Church alone which can interpret Holy Scripture with authority.”  Whereas Bishop Bennison was blunt, Bishop Ware was genteel.  But their assumptions are identical and their conclusions are not so far apart.

In the more nuanced form, the Bennison-Ware logic is not infrequently encountered even within the Continuing Church.  I recall being told by one of our most learned and astute clergymen that the Protestant concept of Scriptura Sola collapses because “we must always remember that the Church proclaimed the Canon.”  (He did not seem to know the difference between Scriptura sola and Scriptura nuda, but that is another discussion.)

This is written to counter some facile conclusions from faulty data, namely, that (1) the documents which make up our Bible circulated for a time in some pre-Canonical status, which therefore (2) had no inherent authority until the Church bestowed that authority, and (3) the Church still retains a high degree of control in what Scriptural teaching it obeys, what it disregards, and what it adds.

There are many who suppose that this great act of proclamation occurred (like the Constitution which emerged from the 1787 Philadelphia Convention) at one of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.  But as far as the records show, this was not the case.  When Arian and Athanasian parties faced each other at Nicaea in AD 325, they were bitterly divided over the Person of Jesus Christ.  Yet both sides appealed to the same Holy Scripture and even if there were a few fuzzy areas in the Canon (along with some very solid areas), neither side tried to score points by arguing about the Canon of either Testament or the Bible of the opposite party.  In contrast to all the theological controversies which wracked the Christian community in those early centuries, disagreements over the Biblical Canon were few, local and minor.  Of course it is tempting to project later 16^th century disputes into Patristic times.  But the records do not bear this out.  The differences, such as they were, related exclusively to the third and last part of the New Testament, in which a number of writings, the so-called Antilegomena, were not so much controverted as simply neglected.

For those who wish to delve into the minutiae of how an official list of authoritative writings emerged in the Christian community, I would recommend F. F. Bruce’s The Canon of Scripture (IVP, 1988) and also Lee Martin McDonald’s The Biblical Canon (Hendrickson, 2007), a much bigger book which acknowledges its

debt to Bruce but does not always agree with him on details.  The history is too complicated to be summed up in the simplisms of Bennison and Ware.

Very briefly, we can say that in AD 367 St Athanasius, in his capacity as Bishop of Alexandria, issued his usual Easter Letter announcing the date of the Paschal feast.  (The Council of Nicaea had tasked him with this annual chore.)  In that year, he found it necessary to lay down lists of the books of both Testaments.  His list of the New Testament writings is the earliest document we possess which gives the New Testament exactly as we have it in our Bibles (and notably, this is one of very few things on which all of Christendom agrees).  These lists of both Testaments were almost identical to the lists prepared by a local Council held at Laodicea around AD 363.  The records of that Council, however, are less than clear:  it may have overlooked the Book of Revelation, but that is not certain.

Two points must be made concerning these “proclamations” of the Canon.  First of all, neither Athanasius nor the bishops convened at Laodicea were putting books into the Bible.  The purpose of the lists, as Athanasius made very clear, was not to include anything but to exclude false writings.  His first concern was liturgical reading.   He found it necessary to counteract a tendency to read from documents not considered inspired or authoritative.  (The Congregation on Divine Worship had to deal with a similar fad in the Roman Catholic Church in the heady days immediately after Vatican II.)  Athanasius wrote, after listing the 27 books of the New Testament:

“These are the ‘springs of salvation,’ [Isaiah 12. 3] so that one who is thirsty may be satisfied with the oracles which are in them.  In these alone [!] is the teaching of true religion proclaimed as good news.  Let no one add to these or take anything from them.”  The allusion here to Rev.22. 18 surely seems to indicate a closed Canon, already in place when Athanasius wrote.  Had he undertaken to compile something new, his adversaries would not have allowed that to pass.  If the Arian party could raise an objection to homoousion as a new word, they would surely not have tolerated a new Canon to the New Testament.

Secondly, we find a wealth of evidence that an official list of writings was pretty much in place from a much earlier time.  The so-called Muratorian Fragment (named for its 18^th century discoverer, Lodovico Antonio Muratori) probably goes back to the end of the second century.  It listed 21 of our 27 books, omitting Hebrews, James, I and II Peter, and II and III John.  Oddly, it listed also the Wisdom of Solomon as a New Testament book.  Not too much can be concluded from these anomalies, since the document is fragmentary and exists only in a late copy.  But what is important to us here is that the Shepherd of Hermas was specifically excluded on the grounds that it was recently written.  Certain Gnostic writers were also excluded as well. 

In both the Easter Letter and the Muratorian fragment, the Canon was not something proclaimed but rather something defined, delimited, and safeguarded.

The concept of Canonicity must be carefully distinguished from the concept of Authority.  The New Testament writings did not gain authority because they were canonized; instead, they were set apart and protected as “Canon” because they had inherent authority.  Asking how this exclusive list had emerged by the time of Athanasius is somewhat like asking how the original ministry of “the Twelve” had quickly blossomed into the monarchical episcopate and threefold ministry of bishop, priest and deacon.  The details are murky, but we can be sure that in neither case, ministry or canon, was this suddenly “proclaimed” by the Church.

St Irenaeus, who became bishop of Lyon, in Gaul, in AD 177, is one of our last traceable links to the Apostolic  Church.  He was a pupil of St Polycarp of Smyrna (AD 69—155), who wrote of his personal contacts with St John, the Beloved Disciple, “and with others who had seen the Lord.”  It was the burden of Irenaeus to combat the serious threat of Gnosticism.  As is well known, he emphasized The Apostolic foundation of the Church.  But he also emphasized the importance of Christian Scripture in safeguarding the Faith.  F. F. Bruce writes, in Canon of Scripture, p. 175,

“In all of Irenaeus’s argument, moreover, scripture plays a dominant part.  It is the abiding  witness to the one living and true God, ‘whom the law announces, whom the prophets proclaim, whom Christ reveals, whom the apostles teach, whom the Church believes.’  Irenaeus is well able to distinguish ‘the writings of truth’ from ‘the multitude of apocryphal and spurious writings.’   …. Irenaeus nowhere in his extant writings sets down a list of New Testament books, but it is evident that he had a clear notion of their identity.” 

But the NT Canon of St Irenaeus is not a complete mystery.  We know that he quoted from Acts and the Pauline letters.  More importantly, we know that he employed the concept of a “Fourfold Gospel,” listing Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, comparing them to the four quarters of the world, and condemning any who would add to this number.  (Remember, the Canon was exclusive, not inclusive.)

We seem to have a tantalizing clue to the formation of the New Testament Canon in the very arrangement of Paul’s Epistles.  It should be observed, by the way, that the Apostle to the Gentiles assumes in every extant letter that his writing will be received and read as authoritative Scripture.  There is no diffident tone of  “perhaps the Church will add this to her official list sometime in the future.”  In the arrangement of Paul’s Epistles, the first, Romans, is the longest, and the last, the brief letter to Philemon, is the shortest.  In between they come in order of descending length.  This may well tell us that they were gathered not in some random fashion but by a careful editor who arranged them according to a literary convention of the ancient world, into a unified Corpus Paulinum.  Why?  Because this editor recognized the inherent authority of Apostolic writing.  Bruce indulges himself in a delightful speculation that this careful editor was none other than Onesimus, the slave mentioned in Philemon, who could be the Onesimus who was recorded by Bishop of Ephesus by St Ignatius of Antioch.

Frequently we encounter an argument that the Church is “older” than the Bible and therefore has some greater authority.  This argument does not have all the facts on its side, as we find St Peter on the Day of Pentecost (commonly called the “Birthday of the Church”) citing the Book of Joel.  Similarly, when Our Lord began His public preaching in the Nazareth Synagogue, we find Him taking a text from Isaiah.  From its earliest inception, the Church had not only the concept of an authoritative Scripture, but a solid foundation in “the Law, the Prophets and the Writings” which we call the Old Testament (Luke 24:44).   It is striking to find the Second Epistle of Peter, perhaps the latest document of the New Testament, referring to the Pauline writings:

“And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also  the other scriptures, unto their own destruction (II Peter 3:15-16).”

Three things are notable here.  II Peter was not written to any particular Church, but is a “Catholic Epistle” addressed to the Christian community at large.  So the writer (I take him to be St Peter himself, but will not insist on it right now) applies Paul’s Epistles to the universal Church, not merely the seven local churches to which Paul wrote.  Second, II Peter surely seems to think of the Pauline Epistles as a definite collection, not just a bunch of old letters floating around.  But third, and unarguably so, he places them on a level with the “other scriptures,” that is to say, the sacred writings of Israel.  The New Testament Canon was asserting itself before the New Testament was even complete!

Another example of this phenomenon is found in II Timothy 5:18-19,  “For the scripture saith, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn”,  And, “The laborer is worthy of his hire.”  The first of these two citations (which Paul also introduced in 1 Cor. 9:9) comes from Deuteronomy 25:4.  The second, however, is found in no Old Testament passage whatever, but comes from Matt. 10:10 (from a long discourse relating to the mission of the Twelve).  This could be a bit of evidence for the writing of Matthew somewhat earlier than is commonly supposed.  But even if Paul is quoting an earlier form of Matthew no longer available to us, we cannot escape the fact that Paul quoted Matthew as authoritative Scripture. 

Modern writers have many good things to say on the “criteria of canonicity,” listing apostolicity, orthodoxy, antiquity, liturgical usefulness, inspiration.  But it is striking that the ancient writers have so little to say on the topic.  When they spoke of this or that New Testament book under the rubric gegraptai (“it is written’), the Canon is simply assumed as a Datum.  The Canon emerged, it surely seems,  naturally, spontaneously and fairly quickly, as something the entire Christian community, orthodox and heretical alike, quietly accepted with no great fuss or ado.  So the claim that “the Church proclaimed the canon” turns out to be a historical mirage and a triumphalist myth.

Just as the episcopate and priesthood emerged without any particular difficulty, and probably somewhat earlier, so the Canon appeared.  In both these early developments we may see the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, leading the people of God into all truth.  In the compiled New Testament, fenced in and set apart from all other writings, we have no human authority’s “proclamation.” But instead we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd calling to His sheep, and see the sheep following Him for they know His voice.

Lex Credendi

It is a favorite expression of many, Lex Orandi Lex Credendi. Literally, it translates "The law of prayer is the law of belief." It means, in practical terms, that as people pray, so they believe. At its best it supports the idea that the Book of Common Prayer is a Formulary, and that by liturgical prayer the Church passes on its teaching through practice. This is why our service of Holy Communion is one of the best evangelistic and catechetical tools we have. It teaches the whole Gospel every time it is celebrated. Every part of it, the Creed, the Canon of Consecration, etc., is at one time prayer, worship, evangelism and catechesis. The offices of Daily Morning and Evening Prayer also instruct as they are practiced.

Nonetheless, it is not wise for clergy to depend so heavily on this concept that they fail to teach diligently. The Canon Law of the ACC requires, in full consistency with the practice of the Church from earliest times, that at the very least every Sunday the priest shall preach, or cause to be preached, a sermon in the church. This is the minimum standard for carrying out his work as a minister of God's word, not the maximum. A sermon is not a seven minute homily carried out as a necessary evil; it is the preaching of God's word with preparation and prayer, carried out with diligence, produced by true work of the most responsible kind. Yes, the truth is well expressed in the liturgy, but somehow the human mind cannot comprehend it without teaching and preaching. 

Repetition has both an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that it enters the long term memory and stays there. Every priest who visits the elderly in nursing homes to bring Communion to them, when dealing with those who are barely able to speak and whose eyes can no longer read, sees that people raised on the Book of Common Prayer are joining in, praying from memory, moving their lips. It works. 

But, the disadvantage is that people who recite the words can shut out the meaning. One elderly woman, greeting a rector after a service in the Episcopal Church in 1980, unhappy with their 1979 book, complained: "If Jesus could hear that new book, he would roll over in his grave." She had said the words, "On the third day he rose again" thousands of times; but, somehow, she had ceased to hear those words. Lex Orandi is not enough, by itself, to produce Lex Credendi; the teaching and preaching ministry remains a chief responsibility of all priests.

Finally, at its worst, Lex Orandi Lex Credendi can be misused in theological debate. Individuals may insist that they can raise pious opinion to the level of dogma, or perhaps even argue erroneous opinion, by treating all approved or allowed prayers as if they were equal to the Canon of Scripture; though the latter may involve twisting the meaning of prayers or failing to think them through. This approach does not work, however, on orthodox theologians. 

For me, the slogan is more accurate if we reverse it: Lex Credendi Lex Orandi: As I believe, so I pray. After years of reading and studying the word of God, by which I mean the holy Scriptures, I am able to pray only according to my convictions. Eventually, for every student of theology, this must become the case. And, this too is a strength of our Book of Common Prayer tradition. Those who really know the Scriptures have no qualms about saying "amen" to the prayers in that book. C.S. Lewis pointed out that this is an advantage to having a proper liturgy instead of public prayers composed by a minister or improvised: No one fears to say "amen." Our Book of Common Prayer is so good and sound, that the more we know the Bible the more easily and readily we use our liturgy, and the more readily we say "amen" to it.

The Second Sunday after Christmas Day

Isaiah 61:1-3
Matthew 2:19-23

Today's Collect draws our attention to the relationship between the Word made flesh and the word spoken as recorded in scripture.

"Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

This is very fitting, because the readings appointed for this Second Sunday after Christmas Day remind us very much of this relationship. The living and eternal Word is the subject of the revealed Word of God, made known to Apostles and Prophets, recorded in the scriptures. We all know that the Word, or the Logos, (λόγος), is a title of Christ that speaks of him as an eternal Person, uncreated and one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is why the Gospel of John opens with a threefold mention of God.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God."

God is named three times, and this is because John begins right away to teach us about the Trinity. I grow weary of musical and dramatic readings of the prologue of this Gospel that edit out the third mention of God, as if it were redundant. It is not redundant, but necessary. John is saying this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (the Father), and the Word was God (the Son). The same was in the beginning with God (the Holy Spirit)." John later records the words of Jesus about the Other Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who "proceedeth from the Father." This is very important, because without the Trinity, the next major theme of John's Gospel would be lost, namely the Incarnation. For, he teaches us that "the Word was God," and then says in v.14,

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

Only this proper understanding of the double theme of the Gospel of John can help us understand all of its hardest, deepest and most puzzling statements. It is quite obvious that either John was teaching the substance of what later would be named the doctrine of the Trinity; or that he was completely incoherent. But, incoherent he most certainly was not. Those who cannot see the double theme of the Trinity and the Incarnation in the Gospel of John are forced to conclude that he simply rambled on without any meaning or logic. But, in fact his Gospel is well organized, and that is because it is thematic. Once you acknowledge the plot, so to speak, of the revelation of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that this revelation is made known because "the Word was made flesh," you can see the logic, the pattern, the scheme, of the book. It is like a fugue by J.S. Bach, with the subject stated, developed and woven throughout every measure.

But, here I am going on about the Gospel of John thanks to the Collect, and our Gospel reading today is from Matthew; and in place of an Epistle we have an Old Testament reading that is quoted in the Gospel of Luke.

In the reading from Matthew is one of the two most enigmatic portions where he quotes the prophets.

"And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."

Where exactly is that? In fact, I have seen many cases where Bibles with reference columns have pointed to the closest spot, closest to saying this, that the publishers can think of in the Old Testament. I have heard many explanations for why this or that verse is singled out, and all I can say is, it would help if only they knew Hebrew. I will explain this in a moment. But, first I want to look at Matthew's other seemingly far-fetched Old Testament reference (all his other Old Testament references make perfect sense right away). I refer to what comes earlier in the same chapter.

"When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son."

It is from Hosea 11:1. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." Or, so says the King James Bible. We see "child" and "son" as synonyms. But, not so the Hebrew, which uses the word נַעַר (na'ar). In modern English we would say "youth" rather than "child." The youth, Israel, and God's Son who is called out of Mizraim, or Egypt, need not be the same. The prophet foretold that like the entire nation of Israel, God's Son would be called to out of the land of Mizraim, or as our English Bibles say, Egypt. In fact, this has everything to do with Christ being a prophet like unto Moses. This comes from the 18th chapter of Deuteronomy:

"The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him...And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him"(15,18,19)

Indeed, the entire episode of saving the infant Jesus from a mad king who ordered the death of the male children, fits that pattern; and it was because of Herod that the holy family was sent by God into Egypt. As Moses came out of Egypt with the people of Israel, yet a youthful nation, God's Son came out of Egypt with the holy family, the chosen of the chosen, the virgin Mary his mother and Joseph his adopted father.

So, where does the Old Testament call the Messiah a Nazarene, now that I plan to relieve you of the suspense? The answer will surprise you. It is in Isaiah 11:1, and it will surprise you because no English translation will carry it.

"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his root."

Yes, there it is. Now, I did not see that at all until I read this in the Hebrew. The word for "Branch" is נֵצֶר (nazir). It may be rendered "and a Nazarene shall grow out of his root." As such, it may strike you that Matthew sees even something we may loosely regard as a pun, as having great weight. Jesse is who? The father of David; and so the reference to Jesse is clearly Messianic, foretelling the eternal and peaceful reign of the Lord's Anointed.

My reason for going on like this about the Old Testament prophecies is explained simply in that passage from the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus reads aloud the Old Testament lesson that we had in place of an Epistle reading. In the 4th chapter of Luke we read:

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." (16-21)

The point of all scripture is to reveal Jesus Christ, "for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9) As St. Augustine put it, "The New is in the Old concealed, the Old is in the New revealed." The Old Testament is about Jesus Christ. Through history, through shadows, through types, and through very direct foretelling in various places, it is all about Jesus Christ. When he rose from the dead, the Lord made this clear:

"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24:27)

This says "the things in all the scriptures concerning himself," rather than saying, "all the passages of scripture concerning himself." That is because all the scriptures are about him.

"And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." (Luke 24:44)

No wonder Matthew could seize even upon one word, and realize that it was significant. It is because the revelation of God is not simply a set of teaching, a body of laws, or even a great ideology. The revelation of God is in his Son; and without him we cannot come to the Father. God, who made man in his image and likeness, did so to send his perfect and express image, his exact likeness, his very Son. Jesus Christ himself, not simply facts about him, and not simply his teaching, is the revelation of God come into the world to save us from sin and death.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

So, we may repeat our Collect: "Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Archbishop Mark Haverland weighs in

on Bible translations

The following was written by the Metropolitan of the ACC:

The English poet and critic, C.H. Sisson, wrote a scathing review some years ago of the then new English prayer book called the Alternative Services Book (ASB). The lessons in the ASB were taken from a wide variety of modern Bible translations, but not from the Authorized Version, the so-called King James Version. Sisson’s acid comment on that decision was that the readings were taken from every translation but the best.

Since the first, great need in the matter of the Bible is to get people actually to read it, there is a place for modern translations. Archbishop Cahoon used to use the very simple, readable Good News Bible, whose formal name, I believe, is the Today’s English Version, for that reason. For people who may be frustrated by 16th and 17th vocabulary and verb endings, there is a place for modern translations and, especially, for the Revised Standard Version. But that place is limited: a starting point to initiate Bible reading and basic Bible knowledge. Personal Bible study can be encouraged by a sturdy, modern translation. Public Bible reading, and especially Bible reading in the context of public worship, should be from the best translation, which still is the KJV.

The desirability of the KJV of course includes its literary superiority and historical influence. However, I also have been interested to see some recent evidence of revival of scholarly preference for the KJV. First, I would mention the redoubtable Robert Alter. Alter is Jewish in background, but I do not know if he has any religious faith at all. He is nonetheless a brilliant reader and interpreter of the Hebrew Bible, as can be seen in such books as The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981) and The World of Biblical Literature (1992). In the mid-1990s a whole spate of books appeared on and about Genesis, and they included a translation and commentary by Alter called simply Genesis (Norton, 1996). In an extended preface to the reader Alter discusses the translation of Biblical Hebrew and agrees with the English scholar, Gerald Hammond, in arguing that the KJV remains the best translation.

Alter’s – and Hammond’s – reasons for this judgement are many. While the KJV is sometimes based on shaky Hebrew texts or imperfect understandings of the Hebrew, Alter points out that most modern translations have ‘a shaky sense of English’. Furthermore, modern translations tend to try to explain and interpret in the course of translation: what Alter calls ‘the heresy of explanation’. While translations are always something of an interpretation, the modern translations seem to embrace this fact as an opportunity rather than be aware of it as a danger. The KJV tends to be more literal, more earthy, more concrete, and less prettified than modern translations, all of which facts render it closer to the Hebrew. In fact the modern translations often place ‘readers at a grotesque distance from the distinctive literary experience of the Bible in its original language.’ (p. x) Alter provides many examples. One example here will have to suffice. The Hebrew word zera‘, ‘seed’, can refer both to plant seeds or to semen. It is used by extension to mean ‘offspring’, ‘progeny’, ‘descendants’. But the Hebrew, when meaning ‘progeny’, still always retains the direct connection to the more basic meanings of ‘seed’. The KJV consistently renders zera‘ with its basic Hebrew meaning, ‘seed’. Modern versions are liable to render the word with the derived, secondary, and less literal meanings of ‘offspring’ or ‘descendants’. This makes the text less literal, less concrete, and further from the Hebrew meaning and mind.

Alter also argues that Biblical Hebrew was a somewhat stylized, decorous language, not everyday speech, so ‘there is no good reason to render biblical Hebrew as contemporary English’. A fussily old-fashioned language also is inappropriate, ‘but a limited degree of archaizing coloration is entirely appropriate, employed with other strategies for creating a language that is stylized yet simple and direct, free of the overtones of contemporary colloquial usage but with a certain timeless homespun quality.’ (xxv-xxvi) And for that ‘the right direction...was hit on by the King James Version’.

Another recent writer, Calum M. Carmichael, also prefers the KJV. In The Story of Creation: Its Origin and Its Interpretation in Philo and the Fourth Gospel (Cornell, 1996), Carmichael writes that : ‘In quoting biblical texts I have relied on the King James Authorized Version of 1611 but have made changes where called for. I have used the AV because it is in almost all cases a more literal rendering of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts than any other translation. It also has the merit of reminding the reader of something I consider to be very important, namely, that biblical literature is a product of the past and hence of a culture quite different from our own.’

In recent years those of us who prefer the KJV have often been made to feel that we are benighted obscurantists, ignorant yahoos. How nice to know that professors at the University of California-Berkeley and Cornell think that we fuddy-duddies were right all along.

God the Father

I have commented about The New Revised Standard Version of the "Bible" (NRSV) quite critically in previous essays: "In fact the first mistake is in combining the first two verses of Genesis into one sentence, making it seem as if the world may have existed before God’s creation [as follows:] 'In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form…' The Hebrew simply does not justify this 'translation.' The first two sentences are not joined in the original. The older 'And, the earth was without form and void...' is literally correct, and it cannot be used to suggest Pantheism." If I erred at all when writing this, it may be in using the word "mistake."

Wrong, yes. That so-called translation (which is in keeping with several new trendy Bibles) of the opening of Genesis is definitely just plain wrong. From years of reading Hebrew, having learned Sephardic Hebrew in the early 1980s in courses offered at a Jewish college in Baltimore, from an Israeli instructor, I can say, without fear of educated contradiction, that the perfect English rendering of the first two verses of Genesis is what we find in the Authorized (King James) Version: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void..." These cannot be combined into one sentence without taking unjustified and excessive liberties. That is because the only honest way to translate these first two verses is as separate sentences, recognizing where the first ends and where the second begins. Nonetheless, just because the trendy renderings are wrong does not mean they are a mistake. I think it more likely that an agenda has been behind this, something quite deliberate.

The ideology of "Inclusive Language" caused problems in the NRSV, most obviously in Malachi 4:6. The deeply meaningful line, "He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse," is drained of its force. For, the words rendered "fathers" (אָבוֹת ,אָבוֹא both are plural forms of the root, אֲב) are mistranslated as "parents." These forms of the word אֲב (Ab, from which comes Abba) are different only in so far as one is plural and pointing to something- in this case the hearts of the children (or sons, בָּנִים)- and the other is that to which something is directed, namely the hearts of the children. The correct word is "fathers" in both cases, not "parents." The fathers here are the elders, the patriarchs, the prophets, as the New Testament rendering reveals in the only place where we are treated to an angelic commentary on Scripture, "the wisdom of the just." (Luke 1:17) The Proverbs of Solomon speak as highly of a mother's instruction as they do that of a father, even so, respecting a difference in kind. But, in the NRSV, the words of the prophet Malachi lose their meaning because of a modern ideology.

It has never been enough for promoters of "Feminist Theology" to take Inclusive Language only as far as human beings are concerned (which is itself unnecessary and confusing at best). In ways subtle, or at times not subtle, the agenda has been to replace God the Father with a goddess (about which I written before). To teach Creatio Exnihilo, "creation out of nothing," is to teach that God made everything by his Word, that He willed everything that is not God, every nature that is not Divine Nature, into existence, being alone Uncreated and eternal. This is God the Father, by His Word and by His Spirit making all things and giving them life. Against this revelation of Scripture, Feminist Theology teaches a universe equally eternal with God, indeed a universe that is God, in which life comes forth. In many parts of scripture where the active word "made" is found ("without him was not anything made that was made"-John 1:3), newer versions say something passive, such as "came into being." If instead of God the Father we have a Mother Goddess, a universe that is itself one with Divinity, such passive language takes the ideology of Inclusive Language to that ultimate realm of Godhead. Even regeneration is no longer the work of a Father who has begotten His children, so that "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth," (James 1:18) is made passive: He "brought us forth." God the Father becomes a fossil, and a new Mother Goddess, a pagan deity, takes over.

This may be new to western people with a Christian background. But, it is very ancient and has precedents that are rooted in Pagan cultures as diverse as the worshipers of the Ashtaroth and of Kali. To one infant sacrifice was offered, and the other consumes and destroys with demonic violence. Whereas genuine motherhood, as God created it, is about life and even nourishment and care, this demonic sort of Mother Goddess worship has always been about destruction. There is no logic to this, but history proves it to be a kind of demonic theme. Our culture, at the same time in which God the Father has been rejected in favor of increasing tendencies towards Pantheism and a Mother Goddess, has become very much, as Pope John Paul II phrased it, the Culture of Death. With rejection of God the Father and his Laws, compassion, justice and love have been sacrificed with the innocents by abortion, just as young children were burned in the fire to the consort of Moloch, the Ashtaroth. A Divine universe that brings forth life passively, from the resources of its own properties, has no argument to make for the unique meaning and dignity of any individual's life. Ultimately, if there is no God the Father who arbitrarily gives life and creates as He wills, there is no love.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life..."

Certainly, we must make no mistake about that.