The Upper Womb

steve hays said,

December 1, 2010 at 4:35 pm

David H. said,

“This is exactly the argument Catholics, I believe accurately, make regarding the Sacraments and the Protestant allergy towards recognizing (throughout scripture) God using the ordinary to effect the supernatural – rocks, mud and spit, bronze snakes, water, bread and wine. Only in Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) is there a completely robust and full sense of God’s ordinary providence.”

Except that every rock is not the miraculous water fountain in the wilderness, every artistic snake is not a miraculous cure for snakebite. Most of the time, a rock is just a rock. Most of the time, a snake is not a type of Christ.

Sure, when God specifically assigns a particular blessing or emblematic import to physical objects and rituals, then Protestants have no problem with that connection.

This, however, fails to raise any presumption that a suggestive cloud formation is really an apparition of the Virgin Mary.

And it’s not as if Catholics assume that every piece of bread is sacramental. They don’t assume that cinnamon rolls from the bakery are really the True Body of Christ–appearances notwithstanding.

steve hays said,

December 1, 2010 at 7:19 pm

David H said,

“Christ went beyond this with Holy Communion. The point is He took something ordinary and made is his body and blood. So I am sure you were using understatement when you said Protestants have no problem with it since Christ commanded this be done until His return.”

You’re conflating two distinct issues:

i) Protestants don’t object to the principle that God can and sometimes does use matter to convey spiritual lessons or blessings.

ii) Protestants do object when Roman Catholics misappropriate Bible verses, which they rip out of context, to backdate and rubber-stamp Roman Catholic superstitions.

steve hays said,

December 1, 2010 at 9:57 pm

As Roy Ciampa and Brian Rosner point out in their recent commentary on “This is my body,” “The bread should be understood to represent Christ’s body just as the different elements of the Passover Seder represented and reminded them of different aspects of Israel’s experience of redemption at the time of the exodus. In the Seder they ate unleavened bread to remind them of their forefathers who baked cakes from unleavened dough ‘that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait’ (Exod 12:39), and they ate bitter herbs (Exod 12:8; Num 9: 11) ‘because the Egyptians embittered the lives of our fathers in Egypt,’ 550.

steve hays said,

December 2, 2010 at 8:56 am

David H. said,

“Huge difference. Jesus did not establish a perpetual rite when he compared himself to a door and a vine.”

i) That’s a deeply confused response. Ron wasn’t comparing perpetuity to temporeity. Rather, he was comparing literality to symbolism.

“I am the bread” is just one of several “I am” statements in John. And Ron is pointing out that Jesus uses self-descriptive metaphors in some other “I am” statements. So why construe the “I am” statement in Jn 6 at odds with “I am” usage elsewhere in John?

ii) In addition, your statement makes no sense even on its own grounds. Do you think Jesus’ other “I am” statements in John denote a merely temporary state of affairs? Is Jesus just temporarily the good shepherd, the true vine, the light of the world, the resurrection and the life, as well as the way, truth, and light?

“’My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink’”. Jesus is not obscure in John 6. It clear contextually that his comparisons elsewhere were entirely different than his establishment of the New Covenant rite.

i) It’s contextually clear that Jn 6 foreshadows the Cross (Jn 19), not the Eucharist.

ii) In Jn 6, Jesus is speaking to Jews prior to the institution of the Eucharist. How could he fault them of disbelief when they were in no position to know what he’s referring to?

By contrast, sacrificial atonement was a very familiar concept to Jews, not to mention specific Messianic prophecies to that effect (e.g. Isa 52-53).

iii) Jn 6 doesn’t use eucharistic formulae. The eucharistic formulae employs the stereotypical body=bread/blood=wine pairing. By contrast, Jn 6 uses a flesh=bread pairing.

iv) Contextually, the colorful imagery in 6:50-58 figuratively depicts the literal faith language in v40.

1. steve hays said,

   December 2, 2010 at 9:09 am

   For instance, take Jn 6:35:

   “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

   Notice how “hunger” and “thirst” function as spiritual metaphors, while coming to Jesus by faith is the literal idea.

   In this verse, the “bread” belongs to the same picturesque metaphor as “hunger” and “thirst.” Three consumptive figures of speech. So Jesus is using picture-language to depict the literal act of faith. 6:50-58 simply expand on the figurative illustration in v35.
2. 
   

   steve hays said,

   December 2, 2010 at 9:17 am

   David H. said,

   “I appreciate the conneciton to the Passover seder. One additional point, and central to the seder, is the sacrificial lamb. The Jews actually consumed the sacrificial lamb. Christ who is our Passover Lamb and the most direct link to the seder is that He commands us to actual consume the flesh of the Lamb as Jews do and did at every seder (or at least a good brisket). This was a game changer for me. The Jews consumed the Lamb of sacrifice at Passover and Christ commands us to do the same. That goes way beyond symbolism.”

   i) Your comparison undercuts your contention. Both the Passover and the Eucharist involve the literal consumption of food items. Therefore, that doesn’t establish a contrast between the Passover and the Eucharist.

   ii) How does literal consumption go “way beyond symbolism?” You seem to be confusing a literal action with what the action signifies.

   ii) Likewise, both rites were divinely mandated.

   iii) You also disregard the fact, as Rosner/Ciampa document, that the Passover was clearly representational.

   iv) What goes “way beyond symbolism”? Do you apply transubstantiation to the Seder meal as well? Did Jews merely consume the accidental properties of the lamb?

   steve hays said,

   December 2, 2010 at 9:45 am

   BTW, David seems to be committing another level confusion. The proper comparison is not whether a NT rite goes “way beyond” an OT rite, but whether the thing it stands for goes “way beyond” the rite.

   The Passover commemorates an event-the Passover. The Eucharist commemorates an event–the Crucifixion.

   The Crucifixion goes way beyond the Eucharist, just as the Exodus goes way beyond the Passover. It’s the difference between a commemorative emblem, and the event which lends significance to the emblem.

   1. steve hays said,

      December 2, 2010 at 10:57 am

      David H. said,

      “It is far from arbitrary, Ron. The hermeneutical burden is on anyone who reads metaphor into Jesus words.”

      Do you apply that burden to other “I am” statements in John?

      “You need to reconcile it with John 6 and 1 Corinthians 11.”

      Since the proper interpretation of those passages is the very issue in dispute, you can hardly take that for granted, as your standard of comparison.

      “Plus, there the entire church up until Zwingli and the Radical Reformers believed in the Real Presence. Metaphor was never understood in the Fathers.”

      Assuming, for the sake of argument, that your claim is correct (and there’s no reason to take your word for it since you’re not a church historian or patrologist), that’s a diversionary tactic, and hermeneutically irrelevant.

      The Bread of Life discourse, recorded in Jn 6, wasn’t addressed to the church fathers. It wasn’t even addressed to Christians. Rather, it was addressed to 1C Palestinian Jews, prior to the institution of the Eucharist. Jesus’ audience didn’t have a eucharistic frame of reference to go by.

      You’re not making a good faith effort to step back into the real world setting of the discourse. Instead, you’re reducing Jn 6 to a fictitious, ex post facto allegory that fabricates a backstory to illustrate and validate a later institution. An etiological tale of the Eucharist.
   2. 
      

      steve hays said,

      December 2, 2010 at 11:43 am

      David H. said,

      “Your John 6 response is what is confused. You do not truly engage what Christ said. You merely dismiss his words with the typical ‘this is what he really meant’ in a more sophisticated presentation.”

      That’s a dishonest exercise in poisoning the well on your part. There was nothing “dismissive” about what I wrote. Rather, I presented a 5-point, contextual argument (including my follow-up comment) for my interpretation.

      “What did he mean when he said his flesh and blood were TRUE food and drink?”

      That’s a proleptic, figurative allusion to his atoning death on the cross.

      “There is an exegetical norm that should be observed and makes the meaning obvious.”

      Words don’t exist in a vacuum. His speech took place at a specific time and place, with a specific audience. That’s an exegetical norm.

      “Why were the Jews scandalized?”

      They weren’t scandalized because they thought he was teaching the transubstantiation of the communion elements, that’s for sure. A eucharistic referent wasn’t even available to them.

      They were scandalized by his graphic, sacrificial imagery.

      “Why did he not say ‘Woah folks! Wait a minute, you misunderstand! I am only speaking metaphorically.’”

      i) To begin with, taking Jesus too literally is a common subtheme in the Forth Gospel.

      ii) Moreover, they would still be offended even if they took his words figuratively. They were offended by his mission. They were offended by who he said he was.

      “John clearly orders the events in his gospel with a deeply theological chronology. It is not a mere chronology of events. He emphasises several things in his gospel that would have clear meaning to the early church. John 6 is one of these. Remember that while the events happened before, the gospels were written after and each with specific emphases. Notice all the Baptism passages before and after John 3 for example.”

      At best that belongs to the reception history of the text, and not to the original intent of the speaker. You can’t collapse the audience for the gospel into the audience for the recorded discourse, when it was first delivered.

      Unless you think Jesus went out of his way to deceive his audience, and then condemn them for misconstruing his deceptive speech, a speaker ordinarily chooses his words so that what he says will be understandable to his audience. They may still misunderstand, but not because his words were inherently misleading.

      And it’s also the duty of the early church to make allowance for the historic setting of the discourse. It’s incumbent on a reader of the Gospel to put himself in the situation of the target audience to whom the address was originally directed. Christians shouldn’t be so egocentric as to imagine that they don’t have to take the setting into account.

      “In the Passover Jews did not simply commemorate an event as we would on July 4th. They view the commemoration as a participation in the events of their people.”

      A symbolic reenactment of a past event.

      “And again you miss the point that they ate, at the first and subsequent passovers the actual passover lamb. What is unclear about that? They did not symbolically participate, the actually did.”

      You simply repeat the same level-confusion I already corrected you on. This isn’t difficult to sort out.

      Take a medieval morality play like Everyman. That’s an “actual” play. The actors “actually” play the characters.

      Yet the plot is metaphorical. The characters personify variations of good and evil.

      Try to draw the elementary distinction between symbolic participation and participation in symbolism. One can actually participate in a symbolic ceremony.

      Take certain rite-of-passage ceremonies involving symbolic death through burial in a coffin, followed by a “resurrection.”

      “Jesus was not known for going from greater to lesser.”

      That commits another level confusion I already corrected you on. The “greater” is not a sacrament, but the person and work of Christ.

      “What is missing is a lack of understanding of the Jewish mind and how they view(ed) participation vs. our modern idea of a memorial event. The Jews saw the important events of their people as something they were involved, a memorial was a participation and a remembrance.”

      You haven’t demonstrated that you are privy to the mind of ancient Jews. Instead, you resort to facile equivocations.

      steve hays said,

      December 2, 2010 at 1:25 pm

      David H. said,
      

      “John clearly orders the events in his gospel with a deeply theological chronology. It is not a mere chronology of events. He emphasises several things in his gospel that would have clear meaning to the early church. John 6 is one of these. Remember that while the events happened before, the gospels were written after and each with specific emphases. Notice all the Baptism passages before and after John 3 for example.”

      I’ve already taken one whack at this statement, but now I’ll whack it from another angle:

      i) David generates a false dichotomy. Sure, John arranges or even rearranges scenes and speeches into a continuous, interpretive narrative for the benefit of his audience, which is not the same audience as the audience for Jesus’ discourse in Jn 6.

      However, this doesn’t suggest the two viewpoints stand in opposition to each other, as if it means one thing in the historical setting, but now means something contrary in the literary setting.

      David is tacitly suggesting that John foisted a meaning onto the discourse which does violence to the intended meaning of the speaker (Jesus).

      ii) Apropos (i), David is also tacitly suggesting that Jesus couldn’t say things to one audience which would be of general value to the church at large. Jesus was unable to anticipate the needs of the church at a later date. So the Johannine narrator must reinterpret what he said to make it relevant to the church. The original meaning is inadequate for posterity. So the narrator must substitute an extraneous meaning, then backdate it to Jesus.

      One final point: as a number of commenters have noted, if we gloss Jn 6 eucharistically, then everyone communicant is ipso facto heavenbound. Yet even Roman Catholic theology makes allowance for the possible apostasy of this or that communicant.

      steve hays said,

      December 2, 2010 at 2:03 pm

      David H. said,

      “For example, when Jesus says truly truly anywhere in scripture he is always saying something non-metaphorical and he is putting extra emphasis on the words.”

      That’s demonstrably false, as TFan just documented (see below).

      “Also, he uses the word for ‘chew’ or ‘gnaw’ so there could have been no confusion by the Jews that he was only speaking of sacrificial language.”

      For some reason it doesn’t occur to you that Jesus is using a consistent set of metaphors. “Chew” and “gnaw” belong to the same type of imagery as “hunger” and “thirst.” Jesus uses consumptive metaphors throughout to draw a conherent word-picture. It helps the reader visualize the illustration.

      For you to quote additional terms of the very same kind does nothing to establish literality rather than symbolism.

      “It doesn’t have to be either/or, Steve, it can be and is both/and. And really that goes to the heart of all of this. Paige originally made a both/and into an either/or.”

      “Both/and” only works for complementary perspectives, not contradictory perspectives. Your interpretation cuts against the grain of historical setting. So, no, that’s not “both/and.”

      Your interpretation has to swap out what would be intelligible to the Jewish audience, then swap in a referent which would be unintelligible to the Jewish audience.

      “Steve, you are importing Western/European thought categories into Hebrew minds. It does not work – it betrays a lack of understanding of the Jewish thought. To a Jew a memorial, particulalry pesach, was a remembrance and an actual covenantal participation.”

      i) You need to drop the affectation by which you first set up a dichotomy between “Hebrew minds” and “Western/European” minds, then presume to give us the inside perspective on the “Hebrew mind.” Given that dichotomy, you yourself are an outsider to the text. You’re not an ancient Jew. And modern Jews are highly assimilated to Western European modes of thought (as I’m sure you know).

      ii) In addition, 1C Jews and Gentiles didn’t inhabit self-contained thought worlds. St. Paul is a case in point. So is Philo. And Josephus.

      iii) You continue to equivocate over “participation.” It’s not as if ancient Jews thought the Passover was a time-travel machine, whereby they literally went back to ancient Egypt and literally relived the Exodus.

      iv) ”Covenantal participation” is not the same thing as actually being there are Golgotha.

      v) Finally, Roman Catholic theology reflects a pervasively Western European mindset. So even if we play along with your (false) dichotomy, you have just cut the ground out from under your adopted denomination.

      “When reading the text I cannot see how what you wrote would apply more directly to the Reformed position that to the Catholic (or Lutheran) understanding of the text.”

      I’m not offering a partisan interpretation of the text.

      “Read the ancient Jews. Don’t take my word for it.”

      I do that whenever I read the Bible. And scholars of standard commentaries on the OT, John, and 1 Corinthians also read ancient Jews.

      steve hays said,

      December 2, 2010 at 3:59 pm

      David H. said,

      “And what happened when he blessed the fish and loaves with identical language? They multiplied to feed his disciples. Just like the Eucharist! And what happened when he prayed this blessing with the Emmaeus disciples? The recognized him in this act. The multiplying of the fish and loaves is tied directly, as you pointed out, to the establishing of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.”

      i) Are bread and fish the communion elements? I thought bread and wine are the communion elements.

      ii) Your argument self-destructs. The Eucharist wasn’t instituted by the sea of Galilee, when Jesus fed the 5000 thousand. That happened at the Last Supper, remember?

      Are you turning Jn 6 into a figurative allegory of the Last Supper?

      iii) And blessing food before you ate was hardly distinctive to communion.

      “So please tell me why he would emphasize, with a truly truly, that his flesh was TRUE food and his bloood TRUE drink? This was the point I was trying make (which was, I admit, sloppy). Jesus was not prone to Clintonisms. He said ‘true’ because he meant ‘true’.”

      For some odd reason you equate “true” with “literal.” Do you think that when Jesus tells parables, he is uttering falsehoods?

      It’s simply bizarre for you to suggest that “true” is to literal as false is to figurative. That’s the implicit contrast you’re creating here.

      Of course, if something was meant to be taken literally, then it can’t be true unless it’s literally true. But just to preface a statement with “truly” is not a rhetorical marker of literality.

      What is true is true in terms of the genre. The Psalms and prophets are replete with poetic imagery. Are they lying?

      “‘True’ means ‘true’. Not some like ‘true’…only totally different. ;-)”

      That’s a straw man. Metaphors aren’t “totally different.” Metaphors are figurative analogies.

      steve hays said,

      December 2, 2010 at 7:20 pm

      David H said,

      “You are missing the point. Luke, for example, is uniting these seperate miracles based on the blessing, which reached it’s summit at the Last Supper. It forms a biblical theme. Feeding and miraculous multiplication of the food… Christ revealed in the blessing… bread and wine becoming his body and blood… in all these cases he broke the bread and gave thanks. There is a clear thematic building to the Last Supper. and connection. Luke knew what he was writing.”

      i) Of course, you like to focus on the similarities at the expense of the dissimilarities. For instance, the feeding of the 5000 has fish and bread rather than wine and bread. Moreover, there’s nothing analogous to the miraculous multiplication of food in the Lukan account of the Last Supper.

      ii) There is no wine mentioned in the Emmaus account. There’s nothing in the account to distinguish this meal from a fellowship meal (e.g. Acts 2:46) rather than communion.

      And, of course, it’s not as if Jesus was hidden beneath the accidental species of bread.

      iii) This can hardly represent a sequential build-up to the Last Supper when the Last Supper is book-ended between the feeing of the five thousand and the Emmaus account. Rather, that would make the Emmaus account the climactic event in the series.

      iv) The statement that Luke knew what he was doing is just a gratuitous swipe, since no one here denies that. The question at issue is not whether he knew what he was doing, but what he was doing.

      “As for ‘true’ always being literal, I never said that. But in this case, one has to have a presuppositional bias to make it not literal. It is the most obvious reading of the text and that is why it vexes so many protestants. I used to share those biases as well. But the explanations never seemed the most plausible and in fact it is quite tortured. Whenever a sacramental text seems to be saying something obvious that is when some protestants become non-literalists.”

      Of course, that’s not a real argument. All you’ve done, and you’ve been doing this all along, is to string together self-serving, question-begging adjectives about what’s “obvious” and “tortured” and “plausible” and “biased.”

      But adjectives are sorry substitutes for arguments. You’re not entitled to those adjectives. Those would only be warranted at the conclusion of a suitable argument. Since you can’t make an exegetical case for your claims, you resort to rhetorical padding.

      “Ironically, while accusing liberals of doing this with much of scripture.”

      If you want to go down that road, why don’t we talk about how Benedict XVI interprets Genesis 1.

      “So ‘rise and be baptized and wash away your sins’ becomes non-literal and the text gets tortured. Water doesn’t really means water in John 3 despite all the surrounding texts about baptism. Partaking in an unworthy manner makes one guilty of the body and blood of the Lord (makes no sense if it is a metaphor) and the list goes on.”

      Here’s another one of your tactics. Since you can’t really defend your prooftext, you fling a number of miscellanous passages in our face, the way Allied bombers dumped tinfoil strips to jam the German radar.

      Yes, the list “goes on”–since you don’t really care what they mean. You don’t care enough to roll up your sleeves and do the spadework of actually exegeting them. Instead, you put your effort into rattling off prejudicial smears to poison the reader against Protestant exegesis before the reader has even studied it.

      “Someday, for some of you, twisting these texts beyond all reasonable recognition is going to start wearing thin and the selective literalism will give way to truly letting scripture speak. Not to say you are willfully twising them. But you are buying in to those who do simply because you trust them based in common sect affiliation. Let God be true and every man a liar. True of letting God speak in His word.”

      Having lost the argument, you cover your retreat in a volley of triumphalist rhetoric. Yeah, that’s really convincing.

      One of your defense mechanisms is to psychoanalyze the motives of your interlocutors. While there’s sometimes a place for that, it cuts both ways. I could just as well surmise that you have a deep emotional investment in sacramental realism. That’s your shortcut to Jesus. This is why you dodge all the evidence you can’t handle, and take refuge in these cheap gimmicks.

      steve hays said,

      December 3, 2010 at 8:01 am

      David,

      The basic problem is that you resort to a hermeneutic of suspicion when dealing with Protestants. You don’t even give the argument a fair hearing because you preemptively discredit any argument we have to offer. Dialogue is useless if you’re going to discount whatever we say ahead of time. Why do you even come here if that’s your modus operandi? I could patiently work through your “list,” but what’s the point if you’re going to dismiss whatever I say in advance of the argument? And not just me.

      Frankly, I don’t think you even grasp what I mean by a “metaphor.” You seem to equate a metaphor with a purely literary device that has no extratextual analogue. That’s true of some metaphors, but not all.

      For instance, to say that a ritual is symbolic is not to say that one doesn’t perform a real ritual; rather, the significance of the ritual is symbolic.

      Let’s just touch on your examples:

      i) “So ‘rise and be baptized and wash away your sins’ becomes non-literal and the text gets tortured.”

      a) What do you mean by “non-literal”? Except for the Salvation Army, no one denies the reference to water baptism. So that’s not the issue.

      The issue is whether water baptism is a real channel for the remission of sins, or an emblem for the remission of sins.

      b) Those who regard the connection as emblematic don’t do so just because they have an antecedent objection to sacramental realism. Rather, they think the sacramentalist interpretation is inconsistent with the fact that there are many passages of Scripture where the remission of sin is independent of baptism. It’s a concern for having a consistent overall position. There’s nothing disreputable about that concern.

      c) In addition, it’s not as if the church of Rome has the inside track on this verse. Your denomination doesn’t regard baptism as a prerequisite for salvation. Your denomination has created many loopholes to make room for the salvation of the unbaptized. So don’t act as if someone like me is guilty of special pleading.

      ii) ” Water doesn’t really means water in John 3 despite all the surrounding texts about baptism.”

      But that’s a very lopsided appeal, for you suppress surrounding texts (Jn 4; Jn 7) that employ aquatic metaphors for spiritual renewal. Moreover, the OT also uses aquatic metaphors for spiritual renewal, some of which are probably feeding into the Johannine imagery.

      iii) BTW, it would be odd if Jesus were teaching baptismal regeneration in v5 when in v8, he teaches the independence of the Spirit’s action. For if baptismal regeneration were the case, then the agency of the Spirit is far from discretionary. To the contrary, the agency of the Spirit is standardized.

      iv) “Partaking in an unworthy manner makes one guilty of the body and blood of the Lord (makes no sense if it is a metaphor) and the list goes on.”

      That has nothing to do with the real presence. In context, some of the Corinthians profane Christ by profaning his people. That’s the connection.

      I could go into more detail on all of this, but you haven’t demonstrated the patience for detailed analysis.

      steve hays said,

      December 3, 2010 at 11:14 am

      David H said,

      “Someday, for some of you, twisting these texts beyond all reasonable recognition is going to start wearing thin and the selective literalism will give way to truly letting scripture speak. Not to say you are willfully twising them. But you are buying in to those who do simply because you trust them based in common sect affiliation. Let God be true and every man a liar. True of letting God speak in His word. Have a good evening.”

      No doubt some percentage of Protestants fit that psychological profile. However, that’s a self-incriminating charge on the lips of a Roman Catholic. At least where Protestants are concerned, our principial adherence to the primacy of Scripture means that Scripture can always overrule one’s “common sect affiliation” and let Scripture speak for itself.

      The same cannot be said for observant Roman Catholics. As a matter of principle (as well as practice), their “common sect affiliation” dictates what the Bible is allowed to affirm or deny. Rome speaks for Scripture.

      steve hays said,

      December 3, 2010 at 2:30 pm

      David H said,

      “Partaking in an unworthy manner makes one guilty of the body and blood of the Lord (makes no sense if it is a metaphor) and the list goes on.”

      Just as a test-case, how literal is the Catholic interpretation? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the “body” in 11:29 denotes the consecrated communion elements rather than the Christian fellowship.

      What is there for the communicant to literally discern? Well, the literally discernible properties of the bread and wine are the sensible, empirical, phenomenal properties. The taste, texture, sight, and scent.

      But the Catholic interpretation upends this. According to the Catholic interpretation, the unworthy communicant brings condemnation on himself because he failed to discern the (literally) indiscernible properties of the “Host.” He failed to detect the indetectable “true body and blood” of Christ hidden underneath the accidental properties. He failed to perceive the invisible, intangible, tasteless, scentless body and blood of Christ, which are further obscured by secondary properties of bread and wine. And for that he’s culpable–culpable because he failed to perceive the imperceptible.

      Yet that’s supposed to represent the “literal” interpretation of the text, unlike those closet liberal Protestants who “twist” the “obviously” import of the text. That’s supposedly let’s the text “speak for itself.”

      1. steve hays said,

         December 3, 2010 at 7:06 pm

         David H said,

         “So please tell me why he would emphasize, with a truly truly, that his flesh was TRUE food and his bloood TRUE drink? This was the point I was trying make (which was, I admit, sloppy). Jesus was not prone to Clintonisms. He said ‘true’ because he meant ‘true’.”

         According to Roman Catholics, the consecrated communion elements are the true body and blood of Christ. Well, all I can say is that Roman Catholics have a rather distinctive definition of a true body with true blood.

         This is a “true” body without measurable height, shape, or weight. A true body without perceptible warmth, scent, solidity, or texture. A “true” body without observable head, neck or torso; arms, legs, eyes, ears, lips, nose, fingers, toes, fingernails, toenails, hair, teeth, skin, or pigment. A true body without detectible heart, brain, lungs, bones, viscera, genitalia, kidneys, stomach, bladder, liver, nerves, veins, muscles, tendons, ligaments, or joints.

         True blood without discernible type, color or volume, white cells, red cells, antibodies, electrolytes, or platelets.

         In sum, a “true” body which is, by each and every comparative index, systematically indistinguishable from a nonexistent body. A real presence that coincides at every single point with a real absence, by any measurable criterion. Yet this is “obviously,” indeed “unambiguously,” the “literal” understanding of a “chewable,” “gnawable” body.

         By Catholic standards, what’s the difference between an empty box and a full box?

         “Whenever a sacramental text seems to be saying something obvious that is when some protestants become non-literalists. Ironically, while accusing liberals of doing this with much of scripture.”

         Actually, I can only imagine that liberals would be delighted to apply the Roman Catholic definition of a “true body” to the bodily resurrection of Christ. A bodily resurrection that’s thoroughly indistinguishable from a nonbodily resurrection.
      2. 
         

         steve hays said,

         December 3, 2010 at 7:18 pm

         Sean said,

         “What does Mary carry in her womb? The eucharist, the word and the priesthood.”

         So the Last Supper actually took place in the Upper Room of Mary’s womb. The Upper Womb. And her womb was large enough to accommodate the 12 disciples. Truly a miracle! Miniature disciples!

         If only Leonard Da Vinci had ultrasound to more accurately depict the prenatal, homuncular institution of the Eucharist.

         BTW, did the baptism of Christ take place in another one of Mary’s vital organs? A kidney, perchance? What about the Sermon on the Mount? Did that occur in Mary’s liver or spleen? What about St. Peter’s basilica? Is that located in Mary’s pituitary gland?
         

         steve hays said,

         
         

         December 3, 2010 at 9:34 pm

         David H said,

         “Someday, for some of you, twisting these texts beyond all reasonable recognition is going to start wearing thin and the selective literalism will give way to truly letting scripture speak. Not to say you are willfully twising them. But you are buying in to those who do simply because you trust them based in common sect affiliation. Let God be true and every man a liar. True of letting God speak in His word. Have a good evening.”

         Sean said,

         “What does Mary carry in her womb? The eucharist, the word and the priesthood.”

         Someday, for some of you papists, twisting these texts beyond all reasonable recognition is going to start wearing thin and the far-fetched typology will give way to truly letting scripture speak for itself. You are willfully twisting the Scriptures simply because you abode blind faith in the Pope. Let God be true and every man a liar. Have a good evening.