Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament

I’m currently teaching a New Testament course and I have beeen re-reading a lot of great material dealing with all aspects of New Testament studies. I’m re-reading—among other things—Curtis Mitch’s work. I thought this was especially well-written, and a good synthesis of modern scholarship. The excerpt below comes from the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The New Testament, which Curtis Mitch co-edited with Scott Hahn. With regard to the traditional attributions of authorship of the four Gospels—i.e., that Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark, Luke wrote Luke, and John wrote John—Mitch writes the following:

“every extant Gospel text with a surviving title page includes a superscription with the name of the evangelist as given by tradition. If untitled Gospels ever existed, none has survived to confirm the assertion….Some would argue that the titles and traditions linked with the Gospels are historically unreliable. But if the Gospels were initially disseminated as anonymous works, and only decades later ideas about their origin began to crystallize and take hold throughout the Christian community, then we are left with a situation that is very difficult to explain. Not only are the names of the evangelists unanimously attested in the second century, but one is hard-pressed to account for why these names and not others were chosen and universally agreed upon. The apostle John may be thought an obvious choice to credit with a Gospel, given the extent of his influence in early Christianity. [But] why attribute the other Gospels to figures such as Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Even though Matthew was one of the Twelve, he appears only a few times in the New Testament and never in such a way that later generations would conclude that he was a figure of towering importance. Even more, it is unlikely that a Gospel addressed to readers from a Jewish background [at that time] would be attributed to a tax collector, since tax collectors were generally despised by Jews [of that time] as morally corrupt, ritually unclean, and politically traitorous. The problem is even more acute in the case of Mark and Luke, neither of whom was an apostle and neither of whom appears in the writings of the New Testament as a prominent authority figure in the earliest Christian community. If churchmen in the second century were merely speculating about the authorship of the Gospels, one might reasonably expect them to have preferred more illustrious personalities such as Peter or Paul. At the very least, one would expect more than one opinion to have made itself heard in the annals of Christian history.”¹

In a footnote, Mitch includes the following: “The Book of Hebrews provides a counterexample. Because its author is never identified in the book, and no name is supplied in its title, there was much speculation in the early centuries about who wrote it. No such speculation surrounded the authorship of the four Gospels.”²

I highly recommend the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. I use it weekly, sometimes daily.

1. Curtis Mitch, “Introduction to the Gospels,” in The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The New Testament, ed. Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, xv-xxiii (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), xvi.
2. xvi n. 2.

Dr. Peter Williams of Tyndale House

This video is of Dr. Peter Williams of Tyndale House. He does a fantastic job in this 54 minute lecture, arguing for the historical reliability of the 4 canonical New Testament Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). He relies on old and more recent arguments (from scholars like Richard Bauckham and others). Williams is a cutting edge Protestant New Testament scholar who has done top notch scholarly work on the historical and linguistic background of the New Testament, and as well as work in Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic).

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2012/01/peter-williams-on-gospels-and-the-eyewitnesses/

Thanks to Michael Bird for posting this on his blog.

I would recommend reading Richard Bauckham’s book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, on this topic: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802863906/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325644179&sr=8-1.

Just over a week ago, Dr. Michael Barber interviewed me on The Sacred Page radio show for a Catholic radio station. The interview pertained to my conversion to Catholicism and also to my research on the political roots of modern biblical criticism. Dr. Barber recently posted the podcast of the interview on the popular blog he co-authors, The Sacred Page. The podcast can be found here: http://www.thesacredpage.com/2011/09/tsp-episode-3-jeff-morrow-conversion.html

“I love her for her smile—her look—her way

Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—

For these things in themselves, Beloved, may

Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was right: our hearts long for this kind of love—beyond looks, qualities, attributes, smiles, dimples, and pleasantries.  We long for a love that embraces our very existence: that no matter what happens I’m a necessary part of someone else’s world—a part that they can’t live without.  This is the love that gets Moses up “early in the morning” (Ex 34:4).  Indeed, it is the love that keeps us up late and gets us up early: “My soul has yearned for you in the night, and as morning breaks I watch for your coming” (Antiphon from Morning Prayer, Week 3).

Wonder and Awe

Adam discovers this wondrous love at the creation of Eve: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”! (Gen. 2:23).  It’s not about the right qualities: Adam finally sees in Eve one whom he can give his heart to and who can give her heart in return.  Adam exclaims, “This one, at last”!—“Of all the things that arouse wonder, love is the most wondrous” (Called to Love, 61).  She is his equal, but they are more than just equal partners.  In their mutual gift of one to the other, Adam and Eve each discover their own identity: “She will be called woman (’issa), because from man (’is) she has been taken” (Gen. 2:23).

Because God is Real

Moses speaks with wonder about the reality of this Love: “Ask now…Did anything so great ever happen before?  Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God…and live?  Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself…by signs and wonders…which the LORD…did…before your very eyes?  All this you were allowed to see that you might know the LORD is God and there is no other.” (Dt.4:32-35, emphasis mine).  Moses saw this wondrous love in signs and wonders, but we have touched God incarnate: More than Adam or Moses could have asked or imagined, God Himself has become bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! And we are filled with wonder at God’s most merciful coming.

To say, ‘I believe in the Trinity,’ is to believe that solitude is neither where we come from, nor loneliness where we are going.  In Jesus we discover that self-giving Love is our origin and our destiny: “by sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange,” to share in that Love (CCC 221).  When Jesus took flesh and then sent the Holy Spirit upon us through the Sacraments He plunged us into the inmost Love of the Trinity.

Fr. Peter John Cameron, OP, writes, “Our misery arises when we live without a love strong enough to justify our existence no matter how much pain and limitation go along with it. What our heart is crying out for is a true companion in whose love we experience how truly necessary and invaluable our existence is.”  In Jesus’ Love, in His Sacred Heart, we find a doorway into the fiery Love of the Trinity where His Heart reaches out to ours: I have created you for Myself, and My Heart is restless until your heart rests in Mine.

Beatification of Pope John Paul II from Rocco Palmo on Vimeo.

Pope Benedict Kissing Relic of Blessed JPII

“Man Is the Way of the Church, and Christ Is the Way of Man”

HOMILY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI
BEATIFICATION OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
ST PETER’S SQUARE
1 MAY 2011

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Six years ago we gathered in this Square to celebrate the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Our grief at his loss was deep, but even greater was our sense of an immense grace which embraced Rome and the whole world: a grace which was in some way the fruit of my beloved predecessor’s entire life, and especially of his witness in suffering. Even then we perceived the fragrance of his sanctity, and in any number of ways God’s People showed their veneration for him. For this reason, with all due respect for the Church’s canonical norms, I wanted his cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste. And now the longed-for day has come; it came quickly because this is what was pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed!

I would like to offer a cordial greeting to all of you who on this happy occasion have come in such great numbers to Rome from all over the world – cardinals, patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches, brother bishops and priests, official delegations, ambassadors and civil authorities, consecrated men and women and lay faithful, and I extend that greeting to all those who join us by radio and television.

Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, which Blessed John Paul II entitled Divine Mercy Sunday. The date was chosen for today’s celebration because, in God’s providence, my predecessor died on the vigil of this feast. Today is also the first day of May, Mary’s month, and the liturgical memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. All these elements serve to enrich our prayer, they help us in our pilgrimage through time and space; but in heaven a very different celebration is taking place among the angels and saints! Even so, God is but one, and one too is Christ the Lord, who like a bridge joins earth to heaven. At this moment we feel closer than ever, sharing as it were in the liturgy of heaven.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29). In today’s Gospel Jesus proclaims this beatitude: the beatitude of faith. For us, it is particularly striking because we are gathered to celebrate a beatification, but even more so because today the one proclaimed blessed is a Pope, a Successor of Peter, one who was called to confirm his brethren in the faith. John Paul II is blessed because of his faith, a strong, generous and apostolic faith. We think at once of another beatitude: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Mt 16:17). What did our heavenly Father reveal to Simon? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Because of this faith, Simon becomes Peter, the rock on which Jesus can build his Church. The eternal beatitude of John Paul II, which today the Church rejoices to proclaim, is wholly contained in these sayings of Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon” and “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe!” It is the beatitude of faith, which John Paul II also received as a gift from God the Father for the building up of Christ’s Church.

Our thoughts turn to yet another beatitude, one which appears in the Gospel before all others. It is the beatitude of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer. Mary, who had just conceived Jesus, was told by Saint Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lk 1:45). The beatitude of faith has its model in Mary, and all of us rejoice that the beatification of John Paul II takes place on this first day of the month of Mary, beneath the maternal gaze of the one who by her faith sustained the faith of the Apostles and constantly sustains the faith of their successors, especially those called to occupy the Chair of Peter. Mary does not appear in the accounts of Christ’s resurrection, yet hers is, as it were, a continual, hidden presence: she is the Mother to whom Jesus entrusted each of his disciples and the entire community. In particular we can see how Saint John and Saint Luke record the powerful, maternal presence of Mary in the passages preceding those read in today’s Gospel and first reading. In the account of Jesus’ death, Mary appears at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25), and at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles she is seen in the midst of the disciples gathered in prayer in the Upper Room (Acts 1:14).

Today’s second reading also speaks to us of faith. Saint Peter himself, filled with spiritual enthusiasm, points out to the newly-baptized the reason for their hope and their joy. I like to think how in this passage, at the beginning of his First Letter, Peter does not use language of exhortation; instead, he states a fact. He writes: “you rejoice”, and he adds: “you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:6, 8-9). All these verbs are in the indicative, because a new reality has come about in Christ’s resurrection, a reality to which faith opens the door. “This is the Lord’s doing”, says the Psalm (118:23), and “it is marvelous in our eyes”, the eyes of faith.

Dear brothers and sisters, today our eyes behold, in the full spiritual light of the risen Christ, the beloved and revered figure of John Paul II. Today his name is added to the host of those whom he proclaimed saints and blesseds during the almost twenty-seven years of his pontificate, thereby forcefully emphasizing the universal vocation to the heights of the Christian life, to holiness, taught by the conciliar Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium. All of us, as members of the people of God – bishops, priests, deacons, laity, men and women religious – are making our pilgrim way to the heavenly homeland where the Virgin Mary has preceded us, associated as she was in a unique and perfect way to the mystery of Christ and the Church. Karol Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council, first as an auxiliary Bishop and then as Archbishop of Kraków. He was fully aware that the Council’s decision to devote the last chapter of its Constitution on the Church to Mary meant that the Mother of the Redeemer is held up as an image and model of holiness for every Christian and for the entire Church. This was the theological vision which Blessed John Paul II discovered as a young man and subsequently maintained and deepened throughout his life. A vision which is expressed in the scriptural image of the crucified Christ with Mary, his Mother, at his side. This icon from the Gospel of John (19:25-27) was taken up in the episcopal and later the papal coat-of-arms of Karol Wojtyła: a golden cross with the letter “M” on the lower right and the motto “Totus tuus”, drawn from the well-known words of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in which Karol Wojtyła found a guiding light for his life: “Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria – I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart” (Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 266).

In his Testament, the new Blessed wrote: “When, on 16 October 1978, the Conclave of Cardinals chose John Paul II, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, said to me: ‘The task of the new Pope will be to lead the Church into the Third Millennium’”. And the Pope added: “I would like once again to express my gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of the Second Vatican Council, to which, together with the whole Church – and especially with the whole episcopate – I feel indebted. I am convinced that it will long be granted to the new generations to draw from the treasures that this Council of the twentieth century has lavished upon us. As a Bishop who took part in the Council from the first to the last day, I desire to entrust this great patrimony to all who are and will be called in the future to put it into practice. For my part, I thank the Eternal Shepherd, who has enabled me to serve this very great cause in the course of all the years of my Pontificate”. And what is this “cause”? It is the same one that John Paul II presented during his first solemn Mass in Saint Peter’s Square in the unforgettable words: “Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ!” What the newly-elected Pope asked of everyone, he was himself the first to do: society, culture, political and economic systems he opened up to Christ, turning back with the strength of a titan – a strength which came to him from God – a tide which appeared irreversible. By his witness of faith, love and apostolic courage, accompanied by great human charisma, this exemplary son of Poland helped believers throughout the world not to be afraid to be called Christian, to belong to the Church, to speak of the Gospel. In a word: he helped us not to fear the truth, because truth is the guarantee of liberty. To put it even more succinctly: he gave us the strength to believe in Christ, because Christ is Redemptor hominis, the Redeemer of man. This was the theme of his first encyclical, and the thread which runs though all the others.

When Karol Wojtyła ascended to the throne of Peter, he brought with him a deep understanding of the difference between Marxism and Christianity, based on their respective visions of man. This was his message: man is the way of the Church, and Christ is the way of man. With this message, which is the great legacy of the Second Vatican Council and of its “helmsman”, the Servant of God Pope Paul VI, John Paul II led the People of God across the threshold of the Third Millennium, which thanks to Christ he was able to call “the threshold of hope”. Throughout the long journey of preparation for the great Jubilee he directed Christianity once again to the future, the future of God, which transcends history while nonetheless directly affecting it. He rightly reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress. He restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope, to be lived in history in an “Advent” spirit, in a personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ, the fullness of humanity and the fulfillment of all our longings for justice and peace.

Finally, on a more personal note, I would like to thank God for the gift of having worked for many years with Blessed Pope John Paul II. I had known him earlier and had esteemed him, but for twenty-three years, beginning in 1982 after he called me to Rome to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I was at his side and came to revere him all the more. My own service was sustained by his spiritual depth and by the richness of his insights. His example of prayer continually impressed and edified me: he remained deeply united to God even amid the many demands of his ministry. Then too, there was his witness in suffering: the Lord gradually stripped him of everything, yet he remained ever a “rock”, as Christ desired. His profound humility, grounded in close union with Christ, enabled him to continue to lead the Church and to give to the world a message which became all the more eloquent as his physical strength declined. In this way he lived out in an extraordinary way the vocation of every priest and bishop to become completely one with Jesus, whom he daily receives and offers in the Eucharist.

Blessed are you, beloved Pope John Paul II, because you believed! Continue, we implore you, to sustain from heaven the faith of God’s people. Amen.

PHOTOS: Reuters; Getty

“There is a medicine for every disease, and when a skillful physician finds the medicine, the disease is healed. For those who are wounded in our battle, there is the medicine of penance, and those who put it on their wounds are healed. Physicians, you disciples of our wise Physician, take this medicine, and use it to heal the wounds of the sick. For warriors who are wounded in battle by someone who is fighting them find a skillful physician, and then they put themselves into his hands to be healed, so that he can make the wounded parts whole. And when a physician heals a man who was wounded in battle, the king gives him gifts and honors. So, beloved, when someone is struggling in our battle, and the enemy fights against him and wounds him, it is appropriate to give him the medicine of penance, when the wounded man’s repentance has grown great. For God does not reject the penitent: as Ezekiel the prophet said, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’ Now, whoever is wounded in battle is not ashamed to put himself in the hands of a skillful physician, so that he can be healed of the wounds he received in battle. And the king does not reject a man who has been healed, but considers him part of his army again. Likewise the man wounded by Satan should not be ashamed to confess his sin, and leave it behind, and beg for the medicine of penance. For gangrene comes if a man is ashamed to show his wound, and then the whole body is harmed. Whoever is not ashamed has his wound healed, and goes back to battle again; but if gangrene comes, he cannot be healed, and he cannot take up his arms again. So for anyone who has been overcome in our battle, this is the way he can be healed: he can say, ‘I have sinned,’ and ask for penance. But whoever is ashamed cannot be healed, because he will not reveal to the physician who earns two pennies where his wounds are, so that the physician can heal all of them.”¹

For Further Reading:

Hahn, Scott. Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Have-Mercy-Healing-Confession/dp/0385501706/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304005054&sr=1-1.

Hahn, Scott. Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots. New York: Doubleday, 2009. Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Signs-Life-Catholic-Customs-Biblical/dp/0385519494.

Shanks, Jason. “God is Too Hot to Handle: Protestant Misconceptions about Confession.” This Rock 11, no. 5-6 (May/June 2000), available online here: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0005fea4.asp.

1. Mike Aquilina, Roots of the Faith: From the Church Fathers to You (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger, 2010), 11-12.

The authorship of the Gospels came under deep scrutiny especially in the early 20th century as their very authority as authentic documentary witnesses was questioned. And if their testimony wasn’t authentic, then how could they be written by authentic witnesses? From the opposite angle, if one could prove their authorial attribution faulty, so too is their credibility as authentic witnesses marred.

In order to testify to the authentic witness of the Gospels, the Church made several pronouncements throughout last century. The following are some quotations from the popes, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and Vatican II which show what the Church has had to say about the authorship of the Gospels (note: the Pontifical Biblical Commission was an arm of theMagisterium until Paul VI’s Sedula Cura in 1971):

* Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus (18 November 1893) wrote of how important it was to the doctrine of the Church that the Scriptures were eyewitness testimony:

Since the divine and infallible magisterium of the Church rests also on the authority of Holy Scripture, the first thing to be done is to vindicate the trustworthiness of the sacred records at least as human documents, from which can be clearly proved, as from primitive and authentic testimony, the Divinity and the mission of Christ our Lord, the institution of a hierarchical Church and the primacy of Peter and his successors. -PD 17

* On the Authorship and Historicity of the Fourth Gospel – May 29th, 1907 — Pontifical Biblical Commission

First Question: Whether…it is proved by such solid historical argument that the Apostle John and no other must be acknowledged as the author of the Fourth Gospel, and that the reasons brought forward by the critics against it in no wise weaken this tradition.
Response: Affirmative.

* Decree Condemning Certain Errors of the Modernists – July 5th, 1907 – Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office

This is an error condemned by this document: “John claims for himself the authority of a witness of Christ, but in reality he is only a distinguished witness of the Christian life, or of the life of Christ in the Church, at the close of the first century.”

* On the Authorship, Date of Composition, and Historicity of the Gospel of Matthew – June 19th, 1911 — Pontifical Biblical Commission

First Question: Whether…it may and must be affirmed with certainty that Matthew, an apostle of Christ, is truly the author of the Gospel published under his name.
Response: Affirmative.

* On the Authorship, Time of Composition, and Historicity of the Gospels of Mark and Luke – June 26th, 1912 — Pontifical Biblical Commission

First Question: Whether the clear witness of the tradition…compels us to affirm with certainty that Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, and Luke the physician, the assistant and companion of Paul, were truly the authors of the Gospels respectively attributed to them.
Response: Affirmative.

* Moving from the PBC to Vatican II, Dei Verbum is a little less specific in its pronouncement:

The Church has always and everywhere held and continues to hold that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin. For what the Apostles preached in fulfillment of the commission of Christ, afterwards they themselves and apostolic men, under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, handed on to us in writing: the foundation of faith, namely, the fourfold Gospel, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. -DV 18

* Dei Verbum 19 does not specifically speak to authorship questions, but asserts that the Gospels are eyewitness testimony either from Apostles or from others who were witnesses:

Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1). Indeed, after the Ascension of the Lord the Apostles handed on to their hearers what He had said and done. This they did with that clearer understanding which they enjoyed (3) after they had been instructed by the glorious events of Christ’s life and taught by the light of the Spirit of truth. (2) The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus.(4) For their intention in writing was that either from their own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who “themselves from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word” we might know “the truth” concerning those matters about which we have been instructed (see Luke 1:2-4).

The Responsa of the Pontifical Biblical Commission that are listed above have been described as “open questions” by certain theologians because some have identified their teaching as historical and literary pronouncements, but not necessarily doctrine regarding faith and morals (though, historical judgments can also be essential teaching of faith and morals: e.g. the historical reality of Christ’s bodily resurrection).

In his oral presentation of Donum Veritatis (On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian), Cardinal Ratzinger said this, which appeared in L’Osservatore Romano:

The text also presents the various forms of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms — perhaps for the first time with this clarity — that there are decisions of the Magisterium that cannot be a last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. Its nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times have influenced, may need further ramifications.

“In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church’s anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from immersion in the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment.” (L’Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990)

So, Cardinal Ratzinger seems to indicate that these pronouncements are “provisional” dispositions toward a definitive teaching. It seems to me (reading the PBC’s Responsa as non-definitive judgments) that though there has been no definitive teaching on this according to the extraordinary magisterium, there has and continues to be ample testimony from the ordinary universal magisterium regarding the authorship of the Gospels: as we say at Mass throughout the year: A reading from the Holy Gospel, according to…Matthew…Mark…Luke …John.

However this question works itself out, it is wise to show reserve by waiting for the Church. The Church has (possibly) not pronounced definitively on these issues, so then neither should we. It is a somewhat open question, but the preponderance of the evidence remains on the side of the traditional attributions.

Some recent scholarship points this way: Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans 2006) argues that the Gospels present themselves as eyewitness testimony and that’s the way we should read them. Many are pointing to the likelihood of Johanine authorship again these days when that question was thought to have been settled in the 1960′s.

However you may measure authorship, Dei Verbum shows that the Church continues to teach “firmly and with absolute constancy” that the Gospels are EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY; and if eyewitness testimony, how much further is it to assert that they are authored by the only people to whom they have ever been attributed? From a historical viewpoint, the traditional attributions are the only real testimony we have as to their authorship. Historical truth is based on witnesses and figuring out who you are going to believe.

That being said, when speaking about authorship I stick to a basic presentation of Dei Verbum 19:

Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1). Indeed, after the Ascension of the Lord the Apostles handed on to their hearers what He had said and done. This they did with that clearer understanding which they enjoyed (3) after they had been instructed by the glorious events of Christ’s life and taught by the light of the Spirit of truth. (2) The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus.(4) For their intention in writing was that either from their own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who “themselves from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word” we might know “the truth” concerning those matters about which we have been instructed (see Luke 1:2-4).

On the fifth Sunday, when the resurrection of Lazarus is proclaimed, we are faced with the ultimate mystery of our existence: “I am the resurrection and the life… Do you believe this?” (Jn 11: 25-26). For the Christian community, it is the moment to place with sincerity – together with Martha – all of our hopes in Jesus of Nazareth: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world” (Jn 11: 27). Communion with Christ in this life prepares us to overcome the barrier of death, so that we may live eternally with him. Faith in the resurrection of the dead and hope in eternal life open our eyes to the ultimate meaning of our existence: God created men and women for resurrection and life, and this truth gives an authentic and definitive meaning to human history, to the personal and social lives of men and women, to culture, politics and the economy. Without the light of faith, the entire universe finishes shut within a tomb devoid of any future, any hope.

There are a lot of important themes in this brief synopsis that Benedict utilizes in much of his theology: belief, hope, and faith and the future. For Benedict, let it suffice to say that man’s belief in Christ changes absolutely everything. Belief in Christ, in the Triune God of Love Who is the definitive source of our being, is an orientation of existence that faces truth, meaning, purposeful direction. Such a belief gives the subject a great and saving hope: that the future is not void, that there is Someone who embraces the entirety of human existence and the whole cosmos so that creation may, together with Christ, be brought into that Triune exchange of divine life and love. God answers the mystery of death, and He does with His own through which death becomes life: “Dying You destroyed our death.” So human history is salvation history, and not just that but a specifically romantic story, too. God is akin to a hopeless lover: He is so positive about and faithful to each one of us. One can think of the great epic poem, Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. God refuses to give up on us and does everything to find us, and when He does, how great will be the divine kiss of His Son as He sends us in the Spirit to love  and praise the Father.

Without an authentic belief that is rooted in such a powerful love story, human culture is void. I think that this is what Benedict suggests. It is void because without God, without Him who is superabundantly excessive, there is no place for otherness. Culture becomes an abyss for the Ego. And at that point, the Ego reflexively enfolds upon itself and, in my opinion, dies. The human person exists within a realm where otherness is critical for growth. I need you. It is not enough to suffice within my own self-reflexive ego. What I need is another: someone else so that my ego can unfold (not enfold!) and experience the created world created by the all-good Creator God.

Jesus Christ is the purest example of the other. He, the Incarnate Word, is the unfolded reality of the triune current of divine life, and He opens Himself up–physically–on the Cross, for others, becoming a cocoon for human ascent. He opens Himself up so that there is a haven for each of us, a locus, so to speak, of divine food which is nothing other than the divine Son’s human flesh. He calls us to Himself, the cocoon in Whom man may hatch into the divine life of God.

“Do you believe this?” He asks each of us. For Benedict, the answer to this question can never be a mere proposition: I believe that x, y, z. On the contrary, man’s “yes” is an existential credo: I believe, and in this belief am willing to lose my ego so that I become transparent–that the Other in whom I believe may shine. I believe, and in this belief open myself up so that I become one of yours. I believe, and in this belief hand over to you everything that constitutes me, so that when others encounter me, grant Lord, that they may see you, hear you, touch you, smell you, taste you. I believe, and in this belief I humbly and undeservedly ask to be taken into Thy wounds of your Son, so that through Him I may be taken into You. I believe, Lord, and in this belief I trust in you and in you alone. Belief constitutes the struggle to turn away from everything and face God alone.

Belief in the God of Jesus Christ is communion. “Communion with Christ in this life prepares us to overcome the barrier of death, so that we may live eternally with him.” An authentic Christian belief is totally relational. I cannot believe by myself. I need God, and that implies that everything through which God operates is important to me because it all manifests some sort of theophany: creation is not unlike a sacramental sign of God. The believer only turns away from everything so she can more properly experience the reality of everything. I am missing something elemental in every experience if I am living without God.

Lastly, just as Christ awoke Lazarus from the grave, so God calls every human person of the tomb of one’s ego-realm: another form of a grave–specifically one which has no future, but is void of life itself. On the contrary to that grave, God takes us to a Cross that points toward Heaven. It is the sign of ultimate meaning, ultimate value, ultimate reality: that God loves us, each one of us infinitely more than the next one, and in that love invites us into Himself to experience life and love.