Father Spitzer’s Universe - 2018-11-14 - Jesus's Message About His Father

[Music] [Music] and welcome back once again to father Spitzer's universe located at the intersection of faith and reason it's a busy intersection these days I'm Doug Keck your host here at our EWTN studios our Mother Angelica Way where it all began the mothership as we say as we explore father Spitzer's universe and of course we only have a program if you give us feedback and that's how we get our questions through emails and of course you can check us out on Facebook and send us a question that way or you tweet us on Twitter and for all things father Spitzer there's the magic Center website magic Center website so it's magic center.com and of course there's the credible Catholic dot-com site which is what we're working through in the various modules and there's the big book and then there's a little book there's lots of stuff there you should check it out and speaking of big books and little books we've got the spiritual wisdom a mother Angelica's box set on religious catalogue it came out now you know maybe you bought one of the books maybe you were thinking of buying the books those mini books were fabulous now they're all out together including praying with Mother Angelica and on Christ and Our Lady's suffering and burnout there's a whole series of books they're all contained so if you missed out here's a chance to get as you can see on the screen to get them all at once and maybe you've read the books over these years and you've found them very helpful you know you are it's our goal to pass along what we're given from our Lord and Mother Angelica is still spreading that wisdom in this great way maybe a Christmas gift for someone in your family maybe your mom maybe your grandmother or your aunt or someone like that who really enjoys listening to the wisdom of Mother Angelica which all of us here at EWTN really appreciate in some ways more today than ever before because it seems that much more oppression going forward than even at the time when mother said it with that being the case we're gonna move to another person who is quite prescient and that is father Robert Spitzer out at the Christ Cathedral campus where our studio is in Orange County California great to see again father great to be with you to dig the and so if you'd like to start us off with a prayer only after that exorcism show last week I think we could use them right exactly in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father we give you thanks for the many blessings that you give us especially the blessing to be with this audience and to serve your church and your people ask you to send your Holy Spirit down upon us this day to protect us from all evil and to inspire us and to guide us so that everything we do will be brought to fruition in your will for the edification of your church this audience your people and your kingdom we ask all of these things through Jesus our Lord amen and Mary seat of wisdom pray for us name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen very good okay so we're yeah we never got around to focusing on the miracles of Jesus so we've got that ahead we still have a couple of questions though kick things off one of them kind of held over from a couple of weeks ago dear father Spitzer now during your conversation about the exorcisms of Jesus net this was the show two weeks ago you said many times that Jesus almost certainly said these words so coughs repeat that again Jesus almost certainly said these words I didn't know that there was any uncertainty about the historical reliability of the Gospels please clarify thanks and this is from Steve in Beaumont Texas hey Steve there's not a lot of you know a difficulty or uncertainty about the precise words of Jesus what's going on here is you probably know that there are three stages in which the Scriptures were constructed the first of course the beginning stage is Jesus himself and that gives rise to what's called an oral tradition and an oral tradition is one word you know the Apostles or any of the witnesses who had heard Jesus right they they listened to these things and they remembered them and but they're keeping them in their memories and it goes from then the oral tradition it gets put down into what we'll call our first initial written tradition so some written traditions begin to arise out of the oral traditions before they are assembled by the evangelists and so that's kind of the second stage we've got some what we call early Aramaic that's the language that Jesus spoke it's not in Greek we've got some early Aramaic traditions that go back to Jesus himself or we see these Hebrew words these Semitism these Aramaic words etc and then it goes to a third stage and the third stage gives rise to our what we call our five major written sources right and then so that's going to be mark the Gospel of Mark then Q that we talked about two weeks ago then Matthew special Luke special and John now once that we have those five traditions now notice that two of those traditions are already Gospels mark and John but then of course Luke and Matthew combined mark plus Q and in the case of Matthew Matthew special and Luke combines mark plus Q plus Luke special and so that gives rise to our four Gospels now when we're talking about going back to the exact words of Jesus remember you're going through three transitions before you get to the gospel plus of course you've got the Gospel writing a gospel writer let's say mark or Matthew or Luke trying to put this down in print to correlate with what's come before and after so yes you know of course we think that these are the words of Jesus but can something you know you know be the you know from the actual Greek text of the gospel all the way back to the Semitic Aramaic text of Jesus could something be you know kind of not lost in translation but you know you know change slightly not to change the meaning or not to change the actual you know intended word of Jesus but can something be lost when you're translating for example Aramaic into Greek the answer is yes can you get differentiations of translation from the Aramaic into Greek yes can you get the differences in what people thought they heard in the initial oral interpretations of what Jesus said and and what they kind of remembered that he said yes you can and so of course you know we try to use that's why we try to use these these various what are called you know historical criteria to establish that the closest translation we can get the closest text we can get to Jesus is Aramaic we're constantly trying you know to do this so that we can see the true meaning you know of what is intended and so and then of course to get the true meaning in English now of those Greek texts which are translated from those earlier traditions in Aramaic so you know there's always going to be a little bit of waviness you know in in all of these translation and remembering processes but we have very very very good techniques for you know trying to solidify the historicity and what's called the abscissa my box and the abscissa moverá of jesus the abscissa my box means you know the voice the same voice as Jesus and the abscissa moverá verbum means the exact words of Jesus and so you'll see that there are exegetes like Joachim Jeremias for example who have dedicated themselves and volumes and volumes of historical and translation work have dedicated themselves to trying to get back to that exact it obsessing moverá of Jesus trying to get as close to the Aramaic text as they can trying to validate the Aramaic text within the tradition and linking it closely with the historic the style of the historical Jesus that they can and and of course they do a very good job at that and so yes there's a high degree of reliability that mm much of what we have is the abscissa moverá BA and if it's not the obsessing aver but it's certainly the abscissa team of ox of Jesus himself okay good good and I want to jump ahead if we can while I ask another question for the because we have a question somebody sent in regarding Q and I wanted you to kind of talk about that well while we get that question because I know we have it we can get that one up let me just ask you the idea of not that long ago someone I forget who it was but it seemed like somebody at least a bishop if not a cardinal made some reference or maybe it was just somebody who was a well-known writer saying that I'm offhandedly well you know we really don't know what Jesus actually said I'm assuming you don't agree with that I don't agree with that I think that that that's about the dumbest remark I've ever heard I don't want to cast aspersions on a cardinal or something but you know the guy just invalidate it all of the work of about 16 really brilliant historical exegetes who wrote volumes of work to validate exactly what Jesus said to get back to the abscissa moverá but he just invalidated it in one fell swoop that's that's not the brightest thing that's ever been done we we can expect something a little better than that maybe some you know a specific passage where you have questions okay you know something of that nature but I think we can get back you know to these textual meanings so know that that's not a very that's not a very enlightened comment it certainly is not a very educated comment and and of course it you know it just plays right to this kind of Jesus Seminar skeptic exactly and I which we really do not need right now in the church we're battling everything right and left and it's just not only is it needless it's wrong I mean you know I mean this is what we have historical criteria for this is why we you know go through all these rules of form and redaction criticism this is why we try to get to the most exact Greek text that we can identify all of these Semitism that are there apply the principle and the criterion of discontinuity the criterion of multiple a destination the criterion of Jesus's style which is called the criterion of coherence etc etc so I mean you know come on I mean it's just like saying oh you know somebody who doesn't understand a single bit of math you know just say oh that that calculus is needlessly complicated and we just don't know whether it gets to anything anyway well then all the bridges collapse you know what an unenlightened statement that is okay so but because that that's what you know sometimes people get nervous when we start you know we're trying to be specific and put a fine point on it but then it sounds like well that allows people to kind of pour in whatever meaning they want say well if we're not really sure then you know we can kind of make our own version of what our Lord man who didn't mean at some particular time in history here's another question yeah okay okay dear father Spitzer you spoke recently about the Q source that the Gospel writers used is there any evidence that such a source actually existed is this just a hypothesis I understand well that there are other ways to explain the commonalities between the different gospel accounts and thanks and I don't know if this is anonymous or there's no name so sorry okay all right well anonymous I'll just say this really quickly the there are other ways of explaining commonalities between Matthew and Luke and and maybe you know one such way is by another hypothesis called Matthew Aramaic and you're absolutely correct QED is a hypothesis we don't have a written record of QED here's the problem the other ways of explaining commonalities like Matthew Aramaic text we don't have that either so we just don't have you know that a kind of evidence I do think though that the best hypothesis we have is Q namely this written source in probably in Aramaic of sayings of Jesus and lists of Jesus of Jesus's events or activities those lists of activities and sayings that under the rubric of QED is probably the best way of describing it because Q is very general it just means a source a written Aramaic source you don't have to commit to matthew aramaic you don't have to commit to something else which you know goes you know beyond the evidence we have we just know that there probably has to be some common source that Matthew and Luke borrowed from that you know and it doesn't look like that common source Luke and Matthew weren't really looking at each other's Gospels that's the problem and and so we have very good evidence of that and so it seems very likely that they had two common sources mark and this other one we hypothesize in a general way called Q which just means source so it's the best hypothesis we currently have and probably everyone on the papal Biblical Commission basically ascribes to that but there are other hypotheses but they tend to be more specific and they get you out onto a Ledge that your hypothesis might not be able to sustain in the future and certainly in my understanding of how you're presenting Q it's not that that's a way for us to undercut the veracity of the gospel know the Gospels of course but sometimes I think you know here that think well what you know what is this other source I thought this was written by these three evangelists yeah no no you're absolutely right I mean it doesn't undercut it at all I mean it's just a source a common source that both Matthew and Luke borrowed from obviously Mark and John did not borrow from Q and did not know Q but Matthew and Luke presumably did and there's nothing wrong with borrowing from an earlier Maniac source that actually you know you know helps us to trace it right back to Jesus because Jesus spoke in Aramaic he didn't speak in Greek well occasionally he spoke some Greek words but by and large he spoke in Aramaic and when he was quoting the Psalms or something he spoke in Hebrew but for all intents and purposes that leads us closer it gets us back ever more closer to the source of who is of course Jesus himself okay great here's another question on a slightly different topic but referring to an earlier show hi Father and reference to an earlier program did the Angels show fruits of the spirit in the Bible they seem to be rather businesslike also Jesus never struck anyone dumb for unbelief like Gabriel did to Zechariah where was the patience and kindness their question mark thanks George you know George III have to say first of all yes angels of course because their angelic greatly manifest the power Grace inspiration and all of the charisms of the Holy Spirit absolutely and unqualifiedly now I think what's giving you some kind of hesitancy is is because the angels in the Bible are remember you're not getting a tractate on angels George what you're getting is a really really brief scene that includes an angel who is specifically a messenger so somebody the angel the only thing we really are seeing about the angel is that he's being a messenger you know and and so that's the first thing we're not getting up like a full tractate on an angel what you know Raphael or Gabriel or a Michael was really like right so we don't we're not getting that we're getting much more you know a sense of you know that this messenger role that the angel plays and that's what gives rise to the businesslike appearance it's just then function that role that we see this angel who has a vast array of powers and charisms in this right our manifesting the second thing is you know what what about you know striking poor Zecharia you know dumb what was the point of that and the point of that is you know everything remember these are not people from 21st century America these are people who are brought up in a Semitic culture and just deeply deeply involved in what we call the Old Testament Scriptures right and and of course he is a priest a Zechariah is a prison and knows those scriptures and so he's going to be you know that the interlocutor you know the the angel is going to be speaking with him as it were you know a person in this culture and their everything is in the active symbol so the striking of zechariah dumb right is is you know a manifestation that goes back in the old testament to you know other Old Testament figures and of course the reason for being struck down is the act of unbelief and so is it going to be remedied yes does this get the attention of all the people around you know about the significance of John the Baptist yeah hey wait a minute he was struck dumb everybody in the whole neighborhood is gonna figure this out right now do you see Zechariah of course he is anxious of course you know he scribbles out exactly what is required his name is John and when he obeys the commandment of the Lord he is given his voice back the Zechariah believed that he will be given his voice back when he pronounces the true name of his son his name is John absolutely and so you know it's it's what I would call Old Testament talk and it has two functions number one it communicates directly to Zechariah the priest and number two boy does it get the attention of everybody around particularly when his voice returns upon saying the true name of his son so that's the reason for the dumbness it's not anything intrinsic to the Angels themselves right and would give a specialist to John that might have been reflected ladies people saw him taking on his mission and remembering that past situation occurring as well a good point of adding validity to it another question here's one you said that our venial sins are forgiven during Mass and I do go to daily Mass is that okay to still mention those same venial sins that were forgiven during Mass when I go to the sacrament of reconciliation if these sins are forget Li okay of course sometimes the priest might say you don't have to do that but if these sins are forgiven and Mass and we have no mortal sin to confess then why do we go to confession I continue to pray for your eyesight oh that's nice and yeah well and you know the sacrament of reconciliation remember has great Grace's associated with it and you know Ignatius wanted Jesuits to go to confession very very very very frequently now of course you know the assumption is that people like Saint Francis Xavier we're not committing mortal sins right and left right but the point necessarily though is why would Ignatius want them to go to confession it's not so much that they have to confess their venial sins it's because there's a great grace of deeper moral conversion associated with that sacrament and so when the priest gives absolution he's not just he obviously is giving absolution no question about it which is the complete remission of our sins however he is also you know giving us it you know through him he's giving us a real great grace of deeper moral conversion through the sacrament and of course it comes through the examination of conscience which we have and that's what Ignatius of Loyola really wanted Jesuits to do was to dig more deeply examine their conscience relative to these venial sins so that they would constantly keep striving to deepen their moral version and to receive then through that examination of conscience and the grace of absolution to receive that additional grace to help them deepen their moral conversion you know so that they get ego out of the way ultimately and are ready to inherit the fullness of the kingdom of God immediately upon their death and that's that that the tremendous grace of that sacrament but anyway that's that's the reason for it right and I was thinking about what you were saying in a sense I know Teresa Vil always said you've got to watch out for those venial sins they build they break down your resistance to the mortal sins but the the idea also that sometimes if you go to Mass and say well I haven't committed any moral sins and I went to the Eucharist and so now all my sins are forgiven but I haven't necessarily focused on like you were saying what those were with the idea of focusing on not doing them even though they're only quote-unquote venial sins again that's right that's exactly right and so essentially what we're dealing with is you know just getting this extra examination of conscience and this extra grace after the examination of conscience coming through the sacrament coming through the right of absolution mm-hmm here's another question similar and a priest refused giving me absolution since I confess the same mortal sin on the previous week and that I was not repentant now I'm not sure whether the person saying they weren't or the priest didn't think they were so he advised me to fast and increase my prayer life then come back in two weeks what if I died during this two-week period would I be forgiven because my intent to confess or would I be damned thank you Father this is Greg so Greg here's the first well two quick things number one yes your intent to be forgiven and to go to the sacrament that absolutely would count for forgiveness in the eyes of Christ and that's right in your catechism of the Catholic Church so you know that the main thing is that you're intending to to get at earliest convenience to get to the sacrament of reconciliation and if you should die before yes your your your your prayer for forgiveness would be forgiven you know it's an imperfect you know means but it would be forgiven just on the basis of the intention to go at your earliest possibility to confession in this case the priest has told you to wait for a while to do that now again that you know that that's an interesting thing I you know I don't know why the priest would have thought you were not repentant that's almost you know like reading your heart a lot of priests don't do this and so I don't know it you might have given him some reason to think that but if you really didn't give him some reason to think that gee I you know I you may want to seek another confessor there because it just doesn't sound right that he has the ability that's what your heart seems kind of confusing I guess though if I did go and let's say for the sake of argument we just say he went there he confessed this sin but and because he knew it was a sin but he wasn't repentant for doing it you know now if you weren't repent right that's doing it right and and and you thought that well I'm just going to go back and do this again well that that would be a problem right but if you did not think that instead if you thought no I'm gonna try not to do this again right and then you did it then honestly your repentance is is good so you know I mean if it was your intention to to refrain from doing this and then then you know you are sincerely repent and that's you know that's the whole thing I regret doing it and and I I'm gonna try not to do this again now you might think to yourself while I might do it again but that doesn't invalidate your free intention at the time of the confession to try and refrain from doing it so I you you must have given him you know some thought that you know you you weren't gonna try and refrain from doing it and if you didn't do that honestly I don't know what made him think he could read your heart I know say Padre Pio had that capacity but he was generally right you know he hasn't been hearing confessions recently that I'm aware of you know I would just say you may want to find some rowdy you know if you didn't give a person any reason to think that you you you weren't gonna try and refrain from doing this in yeah exactly that's that's what's a little confusing so with that being the case we're going to take a break we'll be back with father Spitzer momentarily here in the heart of father Spitzer's universe will talk about the miracles of our Lord Jesus and talk about healing in the scriptures stay with us much more at [Music] pleased to see you stated with us right here in father Spitzer's universe is talking about the miracles of Jesus continue with the program and with father Spitzer out there at the Christ Cathedral campus which started to talk a little bit about this a couple of weeks ago coming out of the exorcisms into the healings and the miracles of our Lord and you say the evidence for Jesus's healing miracles is even stronger than the evidence for his exorcisms and that is reflected in the fact that the early church remembered Jesus more as a healer than as an exorcist so in thinking of the miracles of our Lord and the helix do you have a sense of where most of the miracles he performed healings yes most of them were and now that's not to say he didn't perform an exorcism every day or every other day he may well have because he had a prolific Ministry of exorcisms but it looks like you know that Jesus on a daily basis was probably performing some kind of healing miracle unrelated to casting out a demon so that would be the healing from blindness or lameness or you know mutinous or or you know one of the other physical maladies you know that that we're besieging people all around including leprosy which was a you know a huge problem and so in in general though we think that Jesus was performing healing miracles you know almost every day and probably multiple times per day and and the fact that this is so intrinsic to all the accounts remember the Gospel accounts are just little snippets right of things you know they're not like a full day in the life of Jesus so we're just getting you know these these you know little photographic snippets of the life of Jesus and we're trying to put it together but if you really look at what he's doing constantly I mean he is constantly preaching constantly doing miracles and healings and and exorcisms and and when you really look at it you know he is you know traveling between towns you know and even when he is traveling between towns he's still doing these miracles and and you know exorcisms and and preaching you know to the same capacity and it seems like he's doing it almost in a tireless way so we we have a kind of a gross underestimate what he was doing but you know for skeptics that you know people might know and people go well you know how can you be so sure well aside from the fact that as we already talked about Josephus who is a Jewish historian actually a test and and you know people believe this is the real text of Josephus it's not interpolated by a later Christian you know Josephus attest to the miracle-working the deeds of power done by Jesus and he doesn't do that with respect to John the Baptist so we've got a very good you know interest he and he speaks about John the Baptist much more than Jesus you know in some ways but you know Jesus he does attest to his miracle-working power and that's you know a very important sign the Babylonian Talmud which also is another Jewish source says okay he did these miracles but he was a sorcerer so in other words that the old going back to the eligible you know he did it by magic or by demonic power but the point is they're still attesting historically to the Magma's that he had a prolific Ministry of exorcisms and even in the Gospels themselves you have so many accounts of healings healing miracles that are non-overlapping healing miracles that are mentioned in all five sources so we've got you know all five of the sources that's mark you matthew special luke special and john all five of the sources are mentioning these and so we've got you know a you know multiple attestation to these miracles in jesus's life but more importantly it coincides with that extra testamental source namely you know the babylonian talmud because the the Apostles report that the Pharisees are accusing Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebul namely Satan the Prince of demons now if this is the truth you know and I can't imagine that it's not the truth and why is that what New Testament writer what apostle is going to associate even remotely associate through the critics of Jesus Jesus himself with Satan the Prince of demons I mean it's just so repulsive and unthinkable that you know anytime you hear a Christian source like a New Testament writer is saying you know that reporting that Jesus has been associated with Satan by his enemies it doesn't matter that is his enemies number one it's really really credible I mean this is like discontinuity big time that the second thing that that's really important is is that his enemies are making this accusation for one reason and that is that he has such a prolific ministry of miracles they can't deny it the easier thing for his critics to say would have been will prove it go ahead you know tell me about you know one of these miracles are seeing is believing I know that the testimony to Jesus's miracles and exorcisms is so profound it's so you know manifest they can't even deny it they can't just say prove it they can't say seeing is believing they're out of all the usual skeptical excuses so the only thing left for them short of you know saying well I don't believe it when of course they heard a hundred stories and everybody knows they've heard a hundred stories is they have to say well he did it by the power of the Prince of demons namely Satan or be eligible and of course Jesus says that's a really bad tactic to use because if I'm casting out demons by the Holy Spirit and you're saying that the Holy Spirit is really the devil then you are the worst imaginable teacher and you are not only jeopardizing your own soul your jab organizing the souls of everybody you teach and that is a pretty horrible thing so that's when he talks about that sin against the Holy Spirit now the point is pretty good evidence that Jesus was doing a lot of miracles even his own critics couldn't deny it and certainly in the Babylonian Talmud they don't deny it Josephus does not deny it so we've got a pretty good extra testamental insight into the prolific nature of Jesus moisture you say here when when when they're combined with the disciples power to heal through the Holy Spirit in the name of our Lord after the resurrection becomes evident the healings were a common and central part of Jesus's ministry as you point out then you use a phrase you talk about the criterion of embarrassment what does that mean yeah well there's remember I was talking about I think it was last week's show or maybe it was earlier in this week's show I'm getting to be a little bit you know forgetful here but we were talking about the photo was earlier in this show we're talking about those five sources and and and one of the the questioners had asked well you know how can you you know is there any kind of uncertainty about Jesus's words and I was talking about all these historical criteria that we tried to use to make sure we're looking straight on at you know the the words of Jesus himself uh turd in the Aramaic by Jesus himself now one of those criteria is called the criterion of embarrassment or sometimes it's called the the criterion of discontinuity but embarrassment simply means if it was really really embarrassing for the early church to have to admit a particularly storica fact then it's very likely true so for example it would have been really embarrassing and a loss of converts and you know Anne apologetically dent right this would have been you know what a weakening of their apologetic alarm n't for them to say that Jesus was associated with the eligible or Satan the Prince of demons so that's that's probably very likely true or you know Peter denying Jesus three times here's Peter he's the head of the church right and he's the guy that denied Jesus three times and you know and and and and after Jesus predicted yes that's exactly right or that Peter was told by Jesus get behind me you Satan right you know of course again here's the head of the church and and there's this incredible honesty about Peters defects well you can pretty much be sure this is embarrassing to the church it's gonna cause a real undermining of the apologetic alarm n't why would they include this in the scriptures unless it were historically true so we can use that that criterion for a lot of things not just you know embarrassment Beasley Peter or you know like the Apostles stole Jesus's body why would Matthew even include that accusation of Jesus's you know enemies right why would they and why would he include that in his gospel you gotta be kidding me right I mean it's totally embarrassment you're planting a seed of doubt and in somebody's mind yet again and again we see the evangelists doing this and you almost have to be sure that this has to be historically true otherwise there's no explanation for it but that's what I love about the Gospels that they don't hold back even on the embarrassing things they don't hold back even when the truth is hard to tell even when Jesus is teaching you know it's kind of you know increasing you know that sort of a moral fervor that we will need to have in our moral conversion they don't hesitate to say and that's what when I was in college this is one of the things that struck me so deeply was it was that you know they're not trying to make me a convert they're giving me the real truth like take up your cross and follow me that's the best you can do to convince me to become a Christian take up my cross there's gonna be suffering I'm gonna have to endure this and they say it straight out Jesus says it straight out and I just thought that's got to be authentic I'm not being sold a bill of goods so I can be added to the numbers of a bunch of converts I'm being told the truth hard as it may be suffering and the cross is going to be part of the message and and all that various ways in which I can be inauthentic to the Lord's teaching and sin all these things that are telling me straight out because they don't want me to just be a convert they want me to be saved through the truth and the Church of Jesus Christ and so that went right to my heart and I thought I believed it and of course you know the Gnostic Gospels themselves and you know later on in in the in the book you know I I mean in a credible Catholic there you know I talked about you know this is by the way this is module 3 of credible Catholic I talked about also the Gnostic Gospels and I have to tell you you know that the Gnostic Gospels are later second century Gospels that are clearly you know you know way off the wall right I mean they are they put miracles first salvation second and and they are written by authors who believe that they have spatial inspiration right they've got secret knowledge that's going to save you the real Evangelist Matthew Mark Luke and John and their five sources have no such intention in their mind there's nothing secret everything is made known whether it's difficult or not difficult whether it's you know you know going to you know cause me to change my life radically or whether it's going to be pretty easy and significant they presented at all the real evangelist whereas the Gnostic writers you know they've got you know some of these crazy incidents Jesus touching statues of birds and making them fly away or Jesus getting mad at some child on a playground and cursing them or Jesus getting mad at some people for using an analogy the wrong and cursing them this has nothing to do with Jesus nothing to do with the Gospels and they're easily proven to be 2nd or 3rd century Gospels that were written with this exaggerated view of miracles in mind but what's so interesting is that the the miracles in the real Gospels don't ever make recourse to any of these exaggerations at all that was so tempted the Gnostic writers the evangelists are so cool headed there's just so subdued they do matter of fact a lot of shows a matter of fact yeah yeah right it's interesting listening to that it's not the Gnostic sound more like a the episode of Twilight Zone with Anthony wishing creatures into the cornfield and thing then a story about a far Lord of course right right so it's kind of it's actually there I mean that's where they got the idea for the episode you will just make the point here and and this is made all the time and our Lord said he said he works miracles through the faith quoting for our trust of the petitioner and links it to a spiritual teaching which is relevant for both the petitioners and the bystanders and he talked about the idea like our Lord could not perform this miracle whatever because the lack of the faith of the people there I always thought of my mind well God can do anything can ease so why is it dependent on that person's faith yeah you have to again it comes down to the Greek translation for the word could and you know it has almost no overlap with would in English right and so you know the idea could for us means he didn't have the power to do it but in the context there with going back to the Aramaic background it's much more loosey-goosey could means you know he just you know he wouldn't be able to bring himself to do it that's what it really means it doesn't mean he didn't have the power to do it but you're right the word could in English and by the way parenthetically in Greek does convey the absence of the required power but in in the air Mayock and the Hebrew it has much much looser context would not be able to bring himself to do it is much more the correct meaning which the Aramaic by the way does allow for mm-hmm I guess in a way almost respecting people's free will exactly yeah absolutely he you know it's like he precisely like respecting people's free will and and that's what he wanted to do he wasn't able to bring himself to do a miracle because day didn't believe he could do it and so he didn't you know the absence of faith you know in a way you know just this kind of made him not willing to do it right and and they're moving from the the miracles themselves and talking specifically you move into the historicity of Jesus raising the dead and you meant oxygen that there are only three non-overlapping stories about raising the dead what does that mean well see here's here's the the quick thing there's this group called the Jesus Seminar that I've spoken about before and they've made a really big deal about that Jesus really raised people from the dead you know and and of course you know why would this be such a concept well first of all of course they have this skepticism that you know oh you know this is a real miracle like you know raising from the dead I'm not so sure about this so it's the typical you know what I would call you know scientistic you know scientism scientistic kind of a skepticism which is completely unwarranted by real science but nevertheless the skepticism is there but the second excuse always used is there's only three accounts of these non-overlapping miracles yes that is true but you know you look at by the way you have to read this book by John P Meyer it's a very complicated book it's a 700 page treatment of it but he's got a very lengthy treatment on the historicity of the three non-overlapping raisings from the dead in the gospel accounts and Meir clearly believes that Jesus not only historically raised people from the dead but these three overlapping accounts are really his reflections of the exact history under which Jesus did those miracles why does he think that and why would historical exegetes think that these three non-overlapping accounts are so significant number one because they're in different Gospels but they have the same elements so for example we see that you know the Talitha koum one right the little girl get up that you know the synagogue leaders daughter we see that that's in multiple sources that is true so you know we count it for one it's it's there in John it's there also in in and in the market and therefore the Matthew Luke sources so we can see you know okay this is a non-overlapping I mean it's it's a multiple attested miracle the second one is unique to Luke and Luke alone and that is the one the widow of 19 or sometimes we call her name the widow of nain but the main point is that she has a son who dies she's his he is her only Son and so Jesus has compassion and and and and Caesar the third of course is unique to John that is the raising of Lazarus now what we notice in these miracle accounts is that Jesus is working the miracle by his own power which is typically of the style of Jesus but not by anyone else why would three independent accounts and by the way it's not just in three Gospels it comes from three independent traditions used by the three Gospels one is a mark in tradition that's the little girl the daughter of the synagogue leader then you have Luke special which is the widow of naive then you have John who is of course his own special source which is the raising of Lazarus now they all have three different traditions and what you notice in all three traditions is you have these same unique characteristics of the way Jesus does miracles by his own power right and then in the mark one and and the and the Luke special one we see that the AYGO leg-oh formula which is typical of Jesus is used going back to his own Aramaic formula Amen I say to you or a goal a go where you repeat the pronoun you don't need that pronoun in in in Greek and so we see the a Gallego formula as well we also see all kinds of indications of Jesus's compassion the faith of the people that are there and so you know this is a typical of Jesus's style coming from three different traditions now we know that the Lazarus tradition comes from Bethany that's a small town and we know that the widow of nain we didn't even think that the town of nain existed until archaeological evidence actually uncovered the very gate that is reported in Luke's Gospel so we got this archaeological evidence that supports the fact that you know that there isn't not only a town of nain but it's a little dinky town Bethany's a little dinky town you know if this is not it's not like you know why are you reporting these miracles from these dinky towns you know that don't have the big prestige you know unless there's something about the dinky town namely that the miracle actually the raising of the Dead actually occurred there and so we see also there's just this huge frequency of Semitism 'he's in all three accounts Talitha koum right we see that the semitism a meyer points to four Semitism Zin the luke account we see four Semitism plus we see in the Jo anion account we see all the names of all the people that are there like the first names of people which you know are quite rare in in miracle accounts unless of course they really do go back to these real people that the early church really knew so when you start summing up all of the evidence for these raisings from the dead as John P Meyer has so wonderfully done of course I did it in a few minutes John Mayer does it much more thoroughly in 700 pages but the main thing is if you look at it you see it comes from three not only three non-overlapping traditions but it comes from three different traditions that gave rise to the joy nine account the Luke special account and the market count and so it's three different and they come they're originated in these dinky little towns which have no prestige you get the names of figures real figures in those towns there's a proliferation of semitism that means you know back around aramaic words coming through the greek and the use of crazy you know Greek grammar and configurations to try and import you know that the Semitism or sometimes just using the Hebrew themselves you sum up all the evidence it looks really really good I mean what are the odds you're gonna get these three different accounts with all the unique aspects of the style of Jesus with the emphatic ego and they're using his own authority to do this you know having all these place these people's proper names having these little dinky towns that have now been archaeologically verified having you know three different independent traditions putting all these things together the odds are really good these three things go back to three different incidents with the same source namely Jesus well what Jesus the source well one of the questions I have with this it seems to me in one level on a very basic level if you believe Jesus is the Son of God then the idea that he can heal people or bring them back from the dead seems to be like the least he could do yeah way so when that becomes skeptical you wonder whether is it because they don't think he would have done those things or because they don't really think he's the son of God I think it's the latter they don't think he's the son of God and they think because these things point to the fact that he is the son of God right that he has the power of God the power over life and death within himself remember he doesn't make an appeal to his father he's basically healing by his own authority with the emphatic ego that is to say the emphatic I the Amen you know I say to you formula Amen I say to formula you know doing it by his own power you know when we see these kinds of things it's pretty clear that these things point to the fact that he is the son of God he has the power of God within himself he speaks the authority of God from within himself and of course this validates not only because he's risen from the dead and the Apostles then can do miracles through the name of Jesus later we see that the father validates Jesus's sonship because the early church is preaching Jesus as the Lord the Son of God remember the Lord is the the Greek translation hokule'as for the divine name in Hebrew right Yahweh so we see that that the early church is calling him the son of God calling him the Lord etc and when we see this happening how in the world could they be doing miracles in Jesus's name if in point of fact they're lying or they are wrong about calling Jesus the Son of God or they're lying about the resurrection I don't think they could be doing this and so I think absolutely there's a validation that every time the Apostles are doing miracles and us today when we do miracles in Jesus's name and there they occur all the time through the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus's name right we see this happening all the time there's a validation he really is risen from the dead he really is the Son of God the Holy Spirit works through his name because he is the son of God exactly as the early church with that you throw that have to leave it this week you put a fine point and an exclamation point on it thank you so much father Spitzer if you'll just give us your blessing on our way out the door that would be great absolutely bow your heads and pray for God's blessing and may the Lord the Almighty father and His Son Jesus bestow on you their holy spirit so that you might know in your heart of hearts that he truly is the Lord the Son of God who brought the truth within himself and initiated the church as the instrument through which you would be saved in the community into which you would be saved in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen amen thank you so much father Spitzer was shall see you next week and hopefully we'll see you as well back here on father Spitzer's universe and don't forget if you want to enjoy the universe as great way to do it father Spitzer's resources through ewtn religious catalogue EWTN our c-calm we'll see you next week at the intersection of faith and reason it's getting very crowded there so get there early we'll see you next week god bless [Music]

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Length: 56min 34sec (3394 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 14 2018