Franciscan University Presents: Pope Benedict XVI and Jesus of Nazareth

Pope Benedict the sixteenth described his new book Jesus of Nazareth as my personal search for the face of the Lord what are the results of that search and what do they tell us about the face of Jesus join us as we discuss those questions with dr. Brandt Petrie professor of biblical theology at Our Lady of the Holy Cross College in New Orleans I'm father Michael Scanlon Chancellor of Franciscan University of Steubenville Ohio and you're watching Franciscan University presents stay with us talking about Pope Benedict the sixteenth and Jesus of Nazareth his book his whole understanding of Jesus of Nazareth which is unique and something that I think surprised a lot of people when he came out with it so quickly in his pontificate we have a regular panelist here dr. regis martin professor of systematic theology here at Franciscan University and dr. Scott Hahn professor of biblical theology here at the University and we've got a special guest for this round dr. Brandt Petrie and he is the donum day professor of word and sacrament at Our Lady of Holy Cross College in New Orleans Louisiana that's a long title but but in any case your theological the approach you receive your PhD in theology from the University of Notre Dame where you specialize in the study of New Testament and ancient Judaism and that's excellent for today and you're the author of Jesus the tribulation and the end of the Exile and you're currently working on a book on Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist I would like that in recent months you've written and spoken widely on Pope Benedict spoke Jesus of Nazareth and that's the topic and that's what we want to pursue today and so we're going to start with your telling us what's the story behind this book what led the Holy Father to feel the need to write this particular book so early in his pontificate and it was unusual yeah at the preface to the book in the introduction Benedict says that the book has had a long gestation he basically takes the story of the order in the book all the way back to his own studies in the 1930s and 1940s when there are a number of books that were written on Jesus of Nazareth by men like Carl Adam and Romano Gardini and others all of which portrayed Christ both in human and divine terms who saw in him both the son of man and the son of God the Eternal Word made flesh but then he goes on to tell his own story about how in the 1950s this wedge began to be driven between the so called historical Jesus the man Jesus who really lived and walked among us and the Christ of faith and that he says that this wedge eventually led to in many circles the two falling apart really the historical Jesus falling apart from the Christ of faith and leading to a division and many many scholars have basically come to the conclusion in 1950s 60s and the 70s and 80s it got really bad led to the conclusion that the Gospels really do not give us access to the true historical Jesus the Jesus of history the man Jesus of Nazareth but they only portray the Christ of faith a kind of portrait painted by the Apostles but not really true to history painted by the evangelists not necessarily true to history and Benedict feels at the beginning of the book he points out that this has put faith in a very precarious situation faith in the person of Jesus I think he even says the words he says that this situation which has now begun to influence not just scholars and and people doing graduate work in New Testament studies but the Christian faithful at large who have heard about this wedge between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith through television shows documentary he say on the Discovery Channel or whatnot that this kind of dichotomy has now trickled down to the faithful and he is he's concerned that it has put our faith in the person of Christ in jeopardy so he's trying to really put down an anchor yes he is so in the midst of all this of where the truth is and he says I trust the God this is the radical statement that has caused so much of a stir in scholarly circles it seems it seems laughable to the faithful of course the faithful have always trusted the Gospels but Benedict recognizes that in the modern period there is a growing skepticism and an agnosticism which can even affect the faithful and he wants to tell them he wants to let them know that he has the Holy Father and as a great scholar and theologian trust the gospel that's his approach in this book throughout much the 20th century there was what we might call a hermeneutic or an interpretive posture of suspicion of skepticism and what Benedict is showing us in this book is a hermeneutic of trust hermeneutic of faith in the Gospels he describes also how he began back in 2003 two years before he became Pope Benedict and so this was sort of the crowning achievement of his own scholarly and pastoral work for decades and so he finished the first four chapters before he became Pope Benedict and you'd think well he's going to lay it aside but know if anything he applied himself even more assiduously after becoming Pope Benedict in the evenings and vacations and it's the beginning that I used all of my free time at the right right say myself I've never used all of my faith yes this confirms I think the sense that he has that this is going to be his legacy not as an academic and not simply as an ecclesia Kratt some kind of church official this is going to be I think for Pope Benedict what the theology of the body was for Pope John Paul the second it is going to be a permanent contribution of the church that isn't something innovative or cleverly new but it really represents the distillation of everything that came before it in a fresh new way that is going to reinvigorate the scriptures for countless Catholics and non-catholics it isn't that maybe a touch too optimistic I'm wondering is it enough of what he's done even with all of his vaunted the scholarship can we overcome this crisis of disbelief I mean for about 1500 years nobody asked what is the truth concerning Jesus because Jesus is the truth may that hermeneutic I think had endured now it's been supplanted by suspicion yeah I well I'm very optimistic actually although it is true that what and it's important for everyone to remember that what he's given us here is the first half of a two-volume work there's much more to come he hasn't yet taken us to the Upper Room and to the passion and the death and the resurrection and in that extent I think the impact of the book is going to be slightly lessened until we see the full picture that he is going to paint for us of Jesus now it undeniably it will have a scholarly impact but in terms of a popular splash now now that is going to be in two volumes that makes it even less like well actually but we'll read it I am aware really I think it might be the other way around because the scholarly reaction to it has been quite negative in many circles there was one review I was reading which was just aghast at the fact that the Pope trusted the Gospels and believed in the divinity of Christ I mean how could the Pope believe in the divinity of Christ and I'm reading the review thinking how could he not I would why would you even be surprised that's how high the level of skepticism is in the scholarly world but the faithful that I'm encountered laypeople and interested and educated in impassioned lay readers who have encountered the book have said this has drawn me into prayer this has drawn me into a deeper relationship with Christ so I will be interested to see I think it may actually have more of an impact because he's such a clear and a profound writer he takes you deep but he doesn't it with such clarity and such I'm nice lucidity I might add a third class too because I think you're right about the scholars they look at this and they treated patronizingly know even those were sympathetic you know we can think of one review in particular whose review I will I won't name him but he was very condescending I think largely due to the fact that that the Pope Benedict didn't cite his work the lay people are excited about it they're working through it it's not easy but it's accessible and now not only can you access it but you will find almost every time you've finished four or five pages prayer is deepen but the clergy are the ones that I am finding almost consistent without exception seminarians deacons and especially priests who for whatever reason busyness seminary training that left them big gaps in their own scriptural formation they're the ones who are telling me that this is changing the way I read and preach the Gospels yep and pray what one thing strikes me about this book is you can't fit it into the typical genre of papal literature it reminds me of crossing the threshold of hope but a very different sort of book also because john paul ii began that book as pope this was begun clearly back in the 30s that's when the gestation to a cold it's a different kind of text is it majesty no it most definitely is not Magisterial the Pope actually says this at the beginning he says I wanted us to be clear to everyone that this is not a product of the teaching Magisterium he says it is my personal search for the face of the Lord and he's using names of philosophers and theologians in favor of changing but some of them that even semi intellectuals like myself never heard of before I mean they're just surprising names and then that subtly Christian you know in their points of view and theories on things and it keeps your mind at work it does but this is I think one of the things that has baffled people about the book is that it really doesn't fit any category or at least the kind of fractured categories that dominate modern scholars he's a man of immense learning and intelligence that's why it's so astonishing that intellectuals would dismiss him speak patronizingly about him I want to bring this back to the comparison with John Paul though because when you first got the the the first edition of the theology of the body was based upon the Wednesday audiences and then when dr. McHale volge Stein put together the second edition it was much longer and it was based upon not the ones the audiences which were hastily and sometimes sloppily translated in you know in a week but a manuscript that he found in Polish because John Paul had finished the theology of the body right before becoming John Paul and so this too was not an infallible utterance of the Magisterium but the distillation of a lifetime of learning that God and his merciful Providence brought to the chair of Peter to kind of illuminate the church's teaching about the natural law but even more the mystery of the person and the hinge you know sexuality and so you know it took five ten fifteen maybe even twenty years for the church to receive this and realize what a breakthrough I wouldn't be surprised of the same kind of thing happens when the second volume is done it's going to take time to assimilate this maybe in both cases these men have spoken the word what they say signifies something true about human sexuality and now about scriptures right and I don't expect a tidal wave of chastity to overcome the world or the church with the theology of the body I don't I don't expect the tidal wave of spiritual exegesis to overcome the Academy either but a new generation is going to be raised up and forth I think he has given to a lot of young scholars like myself the confidence to ask the question again is the skepticism of the modern age toward the Gospels justified is it reasonable is it even Claus right and what he's showing us in this book is that the Jesus of the Gospels the Jesus of Matthew Mark Luke and John is the most plausible the real Jesus he's the one that the church has always proclaimed he is the historical Jesus and he's the one we the kingdom of God how did how does the present the kingdom of God that has had how much time do we have yeah well yeah that's a huge yeah that really is a huge theme and in the book he spends a whole chapter laying it out that really that the Jesus's proclamation of the kingdom is at the heart of his message and what Benedict does in this book with the meaning of the kingdom is really what he does in the whole book he tries to show throughout the book that all of Jesus's teachings the Beatitudes the parables the kingdom of God are many ways self-reflexive they're Christological they're illuminating something to us about the mystery of who Jesus is and what Benedict shows in this book going all the way back to origin is that Jesus is what orden said of the auto bass Alea the kingdom in personally and and that's really which would be an insufferable statement in the absence of faith unless it were true this would be just intolerable apps to assert himself like that the kingdom is in your midst I am NOT the the enshrinement the embodiment of the kingdom this is the scandal of the incarnations the scandal of particularity the kingdom of God is in your midst and Luke 17:21 he's referring to who can endure that if he also goes on to develop a second and the third level of meaning and build on the foundation of autobot Celaya Jesus is the kingdom himself he speaks of the interior tee and how the Holy Spirit how Jesus brings about a radical interior tee so that the kingdom of God can be established within us but the third level is an external is it's the ecclesial expression that the church in so many ways is the mystery the embodiment of the kingdom the body of Christ is the body of the king it's a beautiful treatment it's so balanced and the extension the prolongation of that very mystery of press that's right the church is the kingdom present in mystery and when Benedict shows throughout the book in particular in the wonderful section on the parables about how the parables both reveal the mystery of Christ and the mystery of the kingdom they're both Christological parables and ecclesia logic you know I was really fetched by that comment you made earlier that a book like this provides an impetus for young scholars like yourself to go to go forward to be confident that reason and faith can somehow get wedded together that's once more that is exactly what he's doing he's taking it what John Paul did in fides hadrat Co on faith and reason but he's doing it with regard to the scriptures that we need to reproach the Gospels approach the Scriptures through the eyes of both faith and reason and we'll see that when we do it with those two wings biblical scholarship is really going to take off it's going to really well when we come back we want to apply that to this special way that the Pope handles Jesus teaching and preparing his disciples the personal ministry not general to the crowd that it's really unique and their distinctions need to be made and we can find ourself in them so stay with us the post-treatment of the parable the rich young ruler really impressed me of course we know that story the rich young ruler comes to Jesus asks and what must I do to inherit eternal life Jesus says obey the commandments he says what else must I do and Jesus says give all that you have to the poor and come follow me we don't realize the full implications of that as American readers but a theologically astute Jew and the ancient world would realize that by asking the rich young ruler to devote his life completely to himself that is to Jesus Jesus was putting himself on the level of the Torah the Word of God or even of God himself because those are the only two things to which a pious Jew in the ancient world would devote himself wholly the professor's are constantly bringing in God to their subjects no matter what it is not because they have to or they're trying to force it it's because he naturally works and everything that we're learning about I'm a biology major and it's hard it's really tough but anything biology muscle body is cool to me so learning about the body and the way the body works and knowing that there's a guide behind it all is just absolutely amazing to me beautiful Franciscan University is academically challenging and passionately Catholic talking about pope benedict xvi his book is whole understanding of Jesus of Nazareth's and we have a special guest dr. brand Petrie and parent as we move into the development that the Pope takes us through and the meaning of Jesus life is leading and developing and relating to the disciples let's start with the meaning of Jesus baptism in the Jordan and and his temptation the wilderness why are these so significant from the Pope's point of view and why do they lead then to his work with his disciples oh this Benedict's treatment of the baptism and temptation of Jesus is one of my favorite parts of the book because what he does and this is one of the real gift of the book what he does when he looks at the meaning of Jesus baptism is he asked the question what is it harkening back to in the Old Testament and then what is it pointing forward to Ben it really does an amazing job of unlocking the mystery in particular of Jesus baptism we'll start there what would benedict shows is that Jesus comes into the world not simply to bring the kingdom of God not simply to inaugurate the kingdom but also to inaugurate this expectation that the Jews had of a new Exodus we all remember the exodus from Egypt right with Moses leading the 12 tribes of Israel out of the land of Egypt and through the waters of the Red Sea what Benedict shows is that Christ in his baptism is embodying in himself a new accident inaugurating a new Exodus by entering going down into the waters of the Jordan and then coming up into the promised land and it's so it's fascinating he shows that we all have asked this question before for example and John asked it very readily right in Matthew chapter 3 I need to be baptized by you he says to Christ why do you come to me and Jesus says but it must be so in order to fulfill all righteousness and whenever you see Jesus using this language fulfillment you have to ask what in the Old Testament is he speaking of and Ben shows here that what he's speaking of is this new exodus of fulfilling an exodus in himself and inaugurating it through his baptism at the other on the other hand however Benedict also shows that the baptism of Christ doesn't simply point backward to the exodus of Israel and their entry into the Promised Land it also points forward to the cross it points forward to the cross it's one of the strange things in the gospel that Jesus speaks of his own passion and death as a baptism we think here about the famous scene with James and John they want to sit at the right and left hand of Christ in the kingdom and Jesus says you don't know what you're asking can you be baptized with the baptism with which I will be baptized now that seems such a strange image for him to use but what Benedict shows in the book is that Christ's entry into the waters of baptism which remember was in John's day a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins well Christ Himself is in no need of a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins but what he does what Benedict shows us that he endures that baptism for our sake he enters into the mystery of suffering and sin and he takes that upon himself as an anticipation of what he is going to accomplish on the cross and that's when the real new Exodus will occur and he will not simply set us free from the land of Egypt but from Israel I mean from Egypt or slavery or servitude but who set us free from sin he'll set us free from death this this forever debunks the common interpretation of the adoption us who say that at the baptism Jesus suddenly discovered himself Wow I'm the son of God I'm the Messiah I guess I've been anointed so I am you know Pope Benedict explains that this is not any news to Jesus this is a public investiture so that everybody knows who he is and why he's come so it isn't as though the water sanctifies Jesus it's that Jesus now sanctifies the water of Old Testament cleansing transforming it into not only baptismal water but the very means by which Christ confers upon us his own divine sonship the voice from heaven confirms that this is not anything new for him but through him it will become something radically new for us it bespeaks I I think of the extent of his can osis the depth of the descent that he has freely undertaken in order to rid the world of sin he plunges into a foreshadowing of his own death the horror of the cross followed by the silence and the shame of Che oh this this profound abysmal descent and into hell he shoulders our sin he carries our guilt with him right to the bottom of that River and then he emerges triumphant this is this is a kind of foreshadowing of his his own resurrection I am that the true Jonah you've pitched me overboard up and I've been swallowed up and now I swallow up the whole bloody whale that's one of the beautiful things about the book is he shows how Christ not only fulfills I'm thinking here what you just said about the new Jonah Christ fulfills all of the major figures of the Old Testament in himself he's not simply the new Moses who's going to inaugurate this new Exodus as a messiah he's also the new Jonah who is immersed in the waters of death and then emerges from them into bring us new life but he's also the new Israel who passes through the waters of the Red Sea and into the desert as this leads us to the temptation but then also passes through the waters of the Jordan into the promised land he's basically taking all of the threat all of the threads all of the strands of the Old Testament fulfilling them summing them up in himself and not simply recapitulating what happened in the Old Testament but anticipating what he's going to accomplish and he's entirely in charge absolute on the beginning absolutely from all eternity he's flooded with this consciousness of being the son they know the thing about all this says as we accept all this it seems the distance Jesus he's the whole new to Old Testament fulfillment the New Testament this seems too much overwhelming who could possibly stay with him and understand it and yet he turns to the 12 disciples well he chooses the twelve yeah and even as they're looking around at each other and realizing let's see nine ten eleven twelve you know he points out this is not a coincidence either recognize that they are called to participate in this new Exodus in this new Israel the twelve tribes you'll sit on Thrones and judge the the twelve tribes they recognize that that the very divine mission of Jesus is now something in which they participate fully and just as Moses chose twelve and then seventy Jesus chooses 12 and then seventy and so many of these parallels I think indicate not only the rich and the in the depth of our participation but how much preparation went into this that you can't really grasp the new without spending a little bit more time in the old and it isn't as though Jesus is simply going back to the old and finding a parallel here and there a hero type there a type you know no it's as though that the pure light of His divine sonship hits the prism of the Scriptures and in the old testament refracts these rays so that all of the colors that you find all of the aspects of the ages of the Old Covenant anticipate this great emotion this group of fishermen understand that stuff and be you know rather not without the power of the Holy Spirit that's forever but however I would suggest that because they are Jews and they've heard the Scriptures they've been taught that scripture since their childhood any first century Jew would have recognized that when Jesus comes on the scene and he gathers around him men that he calls the twelve yeah something special is going on here because the Jews would have known especially in the first century that the ten tribes of Israel in the Assyrian exile back in 722 BC had been scattered to the four winds and that they were still waiting for the Messiah to come and regather Israel so the salvation that Jesus comes to bring is not something he's going to accomplish merely on his own although he'll be able to do it all on it through his own power he's going to call the disciples he's saying to them I am the new Israel but you are going to be participating in the new Israel as well you are going to be gathered in and brought into this mission of inaugurating a king you know it's not as if they go looking for him because Jesus takes the initiative and finds them you did not choose me right I chose the rabbinic tradition was you look for a rabbi a school you organized around the Torah but here a guy that that organizes everything he's the centerpiece and he moves towards this mysterious hour which is the great theme of the joanne ina testimony the hour of his death the hour of the glorification of God and it's not as though they got it the first day or the first semester you know you have to go through 16 chapters of Matthew before finally one of them gets it you know you are the Christ you're the son of the Living God well then you are rocked well the school of Jesus is everlasting I mean we never become rabbis we're always pupils so we're always disciples and it's important to point out that in Greek the word mouth a taste means students right that's what the disciples are they're students they are following their master their rabbi and he's teaching them leading him ever deeper into the mysteries of the things that he's come to accomplish yet Peter seems to jump up ahead and announcing and discovering this thing he's first in the class yes he is absolutely first in the class it's not treated like a whiz kid you know Nate Jesus does say flesh and blood has not revealed this to you it's not just because you're more intelligent than the other eleven my father who is in heaven you know he's sort of a dunce really and then a delinquent um he betrays Jesus denies him he's impulsive and says look you're not gonna have to suffer and Jesus calls him Satan this is the first pope yes that's pretty this is why I identify with him because you're done so we can all identify we can all identify with Peter but it is it is important to recognize as as Scott was saying that the real entry into the his his headship has over the disciples of being the the first among the twelve is when he receives that revelation and Christ says doom who do you say who do men say that a man is and this is an important question that question has resounded throughout the center who do people say that Christ is you go to the bookstore these days go look in the religion section there's a host of opinions a host of competing contradictory opinions about who Jesus the Son of Man is and what Benedict is giving us in this book is many ways just a deeper elucidation of the firt very all you have to do is is go to the publishing house that produced this book that's me they're also turning out The Da Vinci Code that's Benedict has got on one side and this brown that's a microcosm I suppose of the world in which we live but I think we also recognize that what he's doing is not only addressing the world in the church but the the the scholars because the vast majority of scholars Catholic as well as Protestant would take a text like Matthew 16 the the you know you are Peter and say well this didn't necessarily actually happen this is not the Jesus of history this is the Christ of faith this did not happen before the cross this is the church sort of projecting back into you know the pre resurrection Jesus these sayings but what he does is respectfully quotes these scholars who debunk this and then he debunks the debunkers I mean he just shows that actually the text makes much more sense on its own terms if you see Jesus and Peter in a real dialogue and if you put them in a first-century context also yeah and parables yes that he's used parables here Jesus has to teach that they can both understand and not yet really understand that that it can escape them teach something but be beyond them at the same time like the thing that really impressed up Ratzinger about guar Dini for example who meld shaped the horizon of his his theology was this attentive listening to the text listen to the word don't master the word let the word master you simply submit to the other nough some self in this man a kind of docility don't don't try to straightjacket yourself within these categories of modernity but simply listen listen to what the Gospels are saying don't cooperate to ask questions you like where Dini was a master at that's right asking the right questions of the text would elicit I think that's what he's showing us in the book you're right that here he is right the head of the universal Church and the way he approaches the Gospels is like a little child you don't master the Gospels you don't master the Bible the Bible masters you and when you submit to it and proach it through this hermeneutic of faith that is using reason bringing all his intellectual capacities to bear then he begins to shed light not just on the mystery of the disciples but his father was talking about the mystery the parables I would encourage everyone in particular go and look at the section on the parables when he treats the Good Samaritan and he treats the prodigal son his his study of those is so beautiful and I think you're right you get the sense as you're reading the book that this isn't something he's just writing up as an academic work he's been listening to these Gospels for decades and decades as a priest as a bishop now is the Holy Father and this is really the fruit of his not only of his intellectual life but of his life a prayer of submitting and listening to the text in taking it well when we come back we're going to deal with Jesus's self understanding not just what everybody else is seeing and analysis but how does he understand himself and project that stay with us all the key moments of Christ's life Benedict says are Christ in prayer Christ's relation to the Father that's how he shows that his son by his communication with the father before he is tempted in the wilderness he's in prayer the quintessential moment is the Garden of Gethsemane where through his prayer he gets courage to fulfill his mission as Christians we can look on Christ and see that the way to be in constant relation to the Father is constant prayer so we can have courage to fulfill our Christian mission it's great to see that the mission of Franciscan is reflected in the academic pursuits of its students I I'm double majoring in theology and mathematics it just helps because in math you can see causality chain of thinking and things in the material realm that can be applied to the spiritual everyone here really wants to be a saint you know there's just no better place to grow in my manhood to grow in my faith and to grow in my intellect Franciscan University is academically challenging and passionately Catholic here talking about Jesus of Nazareth but we're talking about that subject as presented by pope benedict xvi in his surprising book which is challenging scholars and preachers and all sorts of people to understand his approach and what he's adding to our understanding we're here at Franciscan University surrounded by students working all the equipment with a regular panelist in tow and with our special guest dr. Brandt Petrie and we're moving now into what Pope Benedict tells us about Jesus's self understanding something that has been the matter of great speculation by theologians philosophers and any kind of column this over the time so where does it get anchored down better through the Pope's analysis Pope's analysis is fascinating on this point throughout much of the 20th century there was a lot of speculation again the kind of general general current of skepticism with regard to these two questions did Jesus know he was the Messiah and did he know he was the Divine Son of God and there were many negative answers to these questions by a lot of the skeptical scholars but what Benedict shows in this book is that if you read the Gospels closely and carefully and in particular in light of their first century Jewish perspective it is absolutely abundantly clear that Jesus understood himself to be not simply the Messiah of Israel but the divine son of God I'm thinking in particular here one of the most beautiful parts of the book one of the most powerful is when Pope Benedict uses the work of rabbi Jacob noose nur who wrote a book called a rabbi talks with Jesus and in this book rabbi Jacob Newton was one of the great modern scholars of Judaism imagines himself listening to Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount and listening to this new Torah this new law that Jesus was teaching to his people's and after hearing the Sermon on the Mount rabbi nooner enters into a kind of imaginary dialogue he imagines himself going back to the rabbi of his local town and talking about with him about what he had just heard Jesus say and the rabbi in his mind asked Jacob nooner well what did Jesus add and what did he take away from the tour what did he leave out from the Jewish law and he says nothing he left nothing out but then the rabbi says well what did he add and rabbi knew sir said he added only one thing himself himself and this was the great turning point for rabbi news newark because in his book he says I can't accept this because it suggests that if he adds only himself to the Torah to the law that he is and somehow above the law he's the embodiment of the law and there's only one person who could be that and that is Yahweh himself it could God himself and so in other words what Benedict shows is even using the work of Jewish scholars who have read the Gospels careful who take them seriously and historically it is absolutely abundantly clear that Jesus understood himself to be the Torah made flesh the word in person the one who has come to bring the Messianic Torah to the people of Israel and to the Gentiles and that when he uses words in terms such as referring to himself as the son of man or the Lord of the Sabbath these were Jewish categories taken from the Old Testament that pointed to for example in one case with the Son of Man the heavenly son of man coming on the clouds in Daniel 7 and in another case the Lord of the Sabbath I mean think about this for a first century Jew who is the lord of the Sabbath it could only be Yahweh the Lord of creation the one who inaugurated the Sabbath who sanctifies of Sabbath and so in this book rabbi news neurs book a rabbi talks with Jesus he says I recognize that this Jesus is very Jewish but I can't follow him because he's claiming to be something more than a mere Jew maybe God and Pope Benedict engages rabbi Nestor more than all the other scholars it's a fascinating kind of exchange that isn't just abstract they've actually met in person they've correspondent they have a real friendship going back and forth and so this is the lived context in which the book is written and what it does I think is especially useful for scholars and seminarians and students who are taking courses in Scripture because the tendency has been way too often to say well you've got to begin with reason and only add the faith later on but if you begin reading the New Testament in light of the old you recognize that first century Jews weren't 19th century rationalist so they were men and women of faith and they also use their reason and so when Jesus has prepared his people for the coming and when he actually enters into their midst the marriage of faith and reason is a lived experience that suddenly welcomes someone far greater than their expectations were yeah I guess for the rabbi to make that leap of faith would require some movement of grace absolutely it's not yet forthcoming but the fact that he would enquire with such honesty and integrity about this I think commends him it's very striking I think it's very telling that you find rabbi news nerd who's one of the greatest Jewish scholars in 20th century taking the gospel seriously historically you think if anyone would know he would know and he he does take them very seriously he doesn't read them with a kind of skepticism that we've seen but but in the end of the the argument founders on doubt it does where as for the Catholic wonder that's right you know this sense of amazement that here is a tale that that we would rather have true than any other that man might tell that's right it seems too good to be true that it is all right up there of course you got the flip flop situation the Christian who doesn't think the Old Testament anything to do with the New Testament he's got the New Testament the final word he's got Jesus why does they need it's like it's like at a trailer park you know you had a foundation for your house and the Old Testament is the foundation on which the new rests and nobody sees it more clearly than Pope Benedict he's done so well with that you know integrated energy is what trained him it wasn't just the a cadet in the Academy you often have the Old Testament expert or the New Testament specialist and the isolate their respective Swain show me but in the church's liturgy in the life of prayer it's always the old and the new the promises fulfilled in Christ - is there in the Eucharist absolutely I think you can see this - and one of the in the final chapter of the book Pope in and it goes through several of Jesus's titles that he applies to himself son of man the son and then the other one which is the most striking of all I am thinking about John chapter 8 for example Jesus is in a debate with the Pharisees and he says to them before Abraham was I am a go a me in the green now if you ignore the Old Testament that seems like a very strange statement you are who who are you is this come from there's got to be a contest where is he getting this from but every first century Jew would have understand that that's an illusion at the book of X and and there's a sense in which it is uniquely horrifying to the pious Jew because that this is a sacred Lee terrifying mystery the name of God only God can speak his name right it's not just to remit on Yahweh so that we don't have to speak the sacred syllable it's one of the most terrifying mystifying and tremendous events in the Old Testament when God comes to Moses on Mount Sinai and reveals his name and says I am but what Jesus takes that name it makes it his own right and what holy Benedict does though is he supplies the middle term because it's not only the revelation of God to Moses at the Exodus it's also it's also Isaiah declaring that the the new Moses will come and bring about a new Exodus but it won't just be the same it'll be a new and greater exodus accomplished not simply by a human Moses but a new Moses who Isaiah identifies as I am and so by alluding to by recording that I see an Acorah chol Pope Benedict is showing us that as baffling as as shocking as it would have been it wasn't without precedent now the prophets themselves prepared God's people for that which I had not seen ear had not heard yet that's absolutely right you see this again with Jesus's imagery of himself as a shepherd if you go back and read the Book of Ezekiel in chapters 34 35 37 Ezekiel will move between God and the Messiah almost without any distinction he'll say the Lord will come and he's going to Shepherd his people he's going to gather his people but then in the very next breath he says the Messiah will come and he will be the shepherd and he will Shepherd his people so is it the Lord or is it the most ayuh and the answer is yes right it's both it's both an and this is what's too much for contemporary literary critics yet it must be a difference between the person were writing about and what he's saying and what is said about him let's get behind the words and find out who he is that's I mean it here's how I who says before Abraham was I am I'm alpha Oh may I am the whole alphabet of being now either he's telling us the truth or he's not and if he's not then nobody's interested in Christianity it's all balderdash but if it's true then why would one be skeptical about this self revealing word you'd want to hear everything it would awaken this sense of radical Eucharistic wonder you mentioned that you introduced this book to students at Notre Dame in a graduate program and yet some were baffled by it what that that to be is astonishing what you know you ask why can't people get it I think we can also ask the question how in the world did we get it that's a very good because ultimately it really is the gift of faith that we did not deserve or generate on our own natural this is why Jesus's response to Peter is so important because Christ is a skandalon he is a stumbling block and we can trip over it apart from the grace of the Holy Spirit so when he says to Peter when Peter says you are the son of the Living God he says Peter flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven so we have to reckon with that as well all of the pieces of the puzzle can be in place when the old test from the old testament shining light on the new but at the end of the day in the final analysis grace has to move in the human heart as Jesus says no one comes to me unless the father draws him shining for the twelve as much as the masses you know the twelve must have been tempted a time to think we're the in-group we're the mystery cult you know we are helping you reach them but Jesus kept saying you are them that's right we are reaching them you know as I am reaching you and it's the shared gift of grace that Jesus is absolutely and the students that I've worked with this book who some of whom found it baffling I think were more baffled simply because they've been exposed to so many skeptical ska they've actually in many ways and I know this is true my own life that for many years I never really read the text in their entirety as a whole completely because scholars were so engaged in taking them apart breaking them down deconstructing nice but when you when you read them as a whole when you read them in their canonical form and you approach them with a hermeneutic of trust faith but using your reason but also in light of faith all of a sudden they come alive in a way that is staggering staggering it is startling but what about what about simply reading the data of your own heart what mari's Blondell calls the method of imminence you look within and you see the hunger and the thirst you want to be delivered you want wholeness you want salvation and here's a guy who's offering it for free you want this to be true I mean even at the level of the subjunctive I wish this were true right but then we have to always remember that when cry if Christ is inaugurating the new Exodus there's a very great temptation that we face and it's instant a ssin that the Israelites face the desire to go back to Egypt right remember Moses comes onto the plane cause that's right he sets them free and yeah but they still have this lingering temptation he's gotten them out of Egypt but it's not quite clear that Egypt has gotten out of them right you know it's it's it's the case that what God has for us in Christ is actually greater than our hearts hunger for and yet it's also much more demanding and then our wills are willing to accept and so the challenge is so great but I would say you know that what Pope Benedict has done is he's really he's a kind of marriage counselor he has brought back together what man has torn asunder you know faith and reason the old and the new scripture and doctrine exegesis and Dogma you know it's that marriage of the two that ends up not only being utterly faithful but as he points out elsewhere it also ends up you know being more scientifically plausible it exhibits a greater explanatory power with the text then a merely rational approach can do he seems to have put a hold on you don't have to keep exit cheating to find another a new meaning for what that the Scriptures mean there's the time when yeah UVU's good exegesis but you've used the tradition of the Church of the scholars and we're pulling it together and we anchor that's a great point father because one of the unique things about this book is that Benedict will draw on the greatest of the modern scholars many of them sceptical at points but whatever truth he finds out there writing he'll use that and then next breath he'll be drawing on st. John Chrysostom or Saint Augustine or one of the church fathers from the tradition and so he he just he C looked for the truth and wherever he finds it he uses it to illuminate the mystery of Christ when we come back we're going to ask each panelist to give you a takeaway throw it to keep you going in the direction that Pope Benedict is launched this in stay with us in the last 300 years scholarship has eroded the confidence through its use of various kinds of methods with unfortunate philosophical presuppositions such as not being able to know the historical Jesus through the Jesus of faith that's presenting in the New Testament so what Pope Benedict does is he rolls out a little bit of that methodology and shows how that's the case but his point is not just a critique of method his point is to show through scholarship and through theological reflection the importance of the witness of Jesus as the Divine Son of God that's what we see in the plain sense reading of the scriptures and he says we can have confidence in that because that's the reality Jesus is humanity is entirely intimately linked with the divine son the person of the divine son who is constantly ever eternally in the bosom of the Father you're watching Franciscan University presents but you can experience a greater fullness of this message our conference is zero right in on strong catechetical that teach you to deepen your faith and to be equipped to go out into the marketplace and stand for the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church Franciscan University summer conferences eight hundred four three seven eight three six eight franciscan conferences calm we're on our last segment and this is kind of wrap-up time take away thoughts and Regis we usually start with you and how would you put it I'm a struck by that one throwaway line in the book where the Pope concedes that here is a product of my free time yeah when I had a spare minute and I'd like to know where that spare minute might have been to have made such productive profound use of his leisure is quite quite astonishing up George Weigel once said something about this Pope that he was the most self-effacing of men he had ever known apart from john paul ii and that nobody gave up more to become the holy father than joseph ratzinger he had all these theological projects he wanted to get to i'd like to know what what books he needs to write apart from the wonderful pile that he has given us just an astonishingly prodigious pen and he's a Mozart man that's the thing that I like because I love music and I'm particularly drawn to Mozart that there's a there's a purity a simplicity a clarity to Mozart and and the Pope reminds us that every note every tone in Mozart fits belongs you can't omit a single one or the whole symphony collapses and and his own writings have this quality a kind of architectonic purity a clarity and a depth a luminous depth which you don't find really in any other of living theologian I I don't think I mean I love Balthazar but there's a density there that that is difficult sort of like swimming through wet sand but with Ratzinger benedict xvi you have this wonderfully pellucid quality that invites a of warmth and excitement it radiates like the music of Mozart and this book has captured it in such a wonderful way it's infectious and I can't urge people to read it enough maybe you're giving an inside as to when Cardinal Ratzinger preached at John Paul to's funeral and then got elected so quickly as Benedict College of Cardinals heard something that's right or what you've just given us Scott I think a lot of a sense that too when they heard that amazing homily for two or three years before I became Catholic in 1986 I was devouring Joseph Ratzinger I just thought the Lucid dance beauty of his teaching was just utterly unique and I now after being Catholic for more than two decades I feel that much more I look upon the divine choice you might say this is residual Calvinism but I don't think so this is this is Providence that has brought to us the first German you know in hundreds of years but not just any German arguably the greatest German theologian man of prayer you know Hans Kuhn who agrees with him and practically nothing recognized that this was a man of genius and depth and God had prepared him in the 50s the 60s and 70s with a doctorate on agustin than a second one on Bonaventure both men of the word like rat singer like Pope Benedict and so I want to say it again though I risk repeating too often that what the theology of the body was for John Paul this will be for Pope Benedict and I think possibly even more there's nothing novel or innovative but what is new about this is the way that he's presented the timeless truths the faith in such a luminous way in a way that the scholars can really understand if they will humble themselves and learn from them that pastors deacons seminarians especially can profit from but I would say if you know of anybody who's ever taken a a college university class in the New Testament and began to experience the erosion of their faith or if you did get this book and watch it it won't just be reconstructed it will be transformed suddenly the Gospels that you'll hear every Sunday will be so deep and so exciting and so alive I would really say go out and get it and get extra copies for others there's a health promotion okay well Brent you've been the scholar in this area and you blessed us this day what would you like the viewing audience to take away I'd like to make at least two points the first one is that for me personally I went through a long period of skepticism as I was engaged in biblical studies about the Gospels and that I just want to say once more that over time I've realized that the church actually has the most reasonable the most historical the most plausible position that a lot of the skepticism is actually quite irrational and unreasonable when you look at these documents in their historical context especially the context of first century Judaism and so I think one of the great benefits of this book is it's calling us back to the historical grounding of Christianity because as Benedict says in the first chapter Christianity is rooted in the Incarnation we cannot flee from Jesus of Nazareth from the historical person of Jesus we have to look at him in the face meet him head-on and in doing so I think we can do what father Francis Martin said recently we are enabled to touch the word made flesh I think that's what he's doing in this book he's enabling us to touch the word made flesh that's the first point this calling us back to a trust in the Gospels and in historicity of the Gospels the second point this kind of piggybacks on what Scott was just saying is that I think it's not a coincidence I don't think it's unintentional at all in Benedict's Point on the next part to write this particular book at the beginning of his pontificate look what he's done now since he's been Pope what was his first encyclical on God is love on God the divine love of God now this great book that he's writing what is it on Jesus Christ I think that Pope Benedict in the midst of all the confusion all the suffering all the turmoil in our world is calling us as Christians to come back to the very heart the very center of what it means to be a disciple of Christ to look at the love of God and to look at the person of Jesus Christ and to really reencounter him and ask ourselves as Christians are we do we know him are we being disciples of Christ can we know him better and can we love him more and follow him more faithfully and I think that that's what this book is doing solid again agree I would encourage everyone to go out read it take it slowly read it carefully pray over it and make it a part of your life because every Christian needs to always reencounter Christ and that's what I think that Pope is Benedict has given us in this book it's in it's his personal journey for the face of the Lord his search for the face of the Lord but in doing that he's unveiled to us a lifetime of research and shown us the face of Christ in a way that's very beautiful is very profound and very challenging and I'm thankful that he's done this for us that's very exciting you know you have a lot of passion and oh which is excellent and so we have for you just for the asking a selection by Brandt Petrie on Jesus of Nazareth and hid the analysis here and we'll mail it to you you can get a good taste of his teaching and reading right there the book of course basic book is this jesus of nazareth by pope benedict xvi and you've seen that but key into all this is to absorb it with prayer to know that just as jesus said it's not flesh and blood that revealed that to you Simon Peter but it's rather the Father in heaven it's grace it's a matter of mystery unfolded in grace so you must pray and you must read the scriptures do that along with this good study so that you can be open to all the graces that God wants to give you to know better that ever before in your life and love them ever closer Jesus of Nazareth come see us register study online whatever but till next time may the Lord bless and keep your show is facing your mercy on your tarnished countenance to you and give you is amen to receive a free handout on today's topic or to purchase a video of this show call eight eight eight three three three zero three eight one that's eight eight eight three three three zero three eight one or call seven four zero two eight three six three five seven email your request to presents at Franciscan etu or write tube Franciscan University presents Franciscan University of Steubenville one two three five university boulevard steubenville ohio four three nine five two you

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

Views: 25,803

Rating: 4.9144893 out of 5

Keywords: Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, Catholic, college, Fr. Michael Scanlan TOR, Dr. Regis Martin, Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. Brant Pitre, Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

Id: -0FvkwDK0HU

Length: 58min 31sec (3511 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2013