← Pints With Aquinas
Pints With Aquinas
The New Testament, the Historical Jesus, and His Divine Claims (Dr. Michael Barber) | Ep. 557
02:58:45
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- [00:00]
Matt Fradd
Pints with Aquinas is brought to you by Truthly, which is a groundbreaking Catholic AI app built to help, you know, live and defend the Catholic faith. Start your 7 day free trial today when you download Truthly on the App Store. Do we really have any good reason to think that what the authors recorded actually happened? Is this something that developed over the time? Maybe it's not pure myth.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Maybe.
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Matt Fradd
But maybe so much myth has grown up around it that it's really not something we can trust.
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Michael Patrick Barber
And you can hear Paul's getting in his rhetorical mode, right? He's really. He's really leaning into this. Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one could say that you were baptized in my name. And then he says, I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I don't know.
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Matt Fradd
Once I baptized, that just means sitting among the teachers. But he himself isn't one. Well, it's like there's Matt Fradd sitting among the scholars.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Teachers that sit in the ancient world, right? So usually the audience stands. Okay, as a professor, yes. I feel like I got the short end of the stick on this because I have to stand every time. In the Septuagint you find Lord, Lord, it's because you have in the Hebrew Adonai tetragraviton. So when Jesus says, lord, Lord, he's not just saying, I'm a king, Staples argues, he's saying, I am the Lord God.
- [01:35]
Matt Fradd
Hey, everybody. Before we get into today's interview, I want to tell you about my brand new book. It's called Jesus Our Refuge. If you, like many people, and like all of us to one degree or another, have been seeking refuge in things other than Jesus Christ and have just found yourself increasingly weary, then this book is for you. This book is about taking Jesus seriously when he says, come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. It's getting great reviews, and I know it will be a healing balm to your soul. Check it out. Jesus Our Refuge. You can get it right now on Amazon. Thanks. So you, I think, were my first professor ever. Isn't that wild?
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Michael Patrick Barber
That is wild.
- [02:20]
Matt Fradd
I got married, had never been to college. Was terribly insecure. Insecure about that fact. Now I realize I didn't need to be. But yeah, San Diego, I was working at Catholic Answers. We should probably at least pretend this guy has an education. Let's send him there and, yeah, you taught, I don't know, Biblical something or other.
- [02:37]
Michael Patrick Barber
Had taught lots of classes, so I don't remember which particular ones, but I think you were in the class where I taught on the Gospels, because I think you wrote a paper on the Mysteries of the Rosary.
- [02:47]
Matt Fradd
Yeah, like I told you this morning, I wrote that paper. And that's now a book called Pocket Guide to the Rosary that Ascension put out.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Amazing.
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Matt Fradd
So thanks for that.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Turned a paper into a book. Yeah, There you go.
- [02:58]
Matt Fradd
But one thing I really appreciated about you as a professor is you stressed the importance to dress well. Oh, yes. And I remember you wanted the fellas to wear a jacket.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Right. Well, it would be nice, I would say.
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Matt Fradd
And you came up to me once and just whispered something like, next time maybe dress a bit better. I'm serious. Fantastic.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah.
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Matt Fradd
Well, the way people dress today is horrendous. And so it's good that we take ourselves seriously.
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Michael Patrick Barber
So we were there at a little Catholic university there where people were primarily studying film. And so I would have sort of experiences that are really outside the normal experience of academia. So people wearing PJs to class, that kind of thing. God have mercy. So, yeah, so it felt like it was the Big Brother, and I was closer in age to the students then. This is when I was in my early 30s. Right. So, yeah, so I was closer in age to the students then. And I felt like I could kind of be a Big Brother and help especially the young men think about the way they, you know, they were dressing and presenting themselves. But it also helps to dress well. Just, I think. You think better. Right. When you are.
- [04:12]
Sort of presenting yourself in a way that's thoughtful and deliberate, I think you end up becoming a more thoughtful and deliberate person in any given context. But I know when I go home at night and I put the comfy pants on or my jogging pants on or whatever, and a T shirt, who knows what's going to come out of my mouth.
- [04:33]
Matt Fradd
Well, I really did appreciate it, so thanks for that. All right, let's talk about our blessed Lord. So why should I, someone might say, pay credence to these gospels, New Testament, that was written 2,000 years ago?
- [04:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
Sure. Yeah.
- [04:47]
Matt Fradd
Do we really have any good reason to think that what the authors recorded actually happened? Is this something that developed over the time? Maybe it's not pure myth, but maybe so much myth has grown up around it that it's really not something we can trust.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Sure.
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Matt Fradd
Where do you start? In a conversation?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. First of all, I love starting here with the Gospels. Because it is really important for us, I think, as Catholics to talk about the importance of Scripture to our faith. This is something that I see a lack of in a lot of places, a deficiency of a real passion for studying Scripture. You'll hear people say things like, well, you know, studying scripture is like, it's kind of like, you know, you got to eat your vegetables or something like that, you know, or you got to do your exercise or. People in the Catholic tradition often neglect the importance of Scripture. You see this every year around Lent in Catholic circles where people say, what are you gonna read for Lent?
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Matt Fradd
Uh huh.
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Michael Patrick Barber
And you get all kinds of interesting things like this saint or that saint. And just to be provocative, I'd say the Sermon on the Mount. Because so often it seems to me that when people think of the Catholic faith, Catholic spirituality, or even Catholic theology, they forget about the importance of Scripture. So I'm always on guard against what I call theologianology.
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Matt Fradd
Oh, that's good.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Right. Where you think theology is the study of theologians rather than primarily the study of the sacred page. Second Vatican Council says that the study of the sacred page is the soul of theology. That's right. You know what a soul is? The soul is what gives life to a body. So what do you call a body without a soul? A corpse. Right. So a theology that doesn't make the study of the sacred page, its soul is a dead theology. And so Thomas Aquinas, for example, at the very beginning of the Summa, talks about that the only incontrovertible sources for a theologian is Scripture. Now you can study other philosophers and theologians as quote, unquote, probable authorities. But for Thomas, and many people have noticed this, the study of the sacred page and the study of sacred doctrine are essentially the same thing. So I think it's really important for us as Catholics to read the Gospels, to study the Gospels, to think about the Gospels. And at the same time, there are people who are not Catholic who might think, well, those Gospels are just fiction, those Gospels. So on the one hand I feel like I've got Catholics who are really not interested in biblical studies at all. And they think if they do anything that's in biblical studies, they're going to lose their faith or it's, you know, somehow a danger or a threat to read biblical scholarship. And then on the other hand, you've got people who are also, my friends, people who are unbelievers, people who are in academia who think, well, yeah, the Gospels are really interesting, ancient sources, but they don't really have anything in Them that is reliable or true. I need to get really bizarre expressions of this, what's known as Jesus mythicism, I.e. that Jesus was just a made up figure, like a fictional God, like Dionysius or something like that. And that's, I think, obviously.
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Matt Fradd
Could we stop?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Really problematic. Yeah, that's where we go.
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Matt Fradd
Before we can say, did the New Testament record the events in a reliable way? We need to say, well, was there even a Jesus? Because if there wasn't even a Jesus, then clearly there's no other questions to be asked.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, exactly.
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Matt Fradd
So how do you know Jesus wasn't a mythical.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Right, That's a great question. Yeah. In fact.
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There are really no serious academics, no real serious scholars, with a couple of exceptions. I can think of Robert Price, who is a trained biblical scholar, and Richard Carrier, who is a.
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Matt Fradd
Is he still doing it? Still doing his thing?
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Michael Patrick Barber
He's like a classicist. He's written a lot on this. I don't know how active he still is.
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Matt Fradd
And can I ask, what does it mean to say he's not a serious. I hear people say that and I don't know what that means. What does it mean to say someone's not a serious scholar?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, so that's great. Yeah. So a serious scholar is someone who studies the scriptures in their original languages. They learn the tools of the trade of biblical studies. So they learn the different historical tools that scholars use. They also know other ancient sources. So let me give you, for instance, one famous Jesus mythicist is DM Murdoch, but she wrote under the name Acaria S, which akaria means something like guru, I think, or teacher. And in this book you find these outrageous claims, like, for example, gospel comes from the idea of God's spell.
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Matt Fradd
Okay.
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Michael Patrick Barber
And so here we see the connections of Christianity to ancient magic. That's laughable, right?
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Matt Fradd
Who's saying this?
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Michael Patrick Barber
This is DM Murdoch. It's a book, it was published in the late 90s called. I think it's like the stuff you.
- [10:02]
Matt Fradd
Could get away with before the Internet. Huh?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Oh my goodness. Some people still get away with it today with the Internet. And you know, frankly, believers get away with a lot of stuff too. I'm like, you can't say that, right? I am a believer, but you shouldn't say that. So it actually, there is a lot of misinformation out there. And that happens when people don't actually know enough to say, well, that's absurd. You know, the gospel is written in. The gospels are written in Greek. The Greek word for gospel is euangelion. Which essentially means good news. It's a term that we see in something called a prienae inscription that was part of Roman propaganda where they talked about the good news of the birth of Caesar Augustus. And we also can recognize that that word euangelion seems to be related to a verb that's used in the Septuagint that announces the good news of the Lord's coming to Israel in Isaiah chapter 40. So it's got a lot of interesting. But God's spell, Are you kidding me? This is complete nonsense. This is total fiction. Right? So a serious scholar is someone who's not going to make those kinds of mistakes because they know too much to even go in that area. But there are that are actively engaged in conferencing. So it's really fun to look like the smartest person in the room and to stand up in front of a bunch of people who don't know Greek or Hebrew and give mesmerizing presentations. And people think, wow, he knows so much. But the check on that pride, which is natural, is to go to academic conferences and present papers in front of people who do know the biblical languages. And if you say nobody in the ancient world, they're going to raise their hand and say, I can name four sources from the ancient world that says exactly what you say. No one says, right. So a serious scholar is someone who's not just presenting material in a popular format, in a format that is for non specialists, but someone who's willing to be held accountable to other scholars by publishing things not just on the Internet, on some website. Right? I have a website, but who cares about that? Like anybody can have a website. So what's on a website that means nothing? You publish something in a peer reviewed journal and that carries a lot more weight because the peer reviewers are blind. Usually they don't know who you are.
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Matt Fradd
Is that right?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, they don't even know your institution. Right. So one of the things that this is really important, I have students at the Augustine Institute where I teach, who want to go on to become serious professors of biblical studies and theology. And, and I teach them. We have one program in particular devoted to students who really want to do this called the Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies. And this is a program, we only take four or five students a year and it's really difficult to get in, but we push them hard. And one of the things that I try to do with them is I try to get them in the first term to write a paper for Society of Biblical Literature which is the largest, most prestigious gathering of scholars in the world. You'll get over 10,000 scholars. And we get, of course, Catholics. You'll see people you know, you might know, like Brant Petrie will be there. But you also get people who are skeptical scholars, people who are Protestant scholars, people who are Muslims, people who are agnostic, Jewish scholars all across the board. Right? And to get a paper in the Society of Biblical Literature, what you have to do is you submit a paper to a particular group. So let's say the Gospel of Matthew. I've sat on the steering committee for that, that branch of Society of Biblical Literature. I know what it looks like. We'll get like 70 papers. You can choose four. I don't know your name, I don't know your institution. I don't know where you live in the country. I know nothing. Just the strength of that paper. And that's a really great process because you're not just, you know, kind of getting your friends in or, you know, just. It keeps you honest, you know. And so a serious scholar is someone who's willing to go through that. How much does it pay? Nothing. Right. How much does it mean in terms of fame or worldly accolades? Really nothing, right? Because sometimes you're presenting in front of like 10 people in a room, sometimes it's a lot more than that. But either way, you're not doing it for anything else other than to just be tested as a scholar and see if your argument can hold up. So you don't see any Jesus mythicist papers at Society of Biblical Literature because they're going to be maybe every now and then in a blue moon, but they're going to be questioned and pushed, and no one's gonna fall for the idea that gospel is from God's spell or something absurd like that. Some people in the mythicist movement will say things like, well, Jesus was a sun God originally. Right? All religions are essentially a spin, a derivation of ancient pagan myths about sun gods. And you'll have people, Matt, who will say this. Well, don't you know, Jesus is the son, and it could be S o n, but also S u n. That only works in English.
- [15:26]
So those are the kinds of absurdities that you're going to see from people. So even skeptical scholars like Bart Ehrman, who is not, you know, a believer, he identifies as an agnostic. I think even as an atheist.
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Matt Fradd
Bart, he seems like a serious scholar.
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Michael Patrick Barber
He's a serious scholar, and I should say he's a really good man by all accounts. I know lots of his former students. He goes out of his way to help his former students. So, I mean, where people would have a disagreement with Bart is on the evidence. And you know, Barth.
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Man Barth, his arguments against mythicism are really powerful. He points out, for example, that the.
- [16:10]
Matt Fradd
Jewish historian, just to clarify against mythicism.
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Michael Patrick Barber
For those at home, Bart Ehrman, saying, of course Jesus really existed. And here's the evidence for that. We have, for example, Josephus, 1st century Jewish historian who's not getting his information from the New Testament. Right. And he talks about. Now there's some debate. Exactly. About what he says. There's an interesting new book out that's arguing that the way people have received this portion of Josephus has actually been doctored up. Yeah. Problematic. That Josephus actually does talk about Jesus, but in a very sarcastic way.
- [16:55]
Matt Fradd
Oh, so what we have today, is it true that that's been edited by Christians to make sense?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Some people think it's been edited by Christians. That's been the standard view. John P. Meyer, who is. I'm impressed that, you know, John P. Meyer is a very impressive. One of the leading historical Jesus scholars of the last. He's a Catholic scholar. Pope Benedict quotes him in his trilogy on Jesus. He passed away recently. He was a lovely man. I knew him.
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A wonderful man. Meyer argued that, well, Josephus says these things about Jesus like he was the Messiah. Okay. That's probably added by later people. So maybe later Christians were the ones that preserved Josephus writings. So maybe Christians added certain things to that account of Josephus that weren't originally there. What this new book is arguing by T.C. schmidt is that the earliest manuscripts indicate that most of what, or a lot of what scholars have dismissed was actually there. It was just there in a very sarcastic mode.
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Matt Fradd
Okay.
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Michael Patrick Barber
But nonetheless, he was aware that there was a man named Jesus and that his followers who are Christians, identified him as someone who, for example, worked miracles. Right. He was known for working miracles. So you know, the claim by some that, oh, well, that person, Jesus is just a myth invented by Paul or something. Yeah, by Paul or something like that is absurd. And of course, Paul talks about how Jesus was crucified. So think about that. He talks about how the crucified Lord, the proclamation of a crucified Lord is a scandal.
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Why would he make up that detail if it's so problematic? And undoubtedly it was. We have ancient graffiti. Have you ever seen the Alexamenos graffiti? It's a fascinating piece of graffiti where apparently people were ridiculing a man named Alexamenos it says Alexamenos worships his God. And. And it's an image of Alexamenos. It's ancient graffiti. He's worshiping a crucified man who has the head of a donkey.
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Matt Fradd
So this was sarcasm. I love how sarcastic. I'm learning everybody was in the ancient world.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, they were. In fact, I think oftentimes the gospel writers or Paul are sarcastic as well. It's sort of funny when you or Jesus himself, you know, Give me an example.
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Well, okay, so in the Gospel of John, there's a fascinating story where.
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Matt Fradd
John.
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Michael Patrick Barber
John tells us. The Gospel of John tells us that Lazarus had passed away, and Jesus is taken up to see him. And.
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They say to Jesus that he's passed away. And Jesus says.
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He'S only sleeping, and Jesus says he's only sleeping. And he said. I think they think that Jesus believes that Lazarus somehow does. Jesus rather doesn't really understand how death works. Right. So let me get to the passage. Let's see here. Okay. So Jesus told them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I'm going there to awaken him. And then the disciples say to him, lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will be all right.
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I think John's being kind of sarcastic here and telling the story. Right. And then Jesus. And then it says, Jesus, whoever, however, who had been speaking about his death.
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Then told them plainly. He told them plainly. So I think it's a little bit of a sarcastic.
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Matt Fradd
If he's sleeping, just let him go.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, exactly.
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Matt Fradd
He probably needs it.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Like, Jesus doesn't understand. Right. So Jesus needs his disciples to explain to him how sleep works. Give me a break. Right? That's absurd. So there are all these little jokes in the Gospels about how.
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Matt Fradd
What do you make before we get back to Josephus? What do you make of what Paul says about how he wishes that those would. The knife would slip and they would castrate themselves?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, I'm not so sure that that's what that means.
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Matt Fradd
Tell us what it is and what it means.
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Michael Patrick Barber
If I didn't. Yeah. So there is a passage in Galatians where Paul is dealing with the. He's dealing with a group of people who are somehow being led to be convinced in Galatia that even though they're gentile, they need to be circumcised.
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Matt Fradd
Right.
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Michael Patrick Barber
And Paul wants to emphasize that Gentiles don't need to be circumcised. All right? And so in Galatians, he talks about how.
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He wishes that those who were doing these things would. Now, the Greek word is a little bit complex, but it could be translated mutilate yourself. And so some people think that what Paul is saying is, I not only wish they would circumcise themselves, but that they would totally castrate themselves.
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Matt Fradd
That's how I've understood it.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. But there are scholars like Coleman and others are making a case that what Paul is actually doing is saying he wishes that they would sever themselves from the community.
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Matt Fradd
Oh, I see. That's way less fun.
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Michael Patrick Barber
Yes.
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Matt Fradd
Could it be like a double entendre?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Could, Might be. And it might be that Paul uses that particular word because in Conte, the issue is circumcision. But the idea that Paul is saying, man, I really hope that they damage themselves doesn't really square well with, say, love is patient, love is kind. You know, these are things that Paul also says. So I'm not saying that Paul didn't have a temper and that Paul might say things that he regrets, but in that particular instance, I'm not so sure that's what that means.
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Matt Fradd
Josephus said Christ exists and Christians existed, but it's possible that Christ didn't exist and this story had just circulated and now Josephus is recounting what he had heard, Right?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Sure. So what else do we have? Yes, that's great. So another thing that we know, and I'm glad you're pushing me like that, that's great. One thing that we know is that there were these people who went around the ancient world saying that they were Jesus disciples and other people didn't seem to challenge them on that. So we see in Galatians, Paul talks about how.
- [23:14]
James, Cephas, who is Peter and John were known as pillars in the early church. So these are the people that we recognize are identified as Jesus's disciples. And in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, Paul talks about how Jesus had appeared to these men and to the apostles. So there's clear evidence that Paul is rooting his teaching about Jesus in not only what Jesus has said, but others. And I think one of the most profound evidences for this is in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is actually talking about the Eucharist. And he says that I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that on the night he was betrayed. And he goes on to tell the story of the Last Supper and how Jesus institutes the Eucharist at the Last Supper. So what Paul is saying here is, I receive this and I'm passing it on to you. And that language of passing on in Greek, paradidimy is the Greek word. It's the technical term for tradition. So Paul isn't going around claiming, I've invented some new religion that no one has heard of before. Paul is explicitly indicating to his readers who apparently know that he has transmitted to them things that he has heard from these other disciples who spent time with especially Peter. So it does seem that you know, Cephas, also Peter, James, John, these were people that Paul knew. So the idea that Paul is just coming up with this Christian faith ex nihio, ex nihilo is it's just not rooted in an honest reading of these ancient texts. So someone like Bart Ehrman would say, look, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not a believer. But to insist that these letters really mean that Paul has invented some historical person, when we have the writings of Josephus and we have other writings as well, they're a little bit later. Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, other ancient writers, Suetonius, perhaps. All these writers also talk about these believers who followed a man named Christ. It's not the idea that. But they say differently. They say slightly different things. But suffice it to say all these are pointing in the direction of where there's smoke, there's fire. And that fire seems to be a historical person.
- [25:39]
Matt Fradd
How do you respond to somebody who says, yeah, you just mentioned Galatians and Corinthians, but that's all bias.
- [25:44]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, yeah.
- [25:45]
Matt Fradd
So don't give me any of that.
- [25:46]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, I love that.
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Matt Fradd
Yeah. What do you say?
- [25:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
I remember when I was teaching.
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Where you took a class for me in San Diego. I remember having a student one time who came in and folded his arms on the first day of class and was just not having any of this Catholic theology class that he was required to take. And I recognized that and I said, if you are a skeptic, if you're here because you just think that this is all made up nonsense, that's fine. I respect every different position out there, but have the courage to ask questions, have the courage to challenge what I'm saying. I'd like challenges. And I'm not pretending I know all the answers because I don't. But ask them, like to hear what they are. So immediately he put his hand up. I could tell that sort of made him think he had some skin in the game. So he said, look, your citing the New Testament, these books are clearly biased. They're written by people who believed in Jesus. So they can't be historical documents. They can't be used for historical Research, they're, you know, propaganda. Give me something written by someone who isn't a believer in Jesus. I said, well, there is Josephus, so that's significant. But let me ask you this. What do you think you know about any of the Roman Caesars? What do you think you know about Alexander the Great? Socrates, Right? All of the people. Socrates, all of the people that wrote, virtually all of them had some vested interest in their subject.
- [27:32]
Matt Fradd
If they didn't, why would you waste ink?
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Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. That's precisely correct. And a lot of it, frankly, is political propaganda, right? Let's just be honest. The lives of the Caesars, accounts of historical battles, you know, history is written by the winners and all the rest. So why, why would you. Why would you assume anything is true? Why would you assume that we have any historical knowledge then about anything in the past? I said, if you're looking for a completely unbiased source, and you're only going to believe what an unbiased source tells you, we wouldn't know almost anything about the ancient world because everybody's writing with some kind of perspective and bias. And I think that's important to underscore. And of course, as a believer, I have a perspective and a bias. I don't pretend otherwise, but everyone does. And if you're a skeptic, then you know you also have perspective and certainly a bias, right? So those of us who have experienced encounters with the miraculous, those of us who have seen things that we can't account for, have a different perspective. We're just changed by those experiences in ways that people who maybe have never experienced those kinds of things cannot understand. And I'm fine with that. I recognize that I've been blessed to have amazing things happen to me in my life that I think are traces of God working in my life. And I know other people haven't had that. And so I don't presume to tell them that somehow we're on the same. We're starting from the same place. We don't. But I think we still need to try to be honest with the data that we have and weigh it responsibly and be careful about the things we claim about it.
- [29:29]
Matt Fradd
So what if he says, all right, fair enough, Bias is involved in everything, every retelling of a historical figure. But we can take that into account and we can do our best to sift through it to come to a at least more accurate understanding of this figure.
- [29:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right?
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Matt Fradd
But when it comes to the Gospels, you're asking me to believe that a man walked on Water multiplied fishes. And this is so insane. It's not just a matter of bias. You're asking me to believe that this is God who became man and was circumcised. It's so silly. So when I take that into account with the fact that it was written as religion, just propaganda, do you see why I might have a problem with this?
- [30:07]
Michael Patrick Barber
Sure. And of course I do. Of course I do. Right. If someone were to ask me what I think about accounts of other religious groups and other, you know, figures from other religions, I'm pretty, you know, critical in thinking about these kinds of things. So I recognize that that's a certainly a valid claim. One thing that's really fun for me is participating in what's known as the historical Jesus field. The field of historical Jesus research.
- [30:37]
Matt Fradd
I want to tell you about Hallow, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hallow.com Matt Frad sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful. If you don't like it, you can always quit. Hallow.com mattfrad I use it. My family uses it. It's fantastic. There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers medit including my lo fi. Hallow has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries. It helps you pray, helps you meditate, helps you sleep better. It helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer. There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all. Just go check it out. Hello.com Matt Frad the link is in the description below. It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent you can play little bible stories to them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic. Hello.com mattfrad what is that?
- [31:37]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, the historical Jesus, we have to be clear, is not the same thing as the real Jesus, right? So history is hard. We have to recognize that doing history is extremely difficult. We have to be very modest about what we can claim. You know, if somehow I were arrested for a crime, if I was arrested for murder and I had to prove that I bought a donut at Old Town Donuts right around my house and that was my only alibi, I would be in big trouble. Because when they ask me if I want a receipt, I usually say no, I don't want any evidence of this transaction.
- [32:18]
Right. So.
- [32:21]
I'm not talking about 2,000 years ago. I'm talking about last week. Right. Right now we have cameras everywhere. And so it's more likely that, you know, you're going to have some kind of evidence, but not necessarily. And so even my reminiscences of, like, Thanksgiving as a child. Right. What did we do on Thanksgiving in 1987? I started thinking about that. And it can merge really easily with what we did in 1988, you know, and so history, memory, these are challenging things to talk about when we're not discussing the Gospels, ancient sources, something of great stakes, like the claims of the Christian faith. But one thing I really like about historical Jesus scholarship is it involves people looking at the same evidence and trying to make reasonable arguments based on the data that we have. And one of the great scholars who did this is somebody I think I mentioned, John P. Meyer. John P. Meyer did the work on Josephus I talked about. John P. Meyer was a fascinating man. He taught at Notre Dame for many years. I did get to know him. He had an encyclopedic memory. He had read everything Matt. And he seemed to have just instant recall of all the ancient sources that he had studied.
- [33:43]
Matt Fradd
I don't like him already.
- [33:44]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah.
- [33:46]
Matt Fradd
Cause I lack all of that.
- [33:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, yeah. He was a truly incredible man. He was also a devout Catholic, a believer. You can find videos of his homilies online. People are sort of surprised by this. Yes, he was a priest. He was a priest, Father John Meyer, and he was a remarkable homilist. And he changed the lives of lots of people who lived at Notre Dame in beautiful ways. Now, Meyer wrote what was known as the Marginal Jesus series. It's five volumes. He never finished the project, Sadly. He died a few years ago. A couple of years ago. Too young, I think, but anyway. And in the book, he puts forward the Historical Jesus Project as an unpapal conclave. That's how he describes it. So what we're going to do is we're going to take a Christian, we're going to take a Catholic, we're going to take a Jew, we're going to take. And later he added a Muslim, and we're gonna lock them in the basement of Harvard Divinity School's library, and we're not gonna let them out. And then until they can say, all right, these are the things that we agree about when it comes to Jesus. So his argument was, all right, there are things, despite whatever your biases are, you should be able. We should be able to come to in terms of common commonalities or like a common denominator about who Jesus was. Now, I've critiqued Meier's methodology in print, and so people know that I do have disagreements with the way he does his work. But that's a really helpful model for thinking about what Meyer did, because Meyer will sometimes say, oh, I don't think this is clearly historical. Or he'll say, I don't think that, you know, this is authentic. And I think a lot of people, when they read that, especially Catholics, start thinking, my goodness, he doesn't believe that the Gospels are reliable. He didn't believe that Jesus told the story of, I don't know, the Good Samaritan or something like that. No, that's not what Meyer's arguing. He's just saying within this discussion, within this very circumscribed discussion, I don't know that we can get someone all the way there on this particular point. Right. So I love this field. I think it's fascinating. And my favorite scholar in that field is a Gospel scholar named Dale Allison. I think most people would recognize him as one of the top three scholars who have written on. He's written a ton on this. And I really like what Allison. Allison has.
- [36:28]
The charm, the virtue of being willing to change his mind, which I really appreciate. He'll frequently write a book and say, yeah, I changed my mind from the previous book. Very few scholars have the courage to do that. In fact, very few people have the courage to say, I was wrong. I rethought that. Thank you for your argument. I think I see things differently now. And what he argued when he was younger is that we can use these certain criteria which John P. Meyer and others famously used to say, all right, this is how we know something in the Gospel is more than likely reliable. Again, we can't prove it. There's no video evidence here. There's no video recording. It's not like DNA evidence. We can't send some kind of CSI team back together.
- [37:13]
Matt Fradd
What's funny is that even if there were, we would say it was AI somehow.
- [37:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly.
- [37:18]
Matt Fradd
So even with the sorts of things we would it count as evidence. They could always be questioned.
- [37:23]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you know, I think we need to recognize as believers that. But what Jesus said to Peter is important. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Right. How does Peter know that Jesus is the Christ? It's not because Peter did extensive scholarly research, and then he came to the final objective. Critical conclusion. Yes. I have decided that among all the messianic claimants who are walking around in a galley, you are the one who is true. Right. So we have to recognize there's an element of faith here. St. Paul also says no one says that Jesus Christ is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Right. So we have to recognize there is a dimension of faith. We're not just going to be able to somehow, you know, win an arm wrestling match and, oh, now you have to admit there's no other possible explanation. Jesus Christ is Lord. Right. Okay, so would that, that said, what historical Jesus scholars have done in the past is they've said, well, there are these criteria that we can use, and if we use these particular criteria, we can demonstrate that something in the Gospel is more likely historical than not. So some of them are, for example, multiple attestation. So if we have something said about Jesus in multiple different sources that are independent of each other.
- [38:48]
And, or in different forms of Jesus teaching that have come down to us, then it's likely Jesus said or did this. So an example would be that Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God. Right. All throughout our sources, Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God. And we find this in parables. We find these in simple sayings that he says, Jesus clearly spoke about the kingdom of God. All right, so that's one criterion someone would use. Another criterion is embarrassment. If we find something in the Gospels that would have been embarrassing to the early church, then we definitely know that it goes back to Jesus and it preserves historical memory. So an example of that would be Jesus's baptism. Right. So John the Baptist came around proclaiming a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. It's kind of embarrassing that Jesus went out to be baptized by John the Baptist. They'd say, it looks like he's admitting that he's a sinner. If you were going to make up a story about Jesus, you probably wouldn't imply that he received a baptism that was connected to the message of forgiveness of sins.
- [39:58]
Matt Fradd
You probably also wouldn't have him being accused of being a drunkard and a gluttony.
- [40:02]
Michael Patrick Barber
Sure, Right. So these are the kinds of things in the Gospel tradition people will say, all right, multiple attestations. So these are the things that we can kind of have some.
- [40:13]
Confidence on. Now, another one, traditionally that's been used is known as dissimilarity. And that is dissimilarity has two dimensions to it historically. One is, or at least within the field of historical Jesus scholars, one is the Idea that if Jesus says something that's not like the Judaism of his day, then it more likely reflects what Jesus said than not. Now, this has been heavily criticized, and very few scholars came to take that view even more recently, because Jesus is a Jew. So if Jesus is saying something that doesn't sound at all Jewish, that doesn't seem to hold up. The other argument is dissimilarity from Christianity. So if Jesus says something that the early church doesn't say, then it's more likely historical. So the bias here is that the Christians misunderstood Jesus teaching, that the early church.
- [41:11]
Recast Jesus teaching in ways that don't faithfully preserve his original message. Right. And so an example of this, maybe a more benign example of this, is Jesus referring to himself as the Son of man. Fascinating. Throughout the Gospels, when Jesus talks about himself, he refers to himself as the Son of man. Paul never talks about Jesus as the Son of Man. The Catholic epistles never talk about Jesus as the Son of Man. We do find reference of Jesus as the Son of Man in the Book of Revelation, but it's one like a son of man. And in the Book of Acts, Stephen does use the expression son of man, but.
- [41:54]
It'S pretty much the case that the early Christians don't use that language for Jesus as Son of man. So because of that, they'd say, all right, well, this goes back to Jesus because it wasn't picked up. Well, Dale, Allison and many others have critiqued this set of criteria as.
- [42:13]
Unconvincing. And, you know, there are some conservative scholars are like, oh, gosh, you can't take away the criteria. I love the criteria because it helps. But if we're going to be honest, they don't really convince. So multiple attestation.
- [42:30]
Okay, well, that seems to be in tension with embarrassment. So the baptism of Jesus is found in all four canonical gospels. Are you going to tell me it's embarrassing? It was so embarrassing that they all told that story that doesn't seem to work out. Well. This is not producing a coherent image. Right. And just because something is multiply attested, so what? So what if something's multiply attested? You know, it could have just been very early on that all the Christians made something up and then everybody repeated it. So is that as decisive as people have thought? And maybe the biggest question is you have to assume that the sources are independent. And this worked when scholars thought that, you know, Mark was one source and Q was another source. Q is this hypothetical document that that has never been discovered. But there are lots of things in Matthew and Luke that agree that aren't in Mark, and scholars assume Mark is the first written Gospel. And so. Well, how do you explain the material that's in Matthew and Luke that's not in Mark? Well, there must be another source called Q. Okay, well, how do we really know these sources are independent. How do we really know that Luke doesn't know Matthew? So there's a scholar named Mark Goodacre who's done lots of interesting work where he's showing, well, the evidence for the Q hypothesis isn't as airtight as people have claimed it is. And a number of scholars are moving away from the Q hypothesis as well. So this is.
- [44:09]
Matt Fradd
Do you have a strong opinion on that?
- [44:10]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's a good question. Yeah.
- [44:13]
Matt Fradd
And what is causing people to move away from it? Because it makes sense, just prima facie.
- [44:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes, it does. And it has been the majority opinion for a long time.
- [44:23]
The problem. There are multiple problems with the Q hypothesis. One is it's never been discovered, so there's no clear evidence that it exists. Another issue is that you can find other ways to explain the data than appealing to the Q source. So if Luke knows Matthew, or if Matthew knows Luke, that would explain a lot of the data without necessarily appealing to a hypothetical other source. Goodacre is really entertaining on this. I recommend people listen to his podcasts on the Q hypothesis. He says, had Q been in any other letter, it would never have caught on. He jokes, q is such a cool letter. It's the bad guy in Star Trek. It's a villain and James Bond. If it had been.
- [45:12]
The. I don't know, the C source, it probably wouldn't have been as cool, but quella, isn't it? Yeah, it's from the German word for source. That's right. Yeah. So some hypothetical, sort of.
- [45:23]
Matt Fradd
That's hilarious.
- [45:24]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. And, you know, to be fair, part of the reason people thought this is due to testimony from the early church. So Papias is an early Christian writer. It's not exactly clear when he's writing, but sometime near the end of the first century, he seems to have been alive when some of Jesus's disciples were still alive and walking around. So that's amazing. He wrote a lot of things. They've been lost to history, but some of the things that he wrote are preserved in other sources. So there's an ancient historian named Eusebius, and Eusebius.
- [46:08]
Eusebius preserves some of the sayings of Papias. And Papias says that Matthew the apostle wrote in Hebrew and he wrote the oracles of Jesus or the logia in Jesus of Jesus. So the words of Jesus or the oracles of Jesus in Hebrew. Right. And so very early on, Irenaeus, other Christian writers affirm that the apostle Matthew.
- [46:39]
Produced some literary.
- [46:43]
Work, right, about Jesus, and they all say he wrote it in Hebrew. Now, we do have a Gospel of Matthew in our Bibles today, but that Gospel of Matthew is written in Greek. Canonical Matthew is written in Greek, not Hebrew. So what are we to make of this account? That there was some kind of Hebrew gospel. Right. And it's not like a myth. Jerome actually says when he was translating the Lord's Prayer, for example, and he got to the word for daily epiusios, he didn't know how to translate it because it's a term that isn't found in any other Greek literature. So he was trying to figure out how to translate it. So he looked at Hebrew Matthew. Whoa. So Jerome apparently had eyes on a document, and other people said that they also saw it as well.
- [47:38]
Matt Fradd
So unlike Q, where we don't have historical, historical figures referencing it, we do for the Hebrew Matthew.
- [47:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's right. And so there have been Catholic scholars, for example, like Marie Joseph lagrange, a Dominican scholar in the early, the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century. He thought that maybe Hebrew Matthew was what scholars were looking for when they're looking for the Q document. Right. And even more recent scholars, some even more recent scholars like Donald Sr. Say, well, this seems to be a possibility right now. I think this is fascinating that, by the way, Jerome goes on to say that the Gospel of Matthew that we now have Greek Matthew was translated by someone, but we don't know who wrote it. Right. So Jerome would say that we do have a gospel in our New Testament that is in some way connected to the Matthean tradition, but that doesn't mean Matthew himself wrote it.
- [48:34]
Matt Fradd
Interesting.
- [48:34]
Michael Patrick Barber
And actually there is evidence that Matthew knows the Gospel of Mark. I don't have time to get into all this, but that's the standard view, is that Matthew knows Mark. It's funny, because in Catholic circles, I find some people say, well, the tradition is Matthew wrote first and then Mark wrote. That's not necessarily the case. If you read the early church, Augustine says that, but it's not always clear that that's the case. Certainly Jerome thought that Matthew wrote, but he wrote in Hebrew, not in Greek. And it is amazing to me that so many Catholics will look at Mark in priority as some kind of, I don't know, liberal Protestant Theory when Catholic scholars like Maurizio Sophole Grange say this is very Catholic because we're saying that the first gospel is the Petrine Gospel. The first canonical gospel is Mark's Gospel, which according to Tradition is associated with Peter. Right. And so Mark was believed to be the secretary or the companion of Peter. This also was said by Papias. Now there are some scholars say, well, you know, that's not reliable for this or that, whatever reason. But just funny to me, in Catholic circles, people will appeal to Tradition and say, oh wow, you know, Matthew had to write the first Gospel. They don't really understand all the sources in the early church. What they say anyway is Hebrew Matthew, the Q source. Some people have thought that. The problem that I have is that assumes, if you're going to call it Q, the Q hypothesis assumes Luke doesn't know Matthew and Matthew doesn't know Luke. Right. So scholars say there's no way Luke knows Matthew because Matthew has things in it that Luke wouldn't have left out. And Matthew has these beautiful sermons like the Sermon on the Mount. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Matt, we have the perfect sermon. Christian tradition receives the Sermon on the Mount as the model for all sermons. Are you telling me Luke just kind of took it and chopped it all up and put the different sayings of the Sermon on the Mount in different places? Different places and didn't preserve that beautiful. Now, of course, Luke didn't know Matthew is what people will say. But Goodacre will come back and say, well, if you read the Book of Acts, which seems to be the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, that's the way it's presented, it's the way it's understood in the tradition. In the Book of Acts, we have a great story of Paul giving a sermon and there's a young man named Eutychus. Do you know the story?
- [51:03]
Matt Fradd
Keep going.
- [51:04]
Michael Patrick Barber
Eutychus is sitting in a window.
- [51:06]
Matt Fradd
Yes.
- [51:06]
Michael Patrick Barber
And Paul is preaching late at night and he's going on and on and on and poor Eutychus falls asleep and apparently falls to his death out of the window. Luke thinks long sermons kill people. So Gunna says it's not surprising at all that Luke doesn't just give us the whole Sermon on the Mount because Luke doesn't like long, long sermons. Does that make sense?
- [51:35]
Matt Fradd
It feels like a stretch, but okay.
- [51:37]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, you can see how Luke would. There are reasons. You can look at Luke and say, oh, well, that's why he doesn't just copy and paste the Sermon on the.
- [51:44]
Matt Fradd
Mount and Even if it wasn't that reason, there could be something else.
- [51:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. There could be so many.
- [51:48]
Matt Fradd
Couldn't it all be. Well, I was going to say, couldn't it also be the case that Christ was an itinerant preacher and gave that homily more than once?
- [51:54]
Michael Patrick Barber
There's lots of explanations for this. Right. So these are the. That's the Q theory. And so multiple attestations. I don't have a. You ask me, what's my opinion on this? I don't really have a strong opinion on this. I think that there is overwhelming patristic evidence that there was some sort of Hebrew gospel. But it's certainly not just the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew that we have. It's something else. I don't know exactly what that is.
- [52:21]
Matt Fradd
Okay. But it sounds to wrap this pile up, by the way, you're not going on too long. You can't go on long enough. This is all fascinating.
- [52:27]
Michael Patrick Barber
Okay, good, good. Thank you.
- [52:28]
Matt Fradd
So I guess I shouldn't have said wrap this up, but I guess the point I'm hearing from you is people will point to multiple attestation. But your point is actually they all kind of. We're familiar with each other, so we can't rely on that the way we might like to.
- [52:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's right. And even, you know, no matter what, the early church is really small. So to imagine that they don't know each other.
- [52:48]
Matt Fradd
I don't know what the herd of.
- [52:49]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. I mean, the number of literate Christians is really small. The number of people who would be able to like, write a gospel or, you know, and usually they would hire somebody, a scribe or, you know, usually it would be somebody who had been trained. Right. To do that. Paul talks in his letters. One of my favorite things in reading Paul is at the end of his letters, he'll say something like, see these large letters? It's I, Paul writing. Right. Because Paul isn't trained to write. It's expensive to write. So Paul would say, see the large letters? Because, you know, Paul doesn't have the practiced hand of a scribe.
- [53:21]
Matt Fradd
So he's like, I didn't read.
- [53:23]
Michael Patrick Barber
He's not really. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. So somebody else, you know, our images of the apostles or Paul is that they're sitting at a desk.
- [53:31]
Matt Fradd
Totally.
- [53:31]
Michael Patrick Barber
There's a candle and they're writing. That's not what's going on. Right. You can see this in Paul's letters where he's dictating to a scribe. Can I give you an example? Is this going to be too one of my favorite examples of this is in First Corinthians where Paul is talking about the fact that he hasn't baptized anyone. And there are all these factions apparently in Corinth, well, I was baptized by this person. I was baptized by that person. And Paul wants to make the point that it doesn't really matter who you were baptized with, who you were baptized by. You know, ultimately, you know, we have to recognize that we're all one in Christ. And so he's talking about this in First Corinthians, and he says this, he says, what I mean is that each of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, I belong to Christ. So some people will. Or maybe that's not a claim. Maybe Paul is saying, I belong to Christ. You know, anyway, there are different ways to read it. And he says, has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? And you can hear Paul is getting in his rhetorical mode, right? He's really leaning into this. Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one could say that you were baptized in my name. And then he says, I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I don't know. Once I baptized. Right. So you can see Paul is in the middle of saying something and then he has to kind of walk it back and somebody's writing this down for him. That's the way it would have worked. Right. Okay. So, yeah. So anyway.
- [55:09]
Matt Fradd
All right, so if multiple attestation, I mean, it's something, it's not nothing. But it sounds like you're saying it's not a knock down dragon ball.
- [55:14]
Michael Patrick Barber
It's not a knock down. Right.
- [55:15]
Matt Fradd
So that doesn't work.
- [55:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
And then embarrassment doesn't work. Dissimilarity is also problem because then you're saying that the early Christians only really preserved things that were unimportant to them. Wouldn't they preserve the kinds of things that they believed? Right. So if you're going to say, oh, well, we know something is reliable in the Gospels because they didn't care about it. Right, exactly. That's absurd. Right, so you're seeing. So these are the arguments that have been raised against these criteria of authenticity and even that language that's used by historical Jesus scholars. Authenticity is also problematic because sort of imagines the Gospels are something they're not imagines, they're kind of like an Archaeological tell. You know, a tell is like a mound, and there are layers of the mound. And what scholars are doing is somehow excavating each layer. And they're going to. But that's not the way it works. That's not the way memory works. That's not the way history is, you know, transmitted orally and written about. Things don't have layers like that. Right. So it's just. It's problematic. So. So Dale Allison critiques some of this, and he's laid out a methodology that I sort of tweak a little bit, but I really like it. And what he argues is that we should just kind of start with what is recurrently attested. So not multiply attested in the sense of, like, different forms. But what are the things that Jesus says over and over? What do we see all over our sources? For example, one would be that Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God is at hand. It doesn't matter whether this is Q or he says it everywhere. If our sources are wrong about that, then we can't trust them for anything. We ought to just pack up our bags and go home. Because.
- [56:55]
If they're that unreliable that they say this all over the place, then we're really fooling ourselves if we think we're going to make a historical argument about anything. So I think that's a really powerful argument. So let's start with what's recurrently attested. Let's start with the broad contours of the Jesus tradition, right? That Jesus, for example, was a person who looked forward or was anticipating the restoration of Israel. This is all over our sources. That Jesus identified himself as playing a starring role in that, whether that's the son of David, whether that's the son of man. But Jesus is the central actor in this eschatological scenario, right?
- [57:34]
Matt Fradd
What about the fact that he saw himself as a miracle worker and an exorcist?
- [57:38]
Michael Patrick Barber
So Jesus as a miracle worker. This is amazing that you bring this up. So Allison has a new book out called Interpreting Jesus, and in it he has a whole chapter on the miracles of Jesus. Now, this is an area that for some people is a no go zone, right? Because, oh, you expect me to take it serious that, you know Jesus? You really think a serious scholar can think that Jesus performed miracles? And Allison's point is. Well, I'm not going to argue that he necessarily walked on water in this particular story or this particular story of him healing someone, but that Jesus did miraculous things that people couldn't account for. If you don't think that that is his reputation, what he was known for. Then you're just digging your hole, putting your head in the sand, because it's all over our sources. And one of the interesting things to me is this new book by T.C. schmidt, who's looking at Josephus. I mean, in Josephus, in that report of Josephus, says Jesus did miraculous things, right? And later rabbinic tradition, which we have to be careful about because it's much later. So how reliable is it, right? We're talking like 5th century. But later Jewish tradition would say, yeah, well, he did things through sorcery. But see, at least they're having.
- [58:50]
Matt Fradd
They're contending with the evidence, right?
- [58:52]
Michael Patrick Barber
They feel constrained to say, well, everybody knows he did do miraculous, supernatural things, right? So this is the way Allison starts, is we should kind of begin with this. Now, some people will say, well, you're being naive. You're just saying, well, all these things must be true because they're all over our sources. And one thing that Dale does, and I think it's really powerful, is he points out that our sources are also produced by a community that was led by people who were Jesus disciples. It's important to remember a disciple is a student. The Greek word for disciple is mathoteis. It literally means a student, right? So the people who are telling the stories about Jesus, they're not like raptured up into heaven immediately after the resurrection of Jesus, right? They are walking around. The people who saw Jesus ministry are still around. Presumably his mother is still around in the early church. And when we read the letters of Paul, we know that people recognized him, they knew who they were. So it's not really believable to say, well, Paul just went off and made up all these stories about Jesus, and he said all these things that were completely unrelated to the kinds of things Jesus himself would have taught. That doesn't jive with the fact that Paul knows Peter and he knows James and they're walking around in this church. So Paul's going to come up with some fantastic story of how Jesus. Jesus went to China or Jesus went to. We don't have anything like that in our sources, right? It's actually amazing when you look at the synoptic problem. They call it the synoptic problem. How, you know, the Gospels are so similar and yet also different. How is Matthew, Mark, and Luke telling so much of the same story, but in different ways? It's called the synoptic problem. But the reason we have a problem is because they're so similar.
- [60:42]
Matt Fradd
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- [61:52]
Michael Patrick Barber
And so one of the amazing things is the conservative dimension of the way the Jesus tradition was passed on, right? They're not going off and saying, yeah, you know what Jesus did? He also went to Egypt and spent time there, learning from the sages in Egypt and then he went to Rome. And we don't have these kinds of stories because they felt constrained. Why did they feel constrained? Well, most likely because there were people walking around who had been Jesus's followers, who had been his disciples. And it could be a check on that tradition. That doesn't mean that nobody would ever say anything that may have been a mis memory of something or something like that. But nonetheless, it is remarkable that these people are walking around and there at the time of Paul. So there is a sort of check and balance there a little bit in the early community.
- [62:48]
Matt Fradd
So you began by saying by historical Jesus, you don't mean the same thing as real Jesus. Explain what that means. I think what you mean is the historical Jesus is the Jesus that we can access. Access through the science, just through the.
- [62:59]
Michael Patrick Barber
Historical tools that we have. Right. So obviously, again, if we're going to talk about not just the historical Jesus, but let's say the historical Thomas Aquinas. Yeah, right. What can we say about Thomas Aquinas from a historical perspective? I love this prayer. It's called the prayer before study.
- [63:18]
Matt Fradd
Me too.
- [63:18]
Michael Patrick Barber
You probably remember I began every class. I still began. Begin every class with the prayer before study. It's attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas I love this prayer. And I would love to say that Thomas Aquinas actually wrote that prayer. Right. And I have been to the Dominican House of Studies. I've been at lots of, you know, academic conferences with lots of Dominicans. Some of the greatest Dominicans in the world, Thomas Joseph White, Father Dominic Legge, many. Right. And I asked them, okay, so what is the evidence here? You're a Dominican in house. Did he write the prayer before study? He probably didn't write the prayer before study. We don't have solid evidence of that. Right. So there are lots of questions about the historical. If we want to say Thomas Aquinas. Now, does that mean that Thomas Aquinas didn't do it? Doesn't mean that the summa and all of Thomas work exhaust everything that he ever thought. He taught lots of things to lots of people. We just don't have the tools to recover it. And to say this is what he did. Now, from a Catholic perspective, the real Jesus is not simply the Jesus that you can access through historical argumentation. I believe Jesus rose from the dead. Right. I believe I encounter the risen Lord in prayer in the life and the sacraments of the Church. Right. So. So for me, the real Jesus is.
- [64:43]
Matt Fradd
Not find what history can tell you. Exactly.
- [64:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. But that doesn't mean that I can go to SBL and convince everybody. Oh, well, hey, there's a great tradition about, I don't know, pick some pious.
- [65:02]
Tradition about Jesus that isn't in the Gospels or that even is in the Gospels. But it is going to be difficult for people to take in. And even Origen, Origen's a great early Christian writer. You know, he had to respond to a guy named Celsus. You know who Celsus is? Celsus was. He was a anti Christian polemicist. He wrote against the Christian faith. He thought the Christian faith was all made up, you know, a lot of the arguments that mythicists might use today or that really skeptical scholars will use today.
- [65:35]
Matt Fradd
What century is he writing?
- [65:36]
Michael Patrick Barber
Second century.
- [65:37]
Matt Fradd
Okay, wow.
- [65:37]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right? Second and third century. Right. So Celsus is.
- [65:42]
A intellectual, right? And he is.
- [65:49]
Laying out arguments against the Christian faith, saying you can't believe these absurd stories in the Gospels. Origen had to defend the Gospels from a Christian perspective. And what he says is we gotta be careful about what we think the Gospels are doing. For example, when Origen looks at the story of the baptism of Jesus, says, of course the Gospels are telling us the truth about Jesus. Things that Jesus really did and taught to use the Language of the Second Vatican Council, DEI verbum. He doesn't use those exact words, but he does believe that Jesus is a historical person. And the Gospels tell us things that Jesus really did. But he also says the Gospel writers are not writing like journalistic accounts of everything Jesus did. And when we read the Gospels, we see even, you know, anyone can see clear differences. For example, in the words of institution at the Eucharist. Right. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus says, this is the blood of the covenant and my blood of the covenant. And Luke and First Corinthians, Jesus says, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. He didn't say both of those.
- [66:57]
Matt Fradd
Right. And none of the early Christians seemed concerned about this.
- [67:00]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. Right. They recognize that what is going on here is we get the substance of what Jesus is saying. Nobody expected ancient writers to give you a perfect transcript of someone's words.
- [67:14]
Matt Fradd
Okay, but let me pause you here and ask you how you explain that from a faith perspective.
- [67:18]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right? Yeah.
- [67:18]
Matt Fradd
So from a historical perspective, I get it. Yeah. But from a faith, faith perspective, Catholics believe that the Scriptures are inerrant.
- [67:25]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right.
- [67:25]
Matt Fradd
But so which one's wrong?
- [67:27]
Michael Patrick Barber
So the Catholic understanding is that the Bible is inspired and ultimately God is the author of sacred scripture. Right. And we understand that the Gospels and the Scriptures are true in what they affirm to be true. So we have to be really careful about making sure we don't make the Gospels say things that they're not necessarily intending to say. Give you an example. If I watch the news at night and they tell me that the sun will rise tomorrow at 6:53, and that comes from a meteorologist, I would not be within.
- [68:08]
My right mind to say, what a moron. This guy claims to be some kind of scientist. Doesn't he know that the sun stands still? The sun rises in the morning, the sun does not rise, the earth is rotating. No, this is just the way we explain that time of day, because that's the way it looks to our. We're not making a scientific claim about, you know, the meteorologists isn't making a scientific claim about the way the earth is and the cosmos. Right. So likewise, when we read the Gospels, we have to read that the gospel writers are writing a mode of historical telling that's not the same as our historical mode today.
- [68:46]
Matt Fradd
So you're saying if I said to Matthew right. Will you. Are you saying everything in this gospel is word for word what Jesus said? You're saying to me, he would say no.
- [68:53]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh no, he would say no. Right. And we can See that when we read the different accounts of the Word and Augustine talks about this, Origen talks about this, that this shouldn't concern us. And this is the kind of thing, for example, Celsus will say, oh, contradiction, contradiction.
- [69:10]
Matt Fradd
That's really interesting to know that the early church was acknowledging this. This isn't a backpedal in the face of historical.
- [69:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, some people will say it is a backpedal because Celsus was saying this. Right. So just to be clear, right from the beginning we've had critics, but I would just say the Gospel writers are clearly showing us that they're not to be. They are not understanding themselves to give transcripts. Look, there's no quotation marks in Greek, right? So when we see quotation marks in our Bibles, we think, wow, that's the exact word. We even have these Bibles in English that have the red letters, right? Wow. This is the exact words that you. But Augustine would tell you, no, the Gospel writers aren't giving you the exact words. Jesus spoke.
- [69:50]
Matt Fradd
Augustine said that.
- [69:50]
Michael Patrick Barber
Augustine says this. Oh yes, right. And so the idea that, you know, we have to maintain this, you know, this approach to inerrancy that is this, you know, hyper driven model of no contradictions in the Gospels misunderstands the kind.
- [70:07]
Matt Fradd
Of writing that they do to this point too. If this was something that the early church was bothered about in the way that you might say some modern Catholics are, then they would have maybe kept one of the Gospels. It would have been a real problem for them that the words conflicted.
- [70:22]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's exactly right. And Origen actually talks about this. So for example, think about the baptism of Jesus. In the baptism of Jesus in Mark's Gospel it says that Jesus saw the Spirit descend upon him. The heavens were torn, Schizo is the Greek word. And the.
- [70:43]
And he saw the Spirit come down upon him.
- [70:46]
Now Kelsus, like what absurdity. The skies are ripped in half. How is that supposed to happen? And Origen says Celsus is obviously being obtuse.
- [70:56]
Matt Fradd
That is amazing. It reminds me of an atheist who I heard recently who said that salt can't lose its taste. And because Christ said it could, it shows that he was, you know, what are you doing?
- [71:07]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right? And so we've got to interpret them on their own terms as ancient historians. So for example, when we read in the book of Acts, Paul described his experience on the road to Damascus. He tells the story multiple times and there are slight details that are not the same in each account. Now some people, oh, it's A contradiction? No, this was the way you told ancient history. When a historian related the speech of someone else, they did the best to preserve the substance of what was said, but there were no transcripts. Sometimes a historian would have to sort of use their imagination to say, well, this is likely the kind of thing that they would say. And all the readers understood that that was not something that they would have thought was scandalous or surprising. In fact, when you read Josephus, Josephus talks about how the Jews of his day believe the scriptures are the words of God. They'd be willing to die for them. They would never change a syllable of them. And then you read Josephus account called the Antiquities of the Jews, where he tells us biblical stories and he changes the syllables, right? He actually changes the story slightly. But that's because, you know, he doesn't think that you have to preserve them in this sort of exact way that we can today because we have computer analysis and we can look at how many times is this verb used? They didn't think like that in the ancient world, and they certainly didn't have transcripts of people's talks. Now, with Jesus, it's a little bit different because he's an itinerant teacher. So Jesus likely goes around and says a lot of the same things, lots of different ways and lots of different times. And so his disciples would have heard him say this. And in fact, one thing that's fascinating is in the Gospels, and Paul seems to bear witness to this. Jesus sends out the apostles, even before his passion, death and resurrection, to go out and proclaim. Remember, they go two by two. So they're already practicing before he goes to the cross to proclaim the message of Jesus. He's teaching them how to do it and mentoring them. So even if you don't have faith.
- [73:10]
Matt Fradd
Come back and share with you. Right?
- [73:11]
Michael Patrick Barber
Even if you don't have faith, okay, there are good reasons to think that the apostles would have. You know, it wasn't like they were just, you know, disinterested bystanders. What did he say something about? Was it something about, like, the prophet Jonah? No, it wasn't a prophet Jonah. He didn't ever talk, you know, so, you know, there's reasons to think that they could have remembered the substance of what he said. So the early church understood that the Gospels are not written in that kind of mode. And Origen, when he's writing against Celsus, points out, well, yeah, literally the heavens weren't torn at Jesus baptism. Like, how would that happen scientifically? How would the Skies be torn. This is a theological point that is being drawn from the book of Ezekiel. By the way, there's a great young scholar named Sam Johnson. He has a book coming out on the life of Jesus in the writings of Origen, published by Cambridge University Press, and he's detailing all of this. It's really fascinating. But anyway, Origen shows that the Gospel writers need to be read on those terms. So it shouldn't be scandalous to us that we have slight differences in the accounts of the Gospels. You know, sometimes that narrative. Actually, the Second Vatican Council talks about this, that the Gospel writers, they're inspired, but they use all their own faculties and powers, which also involve, like, some creative dimension. Right. And literary dimensions. When you read Matthew, he organizes his Gospel according to, it seems, five major sections of speeches. Luke does something different, but they're using their own. You know, they're bringing their own resources and their own imagination, you know, to how they want to shape the message. Not in a way that's untrue. Right. But in a way that communicates important theological truths to them that they think need to be emphasized, maybe given particular problems that they see in given communities. But, you know, this shouldn't make us somehow anxious or the church recognizes that this has been going on from the earliest times. Right. So we don't need to be apprehensive when we see, oh, my goodness, Jesus says in Matthew and Mark, my blood of The Covenant and First Corinthians, something entirely different.
- [75:25]
Matt Fradd
Have you read Lydia McGrew?
- [75:27]
Michael Patrick Barber
I have not.
- [75:28]
Matt Fradd
Do you understand? She writes about the accidental coincidences we see in Scripture, how, you know, this proves the veracity of the New Testament documents. But we won't get into that. I think another thing people sometimes think is that the New Testament is one document.
- [75:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, yeah, that's right.
- [75:45]
Matt Fradd
But now you're telling me that independent, what do you say? Attestation isn't necessarily as strong as. I mean, surely it has strength to it.
- [75:55]
Michael Patrick Barber
I think what I like is Dale Allison's model of recurrent.
- [75:58]
Matt Fradd
You like that more?
- [75:59]
Michael Patrick Barber
What I like if it's all over the place, the idea that this doesn't come from Jesus, that the transmission of Jesus teaching was so butchered that they got this element that's reiterated over and over again. Wrong. That doesn't seem believable. But Dale doesn't just argue that there's a second move. The second move is it might be recurrently attested, but that's not enough. So does it make sense within a Jewish context? Okay, so can you Read this as something that would be intelligible in a first century Jewish context. Right. And that's a really interesting.
- [76:37]
Area of study and something I've really devoted much of my time to, and that is thinking about the ways Jesus teaching in the Gospels fits in with the Jewish context, and particularly what I'm interested in or what I've been. I wrote a book called the Historical Jesus and the Temple Memory Methodology and the Gospel of Matthew. Dale Allison wrote the foreword to it. And by the way, in the forward, he called me a pioneer. I have to tell you, this meant so much to me because he's a hero. He's been a hero of mine. So I ended up.
- [77:08]
Matt Fradd
I hope you printed that out and put it on your wall in a frame.
- [77:11]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, yeah, I got it. I guess I should. I'm just. I'm so grateful for this because, you know, if you had asked me seven years ago, you know, if you could have dinner with any person alive or dead, you know, or alive, let's say alive, you know, I could come up with three people. But Dale Allison might have been on that list. He's such an amazingly gifted scholar. It doesn't mean I agree with him on everything. And he doesn't agree with me on everything either. But he is just, wow. Just unbelievably erudite and careful in the way he makes arguments. And I've learned a lot from him over the years. And one of the things that I'm interested in, that Dale talks about in this book is I'm really interested in the way Jesus is teaching about temple priesthood, sacrifice. Resonates in a first century Jewish context.
- [78:03]
Matt Fradd
Right, okay.
- [78:04]
Michael Patrick Barber
Because a lot of people have wanted to say Jesus was against priesthood, Jesus was against the temple. And this, of course, comes from many Protestant biases. Right. That, well, rituals are bad things. So Jesus must have been opposed to it, and he taught us a kind of spontaneous way to pray. It's just me and God, and I don't need any rituals.
- [78:27]
And I don't think this preserves a Jewish Jesus.
- [78:30]
Matt Fradd
Why specifically, is it an argument for authenticity that it gels with the way Jews taught and thought?
- [78:36]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, yeah, right, right. So the word authenticity is typically used to mean to say, okay, we can authenticate this, and this part's not so. I would just say, in general, I think it reflects the kinds of things Jesus said. Right. I think that's the kind that's. Again, because I don't think the Gospels are exact transcripts. That's really important to remember. And I don't wanna make that claim. But for example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, when you are going to offer your gift at the altar and there, remember your brother has something against you.
- [79:11]
First go be reconciled with your brother, then offer the gift.
- [79:14]
Matt Fradd
Okay.
- [79:15]
Michael Patrick Barber
That fits amazingly well into a first century Jewish context.
- [79:20]
Matt Fradd
Oh, I see. So the reason this gelling with Jewish thought is important is that it shows it wasn't constructed 300 years later.
- [79:28]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. Or even after the destruction of the temple. Why would anybody make up a saying where Jesus says this is how you.
- [79:33]
Matt Fradd
Should worship in the temple, when the temple exist?
- [79:36]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. In Matthew 23 there's another passage. And so one of the little areas I'm really interested in also is recovering the Gospel of Matthew as a source for understanding the historical Jesus itself. So a lot of people will want to read the Gospel of Matthew as something that preserves the Q document, and so they kind of read through Matthew. But my point is Matthew is clearly written as scholars recognized by a Jewish writer. It's a profoundly Jewish gospel. I'm not saying the other gospels are not, but Matthew says things that emphasize the importance of Jesus. For example, saying, do not go to the Gentiles, only go to the lost sheep of Israel. That's during his public ministry. That's a remarkable saying. Right. And it's something that I think a first century Jewish community would really want to know that Jesus said or Also in Matthew 23. One of my favorite elements of that gospel is where Jesus says, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat, therefore observe whatever they tell you. Yeah, Most people forget that. So we read these gospels and I think a lot of times we forget how Jewish they are. A lot of times, sadly, we've been infected, Matt, with some anti Jewish, anti Semitic, even.
- [81:07]
Biases, and we're not even aware of it because it comes to us from scholarship and from writers from previous generations.
- [81:14]
Matt Fradd
Sort of like rebaked Marcianism.
- [81:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. So people will use the term Pharisaical.
- [81:18]
Matt Fradd
Yeah.
- [81:20]
Michael Patrick Barber
Are you kidding me? As a slur. To be Pharisaical is a bad thing. That means to be, you know, rigid. It means to be self righteous.
- [81:31]
Matt Fradd
You're telling me off. Cause I'm pretty sure I would have had no problem if someone said that around me. So why is that wrong? Yeah, because Christ is continually going at it with the Pharisees, isn't he?
- [81:40]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes, it's true. But I mean, he also says the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat, so do whatever they tell you. That's A remarkably high view of the Pharisees. He does criticize the Pharisees, but he criticizes them because they don't always live up to their teachings.
- [82:02]
They don't always live by their teachings. So he talks about how the Pharisees tithe mint and cumin and neglect the weightier matters of the law. But then he says, but you should do both. So he's saying, you should follow the tithe here. Right. So it's very interesting when you read the Gospel with this and you realize how much antisemitism, frankly, we've sort of inherited and we didn't even know about it. So Pope Francis would use that term pharisaical a lot. And this was very deeply offensive to Jewish scholars who actually, at one point. Point, ended up flying out to Rome.
- [82:43]
Matt Fradd
What?
- [82:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
One of my dear friends, Amy Gillevine, she's a Jewish scholar. She was part of this delegation. They met with the Pope. They had a conference in Rome, all about the Pharisees and looking at the Pharisees in a kind of careful way. I think a lot of the way people perceive the Pharisees is actually unhistorical. So a lot of people imagine that the Pharisees were these rigorists. Imagine.
- [83:09]
Imagine what people will say, you know, you're Pharisaical. They'll say, oh, you're being too rigorous. You're being too, you know.
- [83:15]
Matt Fradd
Yeah, you're a hypocrite. I think it means. Right.
- [83:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
That can also mean that you're demanding.
- [83:18]
Matt Fradd
Of other people what you yourself won't do.
- [83:20]
Michael Patrick Barber
Sure, people will say that. Right.
- [83:21]
Matt Fradd
Isn't that what Christ was doing with him?
- [83:22]
Michael Patrick Barber
So it's really. And times. At times. All right, but remember also, Jesus followers were hypocritical. Remember, Peter denies knowing Jesus in the most critical hour. Right. Not just in the grain fields, Right. In the most critical hour, he denies Jesus. And so it's not like, oh, when we think of hypocrites, the purse. The people that we should think about first of all, are the Pharisees. Actually, if you read the Gospel of Mark, it's the disciples Jesus frequently castigates, as you know, being having no faith. Right. Why do you not believe? Right. Don't be unbelieving. Right. It's the disciples who misunderstand. Jesus asks them about the loaves and the fish. They don't understand what his teaching was about the loaves and the fish. When Jesus says to Peter, you know, that he's going up to Jerusalem to be crucified, Peter takes him aside and Says, oh, this can never happen to you. Jesus calls him Satan. He never calls the Pharisees Satan. Right. That's really interesting. And so what ends up happening in.
- [84:22]
Christian circles, in the very beginning of Christianity, you had people like the Gnostics or the Manicheans, when Augustine is arguing against. The Manichaeans were this group that believed that the material world was evil. They thought the material world was bad. And so they thought that the God who created the world is not the same as the God of Jesus Christ. And Augustine argued against them that there's one God of the two testaments. And you know what they thought of Augustine? They said he was too Jewish because you believe in the goodness of matter. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the way you go after the medieval church is you say it's too Jewish. It's about rituals, it's about priests, it's about Jewish stuff. We gotta get rid of the law and just embrace the gospel. Right. This stuff emerges again and again. And you even see this, you'll see this on TV shows like, for example, the Chosen Right, where you have these criticisms of tradition and it's being directed at Jews like Nicodemus. But if you're a Catholic, you know that the Jewish criticism is actually a cipher for criticism of the Catholic faith. Right? Right. Yeah. So you see this throughout history. So it's really important and it manifests in all kinds of interesting ways. One thing that's really interesting is you'll hear people say that when Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish, he didn't actually perform a miracle.
- [85:46]
Matt Fradd
This goes back. I heard bishops say that in a homily.
- [85:49]
Michael Patrick Barber
So it wasn't actually something miraculous. Some people say he just taught them sharing. Now, we got to be careful because Chrysostom does say the miracle is about sharing. So we gotta be careful. Like recently Pope Leo said something about the miracle meaning sharing. And some people were saying, oh my.
- [86:05]
Matt Fradd
Goodness, Pope Leo is the supernatural.
- [86:07]
Michael Patrick Barber
But that way, be careful about that. It can be about sharing, but the idea that it's sharing and not miraculous, that goes back to a German named Heinrich Paulus. And Paulus thought that the reason the miracle was so powerful was Jesus taught those greedy Jews how to share. So this whole interpretation is rooted in a really scary anti Semitic bias.
- [86:31]
Matt Fradd
So, yeah, so how do we get on this topic? What are we doing?
- [86:33]
Michael Patrick Barber
The temple, Jesus.
- [86:34]
Matt Fradd
That's right, The Jewishness.
- [86:35]
Michael Patrick Barber
So how is it the Jewishness of Jesus is something that needs to be emphasized. And I would say for us Catholics, it's Really important for us to see how sacrifice temple priesthood fit within this Jewish context because we've been so habituated by much modern Christianity to see anything that's Jewish as Pharisaical, as something that we need to separate ourselves against rather than really appreciate.
- [86:59]
Matt Fradd
It's not about religion, it's about a relationship. That sort of language.
- [87:02]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, exactly. That's exactly right, Matt. That reflects those same kind of biases. Right. And so as Catholics, it's really important for us to recover that Jewishness of the New Testament. I wrote a book with Brant Petrie and John Kincaid called Paul a New Covenant Jew. We're doing that with Paul as well. So this is something I've been working on a lot. And I think it's really important for us to kind of think about this through those eyes of sensitivity and recognizing maybe the reason the world is so anti Semitic is because God became a Jew. Right. I mean, if God becomes not just man, but God becomes Jewish, why can't.
- [87:44]
Matt Fradd
It be that the Jews rejected Christ? Why can't that be the reason people are upset with the Jews?
- [87:48]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, I mean, I think we got to be careful about that, Right. Because we say the Jews rejected Christ when, well, Mary was a Jew. Did she reject Christ?
- [87:54]
Matt Fradd
She did not.
- [87:55]
Michael Patrick Barber
Peter was a Jew. Did he reject Christ?
- [87:57]
Matt Fradd
He did not.
- [87:57]
Michael Patrick Barber
Paul was a Jew. Did he reject Christ? No, and in fact, no, but I.
- [88:01]
Matt Fradd
Mean, as a surviving religion.
- [88:03]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, but I think we also have to be cautious about this. Right. We need to think about, you know, what the church would call invincible ignorance. Right. I mean, how many people who are in Jew, how many ask you this? How many conversations have you had with Jewish rabbis? How many Jewish friends do we as Catholics actually have? So a lot of times the things that they hear about the Catholic faith or about Christianity in general, doesn't the.
- [88:28]
Matt Fradd
Talmud say some horrendously blasphemous things about Christ? Shouldn't we condemn that?
- [88:33]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, I think there are some things in the Talmud that are, you know, obviously things as Catholics we just have to recognize as scurrilous, evil evils.
- [88:43]
Matt Fradd
Yes.
- [88:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
But I think we have. Have to be careful about like all Jews or that kind of thing. I agree with you that, that, that becomes. Yeah, and, and of course Christians would do the same things, the blood libel, lies and things like that that have been spread about Jews throughout history. So, you know, it, it. I just want to be a bridge builder. And I think it's so important for us to, you know, to, to be like Paul, to go where, you know.
- [89:07]
Matt Fradd
I Think it's pretty fair to say that whenever you say, like, all black people are like this, all Christians, all Catholics, all Jews, like whenever you do that, it seems like whenever you say.
- [89:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
They, it's usually a problem. Right. When you're saying they think, well, which ones are you talking about? So I find that. And then the last thing I'd just say is I think recurrent attestation, then it's within a Jewish context. And then the last thing is the effects of Jesus. So if we look at, for example, the book of Acts, what do the apostles do after Jesus Ascension? They go into the temple and they pray. Well, why would they do that? If Jesus went around just saying the temple is invalid, never go to the temple, don't worship in the temple. Clearly Jesus must have thought that the temple was important and communicated that to his disciples. Otherwise it's very difficult to account for these. There are other traditions. In the book of Acts, Acts 21, Paul goes up to the temple and appears to pay for the sacrifices for people who are taking the Nazarite vow in Acts 21. So, and this is because people are saying, you reject the law of Moses and Paul has to show, no, I don't reject the law of Moses. I think it's divinely inspired. Right. And so anyway, those would be the three moves to make, I think, to kind of start the discussion on a really good foot on the historical Jesus.
- [90:23]
Matt Fradd
What about how do we show how many manuscripts or parts of manuscripts do we have? Is. Is that impressive compared to other figures of antiquity?
- [90:34]
And maybe show why cross examining different manuscripts can show that we have a basically reliable.
- [90:40]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, so I get really nervous about that. So that move, people will say, well, this manuscript is the second century, or this manuscript is so early. But the way we date manuscripts is really subjective. They don't come with copyrights. Right. And even carbon dating is not going to narrow the dating that much. So people will say, well, this is a clear manuscript from this century. But there are arguments against those arguments usually. So usually Christian apologists will come up with these arguments. But then as someone who goes to SBL and a scholar, I think to myself, you don't want to be saying this. This is not where you want to make your case. Because somebody could say, well, that's based on the handwriting style. How do you know someone later wasn't trying to imitate an older handwriting style because he was copying a document that looked differently than the way they would write at that time. So these are things that I get a little nervous about. When we get into the manuscript evidence, yes, we have an overwhelming number of manuscripts for the New Testament. Of course you would, I mean for the Gospels, for certain letters of Paul. Right. I mean, this is very early. We have manuscripts for these things. Whereas for example, Josephus, we don't have copies to like the 11th century. So it is ironic when people say, well, I'm not sure that we have the best manuscript evidence to support this, but you clearly are quoting Josephus and you have no problem with that. Right. So there, I think there is a bit of a difficulty and I also think the burden should always be on the believer to make the case. But I do think it is a little weird that scholars will typically say, well, when we have something in a non biblical source and then we have something in a biblical source, we know for a fact the non biblical source is right and the biblical source is always wrong. It's like, how do we know that? That seems to be, you know, an a priori decision that you're making that isn't as justifiable as I think you think it is. Right. So I want to be cautious about those things as well. Look, I think there are really good reasons to believe that Jesus mythicism is problematic. I think there are really good reasons to believe that the early community would have remembered the gist of what Jesus taught and that the teachings of Paul are continuous with the teachings of Jesus on the core elements. Right. I don't think Jesus talked about circumcision. Isn't that interesting that he never talked about circumcision? This is a major debate in the early church. Do gentiles need to be circumcised? Wouldn't it have been so easy to write in one of the Gospels and Jesus said gentiles don't need to be circumcised, but they never do that. That's remarkable that they don't do that. Right. So clearly there were constraints on what they could put into the Jesus material. They couldn't just invent stuff and say, well, yeah, we always do that. We always do. The gentiles don't even to be circumcised. Right. They couldn't do that. Right. So they didn't do that. So I think that's really interesting and also important to, to reflect on.
- [93:48]
Matt Fradd
Never thought about that before, but okay. With the amount of manuscripts we have.
- [93:52]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah.
- [93:53]
Matt Fradd
Isn't there some value to cross referencing to see whether there's been any major deviations?
- [93:58]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh yes, absolutely.
- [93:59]
Matt Fradd
And if there hasn't, isn't that A great sign that they've been handed down with.
- [94:02]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes, I mean, broadly speaking, there aren't these major missing or there aren't. There aren't. We generally there isn't like a manuscript debate that radically changes the theology of the Gospel of Matthew or radically changes the theology of the Gospel of John. There are some interesting things. For example, the story of the woman caught in adultery that we find in John's Gospel. It's not in the earliest editions we have of math of John. That's really interesting.
- [94:31]
Matt Fradd
Some demons can only be cast out by prayer and fasting.
- [94:34]
Michael Patrick Barber
Prayer and fasting. That's a really interesting passage because why. So in some it's how you weigh manuscripts. Right. So we have all these manuscripts. So which ones do you think most reliably reflects the earliest tradition? And actually this is fun. I'm working on the GUS Institute, we're working on a Bible translation project. So we're doing the whole Bible translation. Right. So a fresh Bible translation, not a revised version of something. And the key thing is we're actually working with the latest critical editions of let's say the Nestle or the bhs, which is the Hebrew text. So we're using the most recent editions where. Like the RSV, like if you get the RSV, that's from the 1950s. So there's been a lot of discoveries and in those early man manuscripts and the way scholars looked at it, they used to think that prayer and fasting, they thought and fasting wasn't in the earliest manuscripts. So like a lot of Catholic translations, it's not there because that was the manuscript evidence at the time. More recent scholarship is pushing back against that. And there's really good reason to think. And prayer. And it's going to be from my understanding, yes. And fasting is going to be there. So the translation that we're doing will have that. So the interesting things about that. So look, that's going to be a 10 year project, but we're putting them out in just individuals like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John coming out. But yeah, that's. But there really isn't. So I mean there are a lot of great resources out there for people who want to study the Bible, like the Word on Fire Bible that uses the nrsv. So that's a revised version of the rsv. But it is sort of exciting. There's a new version coming out of the new American Bible, which is what we typically have heard in the liturgy, although the version that is used in the liturgy has been revised a bit. But this Is what we're talking about is a new translation from critical texts involving lots and lots and lots of different scholars from all over the world. And it's exciting to be part of that project. And when you do look at all these manuscripts, yeah, there's a lot of textual variants in particular verses and really interesting. But I think a lot of the time we're on pretty good ground saying, okay, this is a later addition to the text. So. Yeah.
- [96:55]
Matt Fradd
All right. So you think we've got good reasons to think Christ was a historical figure.
- [96:59]
Michael Patrick Barber
Absolutely.
- [96:59]
Matt Fradd
That the events of his life were, from a historical point of view, basically accurate as they were recorded.
- [97:07]
Michael Patrick Barber
I think that there's really good reason to think that you can trust the basic gist of the Jesus tradition now, whether Jesus said this particular thing and it's slightly different than this or that. Okay, well, now we're maybe moving beyond where a historical tool where, like, if I'm talking to a skeptic, right. If I'm talking to somebody who doesn't believe, I don't know that we're going to be able to move the needle on that. Right. So I think we got to be responsible and say, nah, you know, that's just, that's. You see that because you're a believer and you not only recognize these books are historical documents, but also inspired. And so, you know, you're going to see more than somebody who doesn't.
- [97:47]
Matt Fradd
Okay. And we also have very good reason to think that the New Testament documents weren't seriously edited. There aren't discrepancies such that what we have in the modern New Testament is.
- [97:58]
Michael Patrick Barber
Probably false, radically different from what Jesus actually. And by.
- [98:02]
Matt Fradd
What do you mean by radically? Because that makes me nervous because that sounds like a very low bar.
- [98:06]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, I don't mean to make it too low of a bar, but that Jesus was a teacher, that Jesus taught about the kingdom of God, that Jesus had disciples, that Jesus, the most important thing, that he was crucified, that he celebrated the Last Supper. Actually, the Last Supper is the most. It's like a unique element of the Gospel tradition for me because it's the only episode in the life of Christ that we read about outside of the Gospels in another source, and that is in 1 Corinthians. Paul, who's our earliest Christian writer, actually tells us the story of the Last Supper. And it sounds very, very close to what we see in the Gospel of Luke in particular, which would make sense because the tradition is that Luke is the companion of Paul. Right. So that's a Fascinating one. It's interesting. The Eucharist is. The eucharistic words are on remarkably solid footing there. Right. Because again, we don't have the transfiguration in the letters of Paul. We don't have. It is mentioned in 2 Peter. But Paul, again, being the earliest Christian writer is really significant there.
- [99:14]
Matt Fradd
So just as it's cringy, I suppose, to hear certain skeptics say certain things about the Scripture, it's probably also cringy to hear, you know, lay Catholics like myself perhaps put far too much confidence in something that as a scholar, you look at and go, please, please don't do that. You don't need to do that.
- [99:30]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right.
- [99:31]
Matt Fradd
What are some things that you hear Catholics saying? Maybe in defense of Scripture or maybe their interpretation of Scripture, you think they've got it wrong. And I wish they'd say that oftentimes.
- [99:39]
Michael Patrick Barber
When people bring up things in Greek, it's wrong, or in Hebrew, it's wrong. So people will make a big deal of agape.
- [99:47]
Matt Fradd
I am so glad you brought this up. Is this the bit where Christ talks to Peter, do you love me?
- [99:52]
Because I want to know about that.
- [99:54]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. So a lot of people will say agapao means some kind of divine love, like some kind of perfect love. And phileo is like a lower form of love. This is nonsense. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus talks about the Father and him, he says that the Father phileos him. So should Jesus be offended that the Father only phlet owes him and not agape? I don't think so. So in ancient Greek, agape is not some magic word. If people are interested, there's a place, a piece of mind somewhere on the Internet. I think I put it on my website. But anyway, it's. Agape is not a magical word or something like that.
- [100:33]
Matt Fradd
Okay, so I've heard that Christ, when he questions Peter, asks him if he agapes him twice. And then the final thing is, how do you say that?
- [100:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
But the words for feed and. And sheep also change too.
- [100:45]
Matt Fradd
Okay, so it's nice.
- [100:45]
Michael Patrick Barber
Are we gonna make some big deal out of that? No, the point is, it's three times.
- [100:50]
Matt Fradd
But that's interesting. Why would you use the word love the same way twice and then change it for the third time?
- [100:56]
Michael Patrick Barber
This is what writers often do. They change words so they don't say the same thing over and over again.
- [101:02]
Matt Fradd
So you don't think there's some deep, profound meaning there?
- [101:04]
Michael Patrick Barber
I don't think any. Find me an early church father who read in Greek that thought that that's fascinating. Right, so here's the deal.
- [101:11]
Matt Fradd
It's not just turn this around to face you the moment. Yeah, it's pretty flexible. Perfect.
- [101:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
So we have to start all over.
- [101:17]
Matt Fradd
No, no, yeah, exactly. All over.
- [101:20]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah.
- [101:20]
Matt Fradd
That's really interesting, eh?
- [101:22]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. So it is interesting. And I think that it's worth noting that the key point in the story is that Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time at a charcoal fire. There's only one other place in the gospel where we read about a charcoal, and it's where Peter betrays Jesus. He's there keeping himself warm.
- [101:46]
Matt Fradd
The first fire was a charcoal fire. I didn't realize that as well. That specifically stated.
- [101:50]
Michael Patrick Barber
So it's trying to tie us back to that. That's why it's the third time that he's sorry.
- [101:54]
Matt Fradd
Right.
- [101:55]
Michael Patrick Barber
This is where people start using Greek. It's like, oh, no, no, no, no, please don't, don't do that. So there are lots.
- [102:01]
Matt Fradd
How else do you see that?
- [102:03]
Michael Patrick Barber
So some people will say, for example, that. Oh, let me think off the top of my head. Okay.
- [102:10]
Matt Fradd
The Protestant one would be the Petra Petros distinction.
- [102:13]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, yeah, that's. I think that's kind of silly. But I do get worried when Catholics come back and they say, well, Jesus wouldn't have spoke Greek, he would have only spoke Aramaic. Well, no, actually, Jesus may have been able to speak some Greek. This idea that Jesus couldn't speak Greek is not all that reliable. So Catholic apologists will use that argument. Well, Jesus didn't speak in Greek, he only spoke in Aramaic. Like, not so sure that that's right either. So, yeah, just want to be more responsible about that. A lot of the things that make me shudder is when people say things that are laced with these kind of anti Semitic things. Like, for example, the story of the prodigal son is so moving because the father humiliates himself by running out to greet the son. Because no Jewish father would debase himself to run to love his son and give him a hug in public. That's the. That's the.
- [103:07]
Matt Fradd
No, no, I don't think they're saying that has to do with the fact that he's Jewish. Well, my understanding whenever I hear that is in first century, you don't have. It would be undignified for a father to run.
- [103:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's not. No, that's not true.
- [103:17]
Matt Fradd
It's not true. Where do we get that from? Is that Fulton Sheen?
- [103:20]
Michael Patrick Barber
I don't know.
- [103:22]
So a lot of these things actually, interestingly enough, I haven't Traced out that one down in particular. But there is a Protestant popular commentator named William Berkeley. And William Berkeley says a lot of stuff that Fulton Sheen did pick up because he thought, well, Berkeley's a good scholar.
- [103:42]
Matt Fradd
I see.
- [103:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
And then that kind of enters the Catholic bloodstream there. One example of that is in the first century, nobody called God Abba. Abba is the word a little child uses. Abba is a word of childlike intimacy. And it's revolutionary that Jesus calls God Abba. Okay, Hogwash. It's just the word for father. It doesn't. It's not the word that just shows.
- [104:06]
Matt Fradd
Not in a word of affection towards your father.
- [104:08]
Michael Patrick Barber
It's just the word for father. Now, of course, you can say it with affection, but when you try to, like, load stuff into that Greek. No. Yeah. No.
- [104:16]
Matt Fradd
So grown men called them.
- [104:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes.
- [104:18]
Matt Fradd
Fathers. Abba.
- [104:19]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes. It's not like just a child.
- [104:21]
Matt Fradd
Keep going. This is great. You're offending everybody.
- [104:24]
Michael Patrick Barber
No, but these are just things that people talk about. Another one is this idea that the shepherds come and visit Jesus in the manger. And they do that because shepherds are hated by Jews. They're unclean. They're impure. Nonsense. David was a shepherd. Moses was a shepherd.
- [104:44]
Matt Fradd
I've never heard that one.
- [104:45]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, that's one. Sometimes people look at the. The. The Christmas story, and I did a lot of research in Christmas a few years ago, wrote a book on Christmas. It's called the True Meaning of Christmas. So if you want to know anything about Christmas, this is in there. Lots of other things. One thing that's in there is that. Well, maybe you've heard this one. I'll start here. When Jesus was born, they went to Hotel Bethlehem, and there was no room in the inn, and so they had to go out to the stable. And that's where Jesus was born.
- [105:15]
Matt Fradd
Right. That's what I hear. Why, is that wrong?
- [105:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
No, that's not accurate. So here's the detail. First of all, the translation is problematic. It's the King James version that there is no room in the inn. So when we hear that, we imagine, like, there's some innkeeper, and he's like, room five occupied, Room two. Right. That's the way you hear it. The Greek word there, that's translated room, is tapas. It just means place. Right. And the word in. Well, it's actually not the word for in. Technically, Luke does use a word for in. It's in the story of the Good Samaritan. Remind me. I have something to say about the Good Samaritan. But in the Good Samaritan story, right, the good Samaritan finds the beaten man, and then he takes him to an inn. And the innkeeper is willing to take him there and just take the Good Samaritan's word that he will pay him back when he comes back for any expenses incurred in taking care of the beaten man. The word that's used for in there is not the word that's used in the infancy story. It's pandochian. The word that's used in the gospel story that's often translated in is actually kataluma. Now, that's a really significant word, and it's overlooked a lot because there's only one other place in all of the Gospel of Luke where kataluma appears again, and it's in the story of the Last Supper. So here's the deal. The best transition would be not there was no room in the inn, but there was no place in the guest room. Because you gotta imagine yourself in a first century setting, not in a North American city in the 20th century. 1st century Palestinian homes were incredibly humble, right? So it's one room basically for the whole family, okay? Whole family sleeps in the same room, Whole family eats in the same room. And that room by the entrance, it's gonna be dirt. And then there's an elevated platform where you would sleep and where you would eat, okay? And at night, you would bring in your animals in your house, okay? To keep the house warm because they would pass gas. And that's how you would.
- [107:23]
Matt Fradd
You're kidding me.
- [107:24]
Michael Patrick Barber
I'm not joking.
- [107:25]
Matt Fradd
Not to keep the animals warm, but to keep you warm because they were farting.
- [107:29]
Michael Patrick Barber
The animals kept you warm. So you bring the animals in at night. And in your house you have mangers. Mangers are feeding troughs. So a manger is not a stable, it's a feeding trough. So the animals would then come into the house and eat. Now, Palestinian homes also had a separate chamber that was a guest room. Now, this guest room was inaccessible from the main room of the house. You would have to go outside. There's a separate entrance for the kataluma for the guest room. In the first century, hospitality is a big, big deal. In the ancient world. You want to show your visitors every courtesy, and so they would get a private room in the back. But the point of the infancy narrative, there's no room. This house was so small, the guest room was so small, Jesus couldn't be born in there, most likely, because it's a big event to have a birth. You Need a midwife. Maybe other people in the community as well. It's deadly. People often die in birth. So they treated birth very seriously. Lots of people would be there. There wasn't enough room in the kataluma for that to take place. So Jesus is just born. Mary doesn't have any privacy. She's born in the main room of the house, and Jesus is laid right there in the manger that's there. And it just highlights Jesus's humility. But there's also a eucharistic point. Jesus is born in Bethlehem, which. Now, one of the things I was gonna say I often get cringe about is when people do etymology. And Bethlehem might be one that you should be copying. But the church fathers say this, so I'm gonna say it. Beth means house, means bread. So Bethlehem can be taken to mean house of bread. Jesus is born in the house of bread and laid in a manger because there is no room in the kataluma. But then at the end of the story, he goes into the kataluma and there he gives himself to us as our food. So the Eucharist is foreshadowed in the infancy story. So there's a lot that's all wrapped up. Whose house was it? We don't know. It seems that the Gospels indicate it's likely Joseph's family. So a relative, Right? Probably their family members. It might be Joseph's. Might be that Joseph owns the property himself. It seems.
- [110:02]
Matt Fradd
You're blowing my face off with all these facts.
- [110:05]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. It might also be the case that Joseph. Remember, they're poor. So when they offer the sacrifice in the temple, this is a really amazing thing. They offer two turtle doves. Now, why two turtle doves?
- [110:16]
Matt Fradd
Because they couldn't afford the. What? The cow.
- [110:19]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's right. So in the Torah, there's actually a stipulation that if you're not wealthy, you can offer just two turtle doves. So Mary and Joseph were poor. Right. So it may be. I'm only speculating here. I don't know for sure. I mean, we only have the texts. But it may be implied that Joseph's family owned together this property and that they went from place to place like migrants do today. Migrants today? Well, let's say I have friends in California who are Mexican people will come from Mexico. They'll stay at the family residence in Los Angeles together, and that's their house. And even if their name's not on the title, it's still their house. Right. And then they go back and they all sort of share the burden of the finances together.
- [111:09]
Matt Fradd
So one way of interpreting this is that the time for delivery had come. Joseph takes Mary to this family house, but there was no room in the house.
- [111:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
They were probably already staying there. So that's another misunderstanding. A lot of people imagine, like the way we see this in our head.
- [111:24]
Matt Fradd
I see them walking around, is that.
- [111:26]
Michael Patrick Barber
Mary and Joseph arrive at Bethlehem one night. Yes. And that night, Mary. Mary goes into labor.
- [111:31]
Matt Fradd
This is exactly what I'm thinking.
- [111:32]
Michael Patrick Barber
But that's not what the text says.
- [111:33]
Matt Fradd
Okay.
- [111:34]
Michael Patrick Barber
The text never says that. It says while they were there, she went into labor, implying that they had been there. Right. And they're likely staying with family, and there's likely no room for them because so many family members are there or because the birthing process is going to be so involved that they can't have privacy in the guest room. Whatever it is. There is no Hotel Bethlehem with a no vacancy sign. Yeah, right.
- [111:59]
Matt Fradd
Yeah. Okay.
- [112:00]
Michael Patrick Barber
So that's one thing. But when you say it that way. Oh, and by the way, there's a subtext here. Right. There's that heartless Jewish innkeeper that is, you know, sort of. Why do you feel like coming back.
- [112:12]
Matt Fradd
To this anti Semitic? Because you're looking for anti Semitism.
- [112:14]
Michael Patrick Barber
Where?
- [112:14]
Matt Fradd
I don't think anyone has ever seen it.
- [112:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
No, no. Many people have seen it. Who are these people? It gets picked up lots of times. Yeah.
- [112:22]
Matt Fradd
Okay.
- [112:23]
Michael Patrick Barber
You'll see it, and you'll see it frequently. Yeah, no, it shows.
- [112:26]
Matt Fradd
I mean, I'm open to it being true. Throughout history, you can point to certain writers. I just never heard of it.
- [112:31]
Michael Patrick Barber
No, but even today, you'll hear it in maybe not so much in Catholic context. So maybe that's why you're not as familiar with it. But you'll hear it. Oh, yeah. It's a thing. Yeah. Another one that you'll hear frequently is the Good Samaritan Story.
- [112:46]
Matt Fradd
Oh, hang on. I want to get to that, because I love that story and I love Aquinas commentary on that, too, but this is blowing my mind. So I want to stay here because, just so you know, you've changed. How? I'll meditate on the third Joyful Mystery forever. So you think that. So they gave birth in a house. Well, she gave birth in a house.
- [113:03]
Michael Patrick Barber
So let's be clear. Houses. Right. Exactly what we're talking about. I mean, so the tradition is that the house was kind of a cave in Bethlehem and you can go to the Church of the Nativity today and see it. So when we talk about a house, I don't want to just imagine it's just this freestanding building you would use. So it could very well be that part of the cave was used as a guest room or as part of the main house, and there was a subsequent. I'm sure you've been to the Church of Nativity, right? You've never been there?
- [113:33]
Matt Fradd
Never been there.
- [113:33]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, if you go there, it's fascinating. Right next to the Church of the Nativity is a chapel where Jerome is buried. Jerome died in Bethlehem. And you can see the little caves that Jerome was in that he lived in as a kind of monk, as in a cell. Right. And it's fascinating. There are all these little caves all next to the traditional site of Jesus birth. And we don't know for sure that that's the exact place where Jesus was born, but it's pretty strong. I have a Protestant friend who's an archeologist. He's pretty convinced that the site is the actual one. So when we think about a house, it could be something that they built out of a cave or something like that. So.
- [114:16]
Matt Fradd
So.
- [114:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
No, exactly.
- [114:18]
Matt Fradd
But we don't. I mean, we don't read about the other family members there. So presumably they're just not important enough to write about or taken off.
- [114:24]
Michael Patrick Barber
You see this in the Gospels, right, Where sometimes there are two blind men who are healed. Sometimes it's just one blind man. Right. So, yeah, there are. That doesn't, you know, necessarily mean that there weren't other people there.
- [114:37]
Matt Fradd
So that there weren't other people there.
- [114:38]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Right, yeah.
- [114:40]
Matt Fradd
Interesting.
- [114:40]
Michael Patrick Barber
And this is the way it worked. It was poor people in the ancient world. They would pull their resources together so that they could live. So we have the idea in America that you grow up, you move out, and you get out on your own. That's not an ancient understanding. You are now responsible for your parents when you become older. So you don't run away from your parents. You actually stay where your parents are and you help them now after they've raised you. So, you know.
- [115:09]
Matt Fradd
Beautiful.
- [115:10]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, that's the.
- [115:11]
Matt Fradd
Okay. Now, I think another misunderstanding I've had and people have is that the wise men showed up immediately after that.
- [115:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, sure. Right. Yeah. You see that in the major scenes all the time. Right. You see the shepherds and the wise men there at the same time. Yeah. And, you know, we gotta be cautious about how we read those Gospels because they're, you know, they're distinct accounts in Matthew and Luke. And I don't think. I personally don't think When Luke was writing this gospel, he was thinking, man, I can't wait till they see how I'm different from Matthew or vice versa. I don't think that they were expecting people to lay out the gospel side by side and explore the similarities and differences. But it is undoubtedly the case that in the story of Matthew's gospel, when the magi come, the magi don't return to Herod. And so Herod has all the children killed who are two years and younger. So that means that some time has passed in the Gospel of Matthew since Jesus's birth. Right. So it's not like the night that he was born. Because if it was.
- [116:14]
Children two years and younger, not just brand new infants. Right. So it seems like, yeah, they don't come at the same night. One thing that is interesting in that story is that they follow the star. And I think a lot of people, you asked me about things that, that are cringe inducing. One is when people try to make this out to be some kind of comet or some kind of natural phenomenon.
- [116:33]
Matt Fradd
Aquinas disagrees.
- [116:34]
Michael Patrick Barber
He disagrees. That's exactly right. And so do the church fathers. Right. So there are like Catholic documentaries on, well, we can prove that it happened on this night. It's like, no, stop. Because the magi come and they find where Jesus is born because it's under the star. Matt, if you ever come out to St. Louis for dinner, I'm not going to give you directions by telling you, look for this star directly below. Right, okay. Yeah. So the early church fathers understood that there was some kind of theophany here. And you know, in ancient Judaism, angels and stars went together. So in the book of Revelation, Jesus says he has seven stars in his hand. And then we read that the seven stars are seven angels. And even today, when you put up your Christmas tree and you can either put a star on top or an angel on top.
- [117:21]
Matt Fradd
Come on. Right, yeah.
- [117:22]
Michael Patrick Barber
So, yeah. So it seems church fathers think the star is some kind of appearance of an angel.
- [117:27]
Matt Fradd
All right. The Good Samaritan.
- [117:29]
Michael Patrick Barber
The Good Samaritan. Okay. Yeah. So the thing that drives me nuts about the Good Samaritan interpretations that you often hear is it's great. First of all, Good Samaritan, wow. It's a beautiful, powerful story. And the lesson is.
- [117:44]
Ever, always applicable.
- [117:48]
Some people will say that the priest and the Levites don't help the man because if they help him, they'll be impure. The story never says that. But here's the other thing. Priests and Levites needed to be pure to work in the temple. So one thing that people often make a mistake of is misunderstanding purity in ancient Judaism. Okay, right. So purity. There are two kinds of purity. Jonathan Clowens is a great scholar. He's talked about this in great detail. But there's moral purity, moral impurity, it's a sin, but then there's ritual impurity. And most of the time, that's what we're talking about in the New Testament. When people are talking about someone is unclean, it's ritually unclean. Right. So there are all these laws that describe kind of almost symbolic system in a certain sense, where Jacob Milgram is a great scholar. He talked the most influentially about this. Impurity seems to be linked to things that are related to death and sickness. So the idea is God is a God of life. And so to come into God's presence, you can't just traipse into the holy of holies anytime you want. Right. You have to, first of all be a priest and you have to be the high priest. And to go into the holy places, you have to purify yourself. You have to prepare yourself. So to work in the temple, to serve in the temple, you have to be in the state of ritual purity. Well, the thing in the Good Samaritan story is the priest and the Levite are going away from Jerusalem. They're not going up to Jerusalem, they're going away from. From Jerusalem. And that indicates then that the priests and the Levites don't have purity concerns on their mind because they're not about to perform. Priests would serve a couple of weeks out of the year, like Zechariah would serve a couple of weeks out of the year. He wasn't the high priest. Some people think Zechariah was the high priest. He couldn't be the high priest. We know who the high priests were. Caiaphas Annas. We know who the high priests were. James Vanderkam is a whole book on all the high priests, by the way. The high priests were all basically in cahoots with Rome, and there's a lot of corruption there. So, no, Zechariah is not the high priest, but that's why Zechariah is in the temple. He's chosen at a particular time of the year for his division to be on duty. He's in the temple in that particular time, but usually they are living somewhere else and doing something else. So the reality is, people, especially Protestant interpreters, come up with this idea that purity is a bad thing. Ritual purity is a bad thing. And it actually prevents you from loving people, which is bizarre. It's almost Marcionite. Right. Because the purity laws are given to us by God. So we don't want to impugn the.
- [120:43]
Matt Fradd
Purity laws, what God has commanded.
- [120:45]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. That's sad. But you do hear that sometimes.
- [120:49]
Matt Fradd
Interesting. Okay.
- [120:50]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. So, yeah, there. Oh, gosh. So many other things.
- [120:54]
Matt Fradd
Let me ask you this. Did Christ carry the full cross on his way to Golgotha?
- [120:59]
Michael Patrick Barber
Probably not. Yeah. He probably just carries the one beam. Yeah. Now, our evidence for crucifixion in the ancient world is not as thick as one would like. Right. But the evidence that we have suggests that they would not carry the full cross. That. But there's no real evidence to support that.
- [121:21]
Matt Fradd
Did you find that the Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson was very unhistorical as far as the scourging and these sorts of things, or what was it?
- [121:29]
Michael Patrick Barber
No, it is often said that the scourging scene is.
- [121:37]
Gratuitous, gratuitously bloody.
- [121:41]
Matt Fradd
Is it true that they would tie the metal fishing hooks and their weights and things into the straps?
- [121:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
We do know this. We can say this. Josephus, first century Jewish historian, indicates that when one man was scourged, it was so intense that you could see the bones because it ripped the flesh and the meat right off of his body.
- [122:04]
Matt Fradd
Good.
- [122:05]
Michael Patrick Barber
So it could be incredibly grotesque. Now, I don't want to necessarily endorse everything that's in the Passion of the Christ. I'd have to think about it. Haven't seen it.
- [122:14]
Matt Fradd
Sure.
- [122:15]
Michael Patrick Barber
But. But yeah, I think that scourging was. It sounds like from Joseph.
- [122:19]
Matt Fradd
And this is after what I think. You tell me if I'm wrong in this. Would say. Was it hematodrosis? Is that the condition?
- [122:27]
Michael Patrick Barber
I'm not sure. I don't know the metaphories. I don't know the name. Yeah. I don't know the medical name for that. Yeah.
- [122:32]
Matt Fradd
But I don't know if that's.
- [122:33]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, I'd have.
- [122:33]
Matt Fradd
How we would understand it or not.
- [122:34]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, I, I'm. It's just a little bit out of my area there.
- [122:39]
Matt Fradd
What else we got?
- [122:39]
Michael Patrick Barber
Look at the medical stuff. Stuff.
- [122:42]
Matt Fradd
Let's see. I'm trying to think what's a mystery on the rosary that I keep going. But. Okay, here's one. Finding Christ in the temple. Anything interesting to say there? I mean, you know, when you. Sometimes you meditate in the rosary, like, I need some more. I need some more fuel for meditation. I got nothing left.
- [122:57]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. And this is a beautiful reminder of how important scripture study is.
- [123:01]
Matt Fradd
Keep going back to it. Yeah.
- [123:02]
Michael Patrick Barber
Because we're always going to see new things.
- [123:04]
Matt Fradd
Yeah.
- [123:05]
Michael Patrick Barber
We're going to find new things that we've overlooked. And if Scripture is what we think it is as Catholics, not just artifacts from the ancient world, but the inspired word of God, if that's how we read these texts, then we should recognize that we're not gonna be able to plumb the depths of them. And I do think when a lot of people pray the rosary, they have a difficulty focusing because they don't know enough about scripture.
- [123:35]
Matt Fradd
That's right. Yeah.
- [123:36]
Michael Patrick Barber
So, you know, it's, you know, when you pray the rosary, the rosary isn't, in Catholic tradition, understood to be powerful because you say 150 Hail Marys or however many Hail Marys you say 153 or whatever. It's not because of the number of Hail Marys in the Catholic tradition. The rosary is ultimately about meditating on Scripture. So John Paul II says in his letter on the rosary that a rosary without meditation is like a body without a soul. Again, it's a corpse. Right. So the more we study it, the more we'll be able to do. So what can we say about them? One thing that I like to highlight in the story of the account of Jesus in the temple is that when they come and they find him, it says after three days they found him. Of course, resurrection imagery, they found him in the temple. I could say so much about how the temple is important to Jewish worship. This is where the people of God come together to worship. Jesus has essentially what we would say today, an ecclesial outlook. Salvation is not just about me and Jesus. It's about going to the place where the people of God come together to worship. Right. So anyway, Jesus goes to the temple, he's there and they found him in the temple. Sitting among the teachers, that's really powerful that Jesus is a teacher.
- [125:01]
Matt Fradd
Oh, sitting among. But can't that just mean sitting among the teachers? But he himself isn't one. It's like there's Matt Fradd sitting among.
- [125:08]
Michael Patrick Barber
The scholars.
- [125:10]
Teachers that sit in the ancient world.
- [125:12]
Matt Fradd
Right.
- [125:13]
Michael Patrick Barber
So usually the audience stands. Okay. As a professor.
- [125:18]
Matt Fradd
Yes.
- [125:18]
Michael Patrick Barber
I feel like I got the short end of the stick on this because I to stand. But my students sit. But.
- [125:24]
Jesus is sitting among the teachers. So Jesus is here identified as a teacher and as a 12 year old teacher. And it might be helpful for us to reflect on the ways we might react negatively to people who are authoritative, reliable, helpful, whatever you want to say. Teachers for Us who don't conform to our expectations. Right. Like we might think, oh, that person can't teach me anything because he's too young. That might happen. Or that person can't teach me anything because, I don't know, he thinks this or that, or she thinks this or that. You should be very careful.
- [126:03]
Matt Fradd
The teachers and why are they congregating in the temple?
- [126:06]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, that's a great question. Did you know that the word rabbi is first found in the New Testament?
- [126:12]
Matt Fradd
No.
- [126:13]
Michael Patrick Barber
The first historical source to use the word rabbi are actually the gospels. Jewish sources use the word rabbi, but they're later. So we don't find the word rabbi in the Old Testament. And so this idea of the great one, that's what rabbi means. My great one, my teacher.
- [126:32]
Your teacher is your great one. So you might want to reflect on that, the idea that there were authoritative teachers that weren't necessarily priests, although priests were especially teachers in the first century. So when it says he was sitting among the teachers, I think we should assume many of them were likely priests.
- [126:50]
What we have to imagine here is that there are a group of people who are recognized in the first century as trained experts in the law, trained experts in Torah. Sirach talks about the fact that that leisure is not.
- [127:08]
Something that most people can have. They have to work menial tasks, they have to do strenuous physical labor. And after you've been, you know, moving pianos, you don't think your best thoughts right, you're exhausted. So in the first century there are those who are perceived as the wealthy class people who have the time to, to learn the language, to write, to read the texts from scrolls, to handle scrolls. Jesus is already seen as being placed among them. He has a place among them, which is really interesting. And Jesus sits among them. We might think that necessarily the teachers are all bad because Jesus often is in conflict with them. In the same way people might think, oh, interesting, the tax collectors are all wicked. You know, whatever. Jesus sits with the tax collectors. Jesus sits with the Pharisees, Jesus sits with the teachers. Jesus sits with everybody.
- [128:08]
Matt Fradd
Right.
- [128:10]
Michael Patrick Barber
And I think that's an important summons to all of us. I think maybe the most cringe inducing thing to me is to hear, and you don't do this, I haven't heard you say this, but to label someone, whatever you label them. I get really concerned when we label people things that are pejorative means, fundamentalist, whatever it is, or liberal, whatever. Right. Like to just kind of attach a label to them and then I can dismiss them rather than to actually Befriend them, get to know them, understand them. So Christ goes and he sits among the teachers, and what it says is interesting to me. He's listening to them.
- [128:47]
Matt Fradd
That's what it says. Are you reading the Greek or what are you reading?
- [128:49]
Michael Patrick Barber
I'm just reading. This is the NRSVM reading.
- [128:51]
Matt Fradd
So what does it say exactly?
- [128:53]
Michael Patrick Barber
What is the Greek?
- [128:54]
Matt Fradd
No, no, no, not the Greek, but even just the.
- [128:56]
Michael Patrick Barber
So he's listening to them and he's asking them questions. So he's listening. Jesus listens.
- [129:02]
Matt Fradd
Come on.
- [129:04]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. But how often do we not listen? I mean, Jesus is the son of God. He would seem to know more than the teachers. But notice, Jesus still listens. How often do we stop to listen? I think so. I mean, I'll just say, in our country, we have so much polarization, I think, because we.
- [129:21]
Matt Fradd
And if anyone didn't need to listen, it would probably be the second person of the blessed Trinity incarnate.
- [129:25]
Michael Patrick Barber
Come on. If he's the Messiah and he's listening to them.
- [129:27]
Matt Fradd
And I love that asking questions. It reminds me of, like Socrates.
- [129:31]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. I always think about this myself. Right. That Jesus asks questions. And by the way, throughout the Gospel of Mark, that's the way the narrative is inviting the reader to experience Christ. Who is this man? They said, who is this that can command the wind and the waves? Who is this who has the authority to forgive sins? Right. Jesus says, who do you say that I am? Right. He's always asking questions. He's not necessarily just telling. He's inviting a response. And I think, you know, when we want to represent the Catholic faith, I think we do a better job of. Rather than telling, asking, asking the question, but then notice how it shifts. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
- [130:22]
Matt Fradd
There you go.
- [130:22]
Michael Patrick Barber
So he's asking the questions, and they're all amazed at his answers. So somehow he's asking the questions and giving the answers at the same time. Right. Which I think oftentimes we want to do one or the other. So, I mean, that's beautiful. That's what I reflect on.
- [130:40]
Matt Fradd
What I like to think about is how these. These teachers gave this kid a hearing. Like they must have encountered him. Did he. Did he walk up to them? What were they discussing? Why did they give him the time of day? At what point did they realize there was something special about this kid?
- [130:53]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes, that's. What kind of answers do you come up with when you think about those things? Yeah, what do you think?
- [130:58]
Matt Fradd
Yeah, what do I think?
- [130:59]
Michael Patrick Barber
When you're meditating on this. What kind of. What comes to mind?
- [131:02]
Matt Fradd
Well, when I meditate upon this, I tend to put myself within the story. And I'm with Joseph and Mary, and I find him. He's over here. You know, I have those kind of memories. And I see Marian. Let me ask you this about the Blessed Virgin who was sinless. Does that mean she wasn't allowed to be flustered or anxious?
- [131:18]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, in the story, she is the only one who speaks Joseph. I agree with everything Joseph says. No, Joseph is obviously a saint in the Catholic tradition, but it's amazing. Joseph never speaks in the Scripture. But we read. His parents saw him. They were astonished. His mother said to him, child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.
- [131:51]
Matt Fradd
And so three days, you've lost God.
- [131:54]
Michael Patrick Barber
Three days. Yeah. You know, I shouldn't say this. This is embarrassing. Last weekend, we had all these sick kids at home. Some went to Mass, some didn't. We live a couple of blocks from our Catholic church, so we go there all the time. The kids walk down there and make visits all the time. They have a youth group, all kinds of things. It's beautiful. We have this beautiful Catholic neighborhood. It's all rooted right in this beautiful Catholic parish community. But we left Mass and forgot one of our children.
- [132:28]
And I will tell you, you. We got a phone call from the parish saying.
- [132:34]
Forget something, you know, and thankfully it was a neighbor who's dear friend. That's hilarious.
- [132:39]
Matt Fradd
Are we home by that point?
- [132:41]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes, I was home. I was home pouring a Diet Coke and thinking, okay, I'm gonna have a Diet Coke now. And then we got the phone call. Oh, my gosh. I cannot believe it. We left little Simon. So horrible. But it was. You know, my wife and I took different. Well, we. We actually drove, I'm ashamed to say, even though we live right around the block. But it was bad weather. So, anyway, she can't defend herself.
- [133:02]
Matt Fradd
Blame her.
- [133:03]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, no.
- [133:05]
She was amazing. No, my wife is amazing. No, I. Yeah. No. Anyway, see, it is a remarkable story because it shows us so many things. One aspect of it is that Jesus is willing to let his mother be anxious.
- [133:23]
And he's willing to let me be anxious, too.
- [133:28]
Gosh. Okay, so that's part of it. That's part of the mystery of the Christian life, is that Jesus allows us to be anxious about things. He doesn't necessarily answer all of our questions or doesn't immediately present himself to us when we're necessarily looking for him.
- [133:49]
Matt Fradd
All right, let's switch gears a little. I want to ask you why Christians should think based on the Gospels, that Jesus Christ was God. Ah, nowhere in Scripture that I can think of does he come out and say, I'm God. So isn't it more likely, shouldn't we conclude that this was a sort of development as the Christians began to speak more and more, what do you say, kind of enthusiastically about Jesus, that they came to hold this understanding? Because this is not something you find in the.
- [134:19]
Michael Patrick Barber
So one thing that I think is challenging is that we often approach this question sort of anachronistically. Right. So, well, did the apostles know the Trinity? They wouldn't use that word. Right. So we have to recognize that there is a development of doctrine and a deepening of understanding here. At the same time, you know, there's a reason that doctrine, that particular doctrine develops. And it's not.
- [134:48]
Somehow like in defiance of what the Scriptures say or even in a sort of just a hyper pietistic mode. So I think it's important to see how the understanding of who Jesus is develops. The most important thing for the Gospels, of course, is that Jesus is the Son of God in a unique way. Right. So like you said, the Gospel of John does say in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And some people say, well, it just means he was a God. And they'll have other arguments for this.
- [135:24]
Matt Fradd
Jehovah's Witnesses.
- [135:25]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes, Jehovah's Witnesses. Even some modern critical scholars will say that as well. At the end of the Gospel, we have Thomas say my Lord and my God to Jesus. And some people will say, well, that just means that God is present in Jesus. But if that's the case, why didn't people read it that way? I don't see evidence that people read it that way. It seems pretty clear that Jesus is understood to not just be in the Gospel of John, just a kind of bearer of the divine name. But Jesus is pre existent. He didn't just like have the status of God added to him later. He wasn't just like adopted as Son of God later. All right, so I think. But you know, I love the way Thomas Aquinas presents these kinds of things in the Summa Contra Gentiles. A really interesting presentation because what he does since pints with Aquinas might as well mention the common doctor. What Thomas does is he basically shows that the church's doctrine of the Trinity is actually meant to preserve the mystery of Scripture. That's really important to remember that the doctrine of the Trinity doesn't exhaust the infinite reality of God. But what it does do is it sets parameters and basically says, all right, the mystery of God doesn't necessarily mean this. Right. So, for example, in the Gospels, in the synoptic Gospels, we see some remarkable things about Jesus. Jesus is son of God. Yep. Some people might say, well, other people are sons of God, so Jesus is just son of God like anybody else is Son of God. But the problem with that is what's known as the Johannine thunderbolt passage. It's a passage that's found in Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus explains. Let me see if I can just call it up here. Jesus says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. He goes on to say.
- [137:39]
No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and. And anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. So in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is son of God. And it's true, we are to call God our Father. But interesting enough, Jesus doesn't call God our Father. Right. He just calls God Father. And he is Son in a distinctly different way, it seems, than we are sons. At the end of the Gospel, we have this remarkable passage that Jesus sends out the disciples in to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Everybody has their own, you know, their favorite gospel. Catholics, I like the Gospel of John. Typically, most Catholics will say, oh, I love the Gospel of John. My favorite gospel is Gospel of Matthew. And it's only in the Gospel of Matthew that we have that in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It's really interesting. It's not in the names of the Father and of the Son, end of the Holy Spirit. This name is the Sons and the spirits. In the same way, it seems that it's the Fathers, which is really a remarkable assertion that now these three are put on, on a level unlike anyone else. So what the doctrine of the Trinity wants to preserve is this revelation that God is Father, but God is also Son in some distinct way in Jesus Christ. That's different than the way I'm a Son of God. And so the doctrine of the Trinity is, I think, beautifully preserving the mystery. It's not saying, oh, my goodness, you know, let's impose some formula and now just force the Gospels into it. No, rather what it's trying to do is account for all the different things that we find in the Gospel. So really as Khaled Anatolius, he's a great theologian. Hopefully you'll meet him some days, teaches at Notre Dame, brilliant theologian.
- [139:56]
He is Eastern, right? Catholic priest, and he's an expert on the patristic period. And he says, you know, Nicaea is ultimately more apophatic than anything else. It's Saint God is this homoousios. The Son is homoousios. But it doesn't necessarily delineate every possible meaning of that. It's just saying here's what it doesn't mean. And what it doesn't mean is what Arius thought it meant. What Arius thought it meant is that Christ is a creature. Christ. There was a time when Christ did not exist and that does not seem to be. In fact, Arius thought that Christ was not just a creature, but the greatest of all creatures. In fact, the greatest of all angels. And there is a surprising passage in the Gospel of Matthew that doesn't work with. In Matthew 24, Jesus talks about the day of the Parousia. And he says something that, you know, some people find really scandalous. I don't think it really should be all that scandalous. But he says about that day and hour, no one knows. Neither the angels of heaven nor the sun, not even the angels know this. So Jesus is greater than the angels in this passage. So Arius is wrong. You can't.
- [141:19]
Matt Fradd
But doesn't he say neither the angels nor the Son?
- [141:21]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, he says neither the angels nor the Son. But the point is Jesus is not in the same category of the angels. Okay, Right. Some people are disturbed by the fact that it says the Son doesn't know. But another aspect of the Church's faith is another doctrine, and that is the hypostatic union. That is that Jesus is both God and man at the same time. Why do we have that doctrine? Well, we have that doctrine because on the one hand it's clear that Jesus is the Logos. He's pre existent. He existed in some way before he was born. Right? And you see this in Philippians 2, where he was in the form of God and then he's in the form of man, it seems. But.
- [142:04]
What we want to affirm also is what Scripture says. Jesus is a man. He is a man and he has a human intellect. And human intellects are not infinite. Right. So Jesus can truly say he doesn't know things because he, in his human intellect, he doesn't know everything. Right. In the same way you would in a divine intellect. So here's a passage that the church is. Nope, Actually, this doctrine, actually the hypothetical union accounts for this as well. So it's not either he's man or he's God. Right. He's both.
- [142:41]
Matt Fradd
Alright, apart from the Gospel of John, do we have any clear evidence that Christ claimed to be divine?
- [142:45]
Michael Patrick Barber
My favorite verse to highlight is actually in Matthew chapter seven. It's in the Sermon on the Mount. Perfect sermon. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Now why does he say Lord, Lord? Why didn't he say not everybody says Lord never thought about entering into the kingdom of heaven.
- [143:11]
Matt Fradd
Yeah.
- [143:12]
Michael Patrick Barber
So there's a great New Testament scholar named Jason Staples who has written on this and he did an exhaustive study of ancient Jewish literature to see when do you have in Greek Kurios. Kurios or Kyrie Karya.
- [143:30]
Matt Fradd
Am I right in thinking that Kurios can mean earthly potentate or something?
- [143:33]
Michael Patrick Barber
It can, certainly can. That's right. So people will say, oh well, Jesus is Lord. Well, you know, that just can mean He's King. Okay. The issue there is that.
- [143:43]
In the Septuagint, well, we have to be careful. We call it the Septuagint. Septuagint is the Greek version. Now we use that term to describe the Greek version of the Old Testament. Originally it just meant the five books of Moses. People now mean it, all these books. And so anyway. But in the Greek version of the Old Testament, whenever you find Lord, Lord, there's a reason for that really. It's because in the Hebrew it's the Tetragrammaton, the name of God. Y, H. W, H. And then the word for Lord. So we see it in English Bibles, translated Lord and then God with all capital letters. God in all capital letters. Because God is the divine name that's revealed to Moses at Sinai. Jews don't pronounce that name. And Pope Benedict thought it was a good practice for Catholics also not to use it. So I try to avoid using it. But Jews instead of saying the divine name will say Adonai. But what happens when you have a passage that calls the sacred name of God the Lord? Then you have an issue where you have Adonai Tetragrammaton, the divine name. And so how does that get translated into Greek? Lord, Lord. Every time. And the Septuagint you find Lord, Lord. It's because you have in the Hebrew Adonai Tetragrammaton. So when Jesus Says Lord, Lord. He's not just saying, I'm a king. Staples argues, he's saying, I am the Lord God.
- [145:06]
Matt Fradd
Wow. How many instances, roughly, do we have in the Old Testament of Lord?
- [145:11]
Michael Patrick Barber
I don't know. I'd have to go back and read his article.
- [145:12]
Matt Fradd
More than a couple.
- [145:13]
Michael Patrick Barber
But he published it in New Testament Studies, which is a very prestigious journal. It's very difficult to get articles submitted there.
- [145:20]
Matt Fradd
Do you know another something I often think, too, is people will say, well, why doesn't he just come out and say he's God? And since he didn't, that's proof that he isn't. But then I think, well, where did he come out and say I'm the Messiah?
- [145:29]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. Well, he does in John 4, right. When he starts speaking to the woman. The Samaritan woman.
- [145:34]
Matt Fradd
Yeah. What does he say?
- [145:35]
Michael Patrick Barber
I who speak to you am he.
- [145:38]
Matt Fradd
Where else?
- [145:39]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's it.
- [145:39]
Matt Fradd
Right. That's my point. It's sort of like when people talk about the sinlessness of Mary. Where is that? And you go, well, where is it of Christ? It says it maybe twice explicitly.
- [145:48]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, sure. Yeah. And so it's important for us to recognize. And I think this is just so critical. The way Jesus taught was in multivalent terms. Jesus used words that were mysterious. So, for example, son of man. Right. What does son of man mean exactly? You know, it's remarkable. When Jesus talks about himself, he calls himself the Son of Man. We talked about this earlier.
- [146:13]
Matt Fradd
Well, according to Richard Rohr, Michael, it just means that he's human.
- [146:17]
Michael Patrick Barber
And there are passages in the Scriptures where son of man simply means human. So you can understand how someone could get that meaning.
- [146:26]
Matt Fradd
Sure.
- [146:26]
Michael Patrick Barber
But there are other passages.
- [146:28]
Matt Fradd
Like coming on the clouds doesn't seem.
- [146:30]
Michael Patrick Barber
To be talking like he's any ordinary human being. And in fact, fact, I always find it interesting that the expression in the Gospels is rooted in Daniel. Daniel 7. Daniel has a vision, and it's not the Son of man in Daniel 7. You know, it's one like a son of man, which implies he looks like a son of man, but he's more than that.
- [146:51]
Matt Fradd
I see.
- [146:52]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. So it's very interesting that Jesus uses that expression. Now, we do know that in the first century, there were messianic expectations that seem to be associated with the Son of Man. We have a book called First Enoch. It's not in our Bibles. Okay, so it's not in the Scriptures today, although Coptic Christians think it's inspired. But First Enoch is wildly popular in Jesus's day, and it does seem there's a section called the Parables of Enoch some scholars say didn't go back to Jesus's day because they didn't find in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But that's not really a very persuasive argument because there are lots of things that are not found in the Dead Sea Scroll. So, so what you know. But in the Parables of Enoch, which is part of 1 Enoch, we have the Messiah not only described as the Son of man, but the Son of Man existed from all eternity. He exists before creation and he's revealed. It's a fascinating. So this would explain.
- [147:51]
Matt Fradd
So if first century Jews are familiar with this text, you're saying.
- [147:53]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh yeah, I think think so. And so I think Jesus is speaking in a way, even if they, if Jesus audience haven't read First Enoch itself, I think this kind of thing is in the air. Right. So when Jesus talks about the to Peter, for example, in Matthew, that flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. That is the truth about his identity as the Son of man, as the Messianic Son of Man. That would fit very well within this context that the Son of Man was hidden, the Messiah is hidden and he's going to be revealed at some future time. And there's a lot of evidence for this. It's the hidden Messiah belief, this kind of heavenly Messiah who will be revealed at some time. So if people want to know, and we have a chapter called. Well, in our book Paul a New Covenant Jew, we just detail texts and read, read the texts.
- [148:47]
Matt Fradd
Dr. Scott Hahn said something like, you know, boredom with the scriptures is not a result of familiarity with the scriptures. It's the result of not being familiar enough with them. So as we begin to wrap up, what kind of advice would you give to people who they want to love the scriptures, but they don't and they feel guilty that they don't. But what do you do with that?
- [149:06]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, yeah, I would say for me something that's really exciting is just picking up a good book on the scriptures that can help unlock things that maybe you haven't seen before. Also, I would just say sit down and read the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is riveting.
- [149:25]
Mark, according to tradition, is of course written by someone who's an associate of Peter. And the Gospel of Mark seems to have all kinds of Roman terms like the praetorian is. Only in the Gospel of Mark doesn't.
- [149:41]
Matt Fradd
He keep using the word immediately.
- [149:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
He does. I was gonna get to that. The amazing thing about the Gospel of Mark is it seems like it's written to someone like a first century Roman has no attention span whatsoever. Mark, I think reads like it's written to, you know, the kinds of Romans that like gladiatorial games they have, you know, they're like first century Americans. They don't wanna have a lot of dialogue, they don't want a lot of complicated drama. They just want to see stuff get blowed up. Right. So in the Gospel of Mark it immediately starts with Jesus's baptism. The Holy Spirit comes down after the heavens are torn. And then we read and immediately he, Jesus goes. And immediately. In fact the English translations take out the word immediately. You thus in Greek sometimes because it's just, it's so overwhelming how many times.
- [150:27]
Matt Fradd
But it's fast paced.
- [150:28]
Michael Patrick Barber
You get the sense like Peter is, or Mark or the author is worried that the audience is going to lose their attention span. So it's like, and then there was a, you know, unclean spirit and Jesus cast him out. It's like, whoa, you know, his pyrotechnics all over the place. So if you, if you want an action packed scripture to read, I'd say start with the Gospel of Mark. Even though my favorite is the Gospel of Matthew that begins with a long genealogy that some people strangely find difficult to work through.
- [150:56]
Matt Fradd
Now I'm embarrassed that I don't know that, but have you written, I know a lot of your works are for academic audiences, but have you written books for lay people other than the Christmas one you mentioned?
- [151:05]
Michael Patrick Barber
Sure, yeah. So the True Meaning of Christmas. Yeah, that's a really fun book that people could take a look at. Another book that I've written is Salvation what Every Catholic Should Know. It's not written for a scholarly audience, but I do have some scholars who blurbed it. In fact, even some non Catholic scholars like Joshua Gyp and Ben Blackwell.
- [151:27]
Ben Blackwell is at Houston Christian University. So, you know, I'm trying to be a bridge builder responsible and a bridge builder. Come on. Yeah. Really? Yeah.
- [151:34]
Matt Fradd
That's great.
- [151:35]
Michael Patrick Barber
So yeah, that's important. I do try to write even my scholarly works in a way that is accessible. So my book on the historical Jesus with Cambridge University presses. It starts with a story about Thomas Jefferson that I think is an interesting way to get into the question of Jesus. He had this famous Jefferson Bible. And then I'm on, you know, if people want to get into the Scriptures themselves. The Augustine Institute is translating, like I said, a new Bible translation, the Catholic Standard Version.
- [152:03]
Matt Fradd
Did you say that the books will come out individually or will you Release the New Testament.
- [152:08]
Michael Patrick Barber
We've done some individually, I think. Yeah, we're going to be making some changes even to those. Because you do Matthew and then you're like, okay, this is great. Then you do Mark and you realize, ooh, we probably should have changed that verse in Matthew because we want to use that English word in Mark. And then when you do Luke and.
- [152:22]
Matt Fradd
You realize, oh, we should do that undertaking.
- [152:24]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, yeah, it's huge.
- [152:25]
Matt Fradd
And what do you do? You said you've got hundreds of scripture scholars working on this. Well, we.
- [152:29]
Michael Patrick Barber
Not hundreds, but we have a lot. Yeah, we have.
- [152:31]
Matt Fradd
Well, even if you had a dozen.
- [152:33]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. Okay.
- [152:33]
Matt Fradd
How do you come to an agreement that this particular word ought to be translated such and such.
- [152:38]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. So it's a long process and it's lots of conversations and we have committee meetings as well, and we send things out, not only the scholars, but the pastors and teachers.
- [152:48]
Matt Fradd
How fascinating to read a book because we've all, as you say, the RSV and these things. Well, the esv. Isn't that a riff off the rsv?
- [152:56]
Michael Patrick Barber
Sort of. Yes, exactly. So, yeah.
- [152:57]
Matt Fradd
The fact that you're translating this from the original languages and you're not referencing other English Bibles, are you?
- [153:03]
Michael Patrick Barber
No. By referencing, I mean, it's important to know.
- [153:08]
Did we just reproduce the exact text that, you know, you found? That can happen. Like, oh, we didn't mean it. You know, it happened to be the exact same. So this happens to me a lot. When I publish a book, I always use my own translations and then I'll send the book in and then the publisher will write me back and say, well, Michael, you're clearly using the pick up the rsv. Why? Well, because your translation matches that exactly. Okay. I am the light of the world. How do you want me to do the light of the world? You want me to do the Yoda translation.
- [153:39]
Matt Fradd
I am the luminous light.
- [153:41]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. So there are lots of places where I can't help there's going to be overlap. But you do sometimes want to look and see. Well, you know, did we inadvertently have an overlap or something? That's something that we've learned. Oh, we definitely want to check that out as we're.
- [153:56]
Matt Fradd
What's your answer to the question which is the best Bible for me to read?
- [153:59]
Michael Patrick Barber
The one that you will actually read. That's the best Bible.
- [154:03]
Matt Fradd
Even if it's the New Jerusalem.
- [154:06]
Michael Patrick Barber
The one that you will.
- [154:07]
Matt Fradd
Just because you talked about the Tetragrammatron.
- [154:09]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. The one that you will actually read is the one I will.
- [154:13]
Matt Fradd
What about the message. You ever read the message?
- [154:15]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah.
- [154:15]
Matt Fradd
What do you think?
- [154:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
Actually, I have a great Bible program on my computer, and it has every English translation on it, so I can always do these comparatives and see, oh, what do they do in different places, which is interesting. I'm not a fan of the message. I like a translation that leaves as much as possible.
- [154:37]
Of the multivalence of the text. So a word can have. Have lots of different meanings.
- [154:43]
Matt Fradd
That's interesting.
- [154:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
And sometimes you can narrow the meaning of the verse by just kind of.
- [154:47]
Matt Fradd
Maybe wanting to be impactful in a certain way.
- [154:50]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, that can happen. Yeah, that can happen. So.
- [154:55]
In our translation, I think it's good to, you know, try to leave as. And then, you know, like the word kurios, Lord, it's the word that's used for God. It's also a word that, you know, can mean something like master or something like that. And so sometimes you might be tempted to translate it differently because it seems weird. But in my opinion, let's just try to keep it Lord, so people can see that don't know the Greek, that it's the same word in different places, and maybe add a footnote so that you can clarify that for people. So, yeah, there are all kinds of different challenges with translating, but it's the most so teaching at the Augustine Institute, teaching our Master's of Biblical Studies students, and we have other programs as well, you know, masters in Theology. And we do have, like, if people really want to get into it, we have short courses where people can go in. And Augustine at Augustine's, too. You can do it online.
- [155:43]
Matt Fradd
Y' all are so great.
- [155:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
It's so much fun.
- [155:44]
Matt Fradd
So many people have benefited from Augustine Institute. I'm a big fan.
- [155:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
Thank you. It's a huge blessing. It's really nice to hear that we have the Formed app as well. Yes. So a lot of people are using the Formed app, which is really great. Entire diocese will use it in parishes. So if you have a. If you're in a parish, just your bulletin, you may already have, like, a free app, like a free code to get it. But we do a lot of things there. The great thing about the YES Institute is I'm among so many really intelligent, careful, responsible, faithful Catholic scholars.
- [156:19]
Matt Fradd
That's what I'm noticing more and more. Like, there's nothing that pleases me more than when I hear Protestants talking and I hear them quote a Catholic scholar, like, even in little things, like Dr. Williams. Craig in a podcast talked about Brent Petra, I think he called him Peter Rare or something like this.
- [156:35]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's hilarious.
- [156:36]
Matt Fradd
Which made it even better. But as you say, when you have Protestants endorsing your own works, like how great that we can have Protestant scholars referencing Catholic biblical scholars because they're serious enough to quote.
- [156:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. And I like to get out of echo chambers. I'm a bit of a contrarian, so maybe you picked that up already, but I am. And, And I like to be in. I don't like to be in a Catholic bubble. I want to hear how other people hear the way we talk, and I want to learn from other people.
- [157:09]
Matt Fradd
Imagine that. But it's so true.
- [157:12]
Michael Patrick Barber
It really is helpful, I think, in.
- [157:13]
Matt Fradd
A day and age where we feel threatened by a million different worldviews in order to sort of establish ourself in something to do away with the. The doubt, we do dismiss people quickly. And don't get me wrong, I actually think there's a. I think there's like a good. I think it's not a bad idea to dismiss certain people. You tell me what you think. And like, here's what I mean. If I'm going to engage, let's say, an LDS in a debate or a Zoroastrian in a debate, then it behooves me to understand exactly what it is they teach so as not to misunderstand them.
- [157:45]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's right.
- [157:46]
Matt Fradd
But I don't actually have enough time to understand all of their worldviews. So just saying that's rubbish, I think is okay. I really think it's okay. Now, if I'm going to interact with a member of the Zoroastrian community, then I want to treat them as an individual and ask them to help me explain things. But we can't walk around. I don't think it's psychologically possible, being fully open to every possible worldview. This is just nonsense. As a shorthand, I think brushing stuff aside is perfectly reasonable, but not when you're engaging with them in any kind of serious way.
- [158:18]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. And what I often find is that.
- [158:21]
I might disagree with a conclusion, but I might find it very illuminating to discover how people got to that. So, for example, you know, you might think, well, why don't Jews just understand Jesus is the Messiah? Yeah. He did all these miracles. He rose from the dead. There are all these prophecies. And if you spend time talking to Jewish people, they'll say, well, what about this passage in Isaiah that talks about, in the Messianic age, the wolf and the lamb, the lion and the Lamb will lie down together.
- [158:52]
That's not Happening and you say the Messiah already came. Okay, but there's going to be a second coming. Oh, now you have to add all these things that hasn't occurred to someone who thinks, well, this is so obviously not the case. You're very thick headed because you.
- [159:07]
Matt Fradd
No, I don't think we give people enough credit. It's easy for us to say, just join us. But how, I mean, psychologically traumatic it is. I mean many people who are watching this show, they know what I'm talking about because they have converted to Catholicism. They're terrified about converting to Catholicism. That, I mean, these are some of your most deep seated beliefs and we're just telling people, just change them, just change them.
- [159:30]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right.
- [159:30]
Matt Fradd
I like to think we have trivial beliefs and deep seated beliefs and we're all willing to change our trivial beliefs. If somebody thinks Sydney's the capital of Australia and I say it's actually Canberra, you go, all right, it's Canberra, but.
- [159:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
If you believe, I would have got that wrong, by the way.
- [159:44]
Matt Fradd
Yeah, but see, now you know, and you're perfectly willing to accept that. But if someone believes that they had an abortion and that was a very good choice for them and I come along and tell them that, well, what they did is actually an evil act. Oh my good. What is now required for this individual to accept what I'm saying to them? They have to accept that they murdered their child, say, or paid someone to. And gosh, what's at stake? We often don't take into account, I think, of just what's at stake when we're asking people to change these deep seated beliefs. It's not that they shouldn't, it's just try to be patient with people.
- [160:16]
Michael Patrick Barber
And I think, you know what Jesus, what Paul teaches us, love is patient, love is kind, love bears all things, love endures all things. Love doesn't insist on its own way. You know, we can't necessarily research what everybody thinks and analyze it and understand it and let alone come up with a critique or response. But what we can do is be loving, be charitable, give people the benefit of the doubt, even when it's difficult for us to see ourselves in our shoes.
- [160:51]
Matt Fradd
You sound like someone who's not terminally online.
- [160:55]
Because I, I'm afraid that online, you know, like, like YouTube rewards you for yelling at people and shaming them. Yeah, but God doesn't, God doesn't reward you for these things.
- [161:07]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, I'm actually just starting to get into YouTube and I've been doing Twitter, but now I'm going to be doing YouTube and other, you know, other platforms, and you see that immediately, right? That the world rewards bad behavior. And, you know, I think for us as Christians, those of us who believe God became man to give himself for us, right. It's important for us to always remember that being a disciple of his is going to entail not looking for what we can gain for ourselves, but rather, how can we die for others, how can we lay down our lives for others? I'm sure. I mean, imagine Mary at the foot of the cross, and then there had to be some natural anger there. I mean, how do you. How do you. Of course she's devastated, but how do you not have anger at this great injustice of seeing your son be not just killed, but in the most, you know, despicable, brutal, cruel way?
- [162:20]
Matt Fradd
Do we have every reason to think he died naked?
- [162:23]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's part of it.
- [162:25]
Matt Fradd
That's part of the shaming process.
- [162:28]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah. And, you know, for those of us who love the Blessed Mother, right, as we all do as Catholics.
- [162:37]
It'S so easy to forget.
- [162:42]
Her example at the foot of the cross when we face injustice in the world. And I see that online all the time. I'm on Twitter and people are like, well, I can't let you say that. You're not gonna get away with saying that. I've gotta get. I don't know if I don't know that the world needs all my hot takes. I'm not that important. Right.
- [163:01]
Matt Fradd
You must have a very unsuccessful Twitter account.
- [163:04]
Michael Patrick Barber
I do have a very unsuccessful Twitter.
- [163:05]
Matt Fradd
As Father Nicanor Ostriako was once said to me, humility rarely goes viral.
- [163:10]
Michael Patrick Barber
And I really don't think. I personally believe. No one has ever read a tweet and said, I've completely changed my mind. Really. I think social media is a beautiful thing when it's used to build friendships, to build relationships.
- [163:26]
Matt Fradd
2% of the time it is.
- [163:27]
Michael Patrick Barber
It's not the place to have arguments, debates, dialogue. It's really not that helpful for that. I just want to make friends. That's really what I want to do. I want to make friends and have conversations. And if you like what I have to say, wonderful. I'd love to have a new friend. And if you don't like what I have to say, then God bless you. Go in peace. It's like, fine. I don't need to impose my convictions on you. Obviously, I think I have good reasons for what I believe. I'd like to persuade others to my point of view, just like anyone would but at the same time, I recognize that people are not going to necessarily be convinced because there are lots of things in people's lives story that factor into the way they weigh evidence and think about things. And that's invisible to me. And at the end of the day, so I don't know all the variables that go into the, you know, the conclusions that people draw. Maybe they say these are the reasons and I don't find them convincing. That might be because there are other reasons that, you know, are hidden from me. And I, you know, I see when people get angry on social media, I usually just. I just usually imagine how broken people must be, how wounded people must be to respond in that kind of way, because it doesn't usually seem to come from a healthy place.
- [164:56]
Matt Fradd
Yeah. I'll ask you one final question just because I've got you here. You said that you wrote a book on salvation. We're writing about the Scriptures. Do you think there's any compelling reason from Scripture to think that universalism is true?
- [165:12]
Michael Patrick Barber
So, yeah, I mean, let's first say I'm a Catholic.
- [165:17]
Matt Fradd
Let's say the church condemned I'm a Catholic.
- [165:19]
Michael Patrick Barber
So as a Catholic, I.
- [165:22]
One of the great things about being Catholic, Matt, is that, you know, I don't have to reinvent the wheel. I don't have to imagine that I'm infallible and that it's up to me to adjudicate all the different pieces of evidence and then rule definitively on what is true and what is the final decision. Now, I definitely form my own opinions and all of that, but.
- [165:46]
I think that for.
- [165:50]
Long period of time, all the way back to the early church, it's been understood that, for example, not everyone is saved because Jesus says things that point in a different direction. You know, he says it would have been better for Judas not to have been born.
- [166:11]
I don't know how he says that. If Judas ends up being saved, can.
- [166:16]
Matt Fradd
I push back on that? Not because I agree with what I'm saying, but I mean, people say things in colloquial speech. Christ did too. You know, like you could hear someone saying, well, why would he say remove the log from your eye? Unless that was actually possible? Clearly it must be possible. Christ wouldn't have said it. And you go, well, no, no, he was using a funny phrase. And so to say, like, it'd be better if you're never born. You could see someone saying that in a flippant way. Why isn't it possible that Christ used it in that sense?
- [166:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
And I would Just say, well, first of all, you know, is. Is there strong evidence that that's the way interpreters have taken it? Because, you know, I know there are patristic sources that do point to a universalistic, A universalist outlook.
- [166:58]
Matt Fradd
Not many, right?
- [166:58]
Michael Patrick Barber
Not many. Yeah, not many. Not many. But I don't see specific commentary on that passage. So it makes me wonder, did they really weigh that passage when they came to those convictions? So I did famously have. Not famously. Nothing about me is famous, but I did have an exchange with Father Fessio. So, Father Fessio, there's a YouTube video where. So Ignatius Press actually published my book on salvation. And I have a chapter in there called Not Inevitable. Right. So salvation is not inevitable. And Father Fessio had me on to discuss the book. So we had, you know, a bit of a back and forth on this. So if people are interested, you can.
- [167:40]
Matt Fradd
Did you disagree? Is that why it was.
- [167:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, we disagree. Yeah.
- [167:43]
Matt Fradd
There. There's disagreement there, what he thought salvation is.
- [167:46]
Michael Patrick Barber
Well, I think Father Fessio would take the view of.
- [167:51]
Hans von Balthazar. Oh, would he?
- [167:53]
Matt Fradd
Oh, how interesting.
- [167:54]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes. I mean, he definitely does. Right.
- [167:57]
Matt Fradd
Not. I think he does.
- [167:58]
Michael Patrick Barber
Is the case. Yeah, I should have said it that way. Yeah, he does. He takes that view.
- [168:03]
Matt Fradd
Now, that view can be interpreted in different ways. And I don't want to make you speak for Father Fessio.
- [168:06]
Michael Patrick Barber
Oh, absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah. I just. I feel constrained as a reader of these texts. It seems like, well, maybe one of these could be rhetorically.
- [168:21]
Another key passage is to mention it, because I feel like it needs to be mentioned is In Luke chapter 13, the disciples specifically asked Jesus, will, Lord, will only a few be saved? And Jesus says, strive to enter the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. So I don't know how that means, but they will be able. Because he says many will not be able. So how can you make that mean, but they will be able. Does that make sense?
- [168:54]
Matt Fradd
Yeah, of course.
- [168:54]
Michael Patrick Barber
So I feel like the evidence constrains you in some way.
- [168:57]
Matt Fradd
I also think that it would seem to make Christ rather malicious if he was threatening us with something quite horrific, separation from the good God that he knows isn't going to happen.
- [169:10]
Michael Patrick Barber
Why would you do that to us? And I just want to be clear here. I understand the scandal of it, right. This idea that. That someone could go to a place of eternal damnation, that's horrific thought. And I don't want to brush it aside as, oh, my goodness, this is, well, not a big Deal or something like that. I also strongly believe that.
- [169:42]
People tend today to discount the possibility that God allows us to make destructive choices for ourselves and that God really respects our freedom so much that he will not impose himself on us. So I'm not a huge CS Lewis fan, but one thing I do like about CS Lewis is his description of hell is locked from the inside. I think it's really important to think about hell that way. I think it's problematic to imagine that hell is merely somehow God getting his pound of flesh or something like that. No. My understanding is that hell is something that we choose for ourselves. Those who go to hell. Hopefully I don't. But those who go to hell choose it for themselves.
- [170:33]
And if they could be released from hell, they wouldn't leave hell because they've chosen it for themselves.
- [170:41]
Matt Fradd
That honestly sounds more horrific.
- [170:43]
Michael Patrick Barber
It is more horrific.
- [170:44]
Matt Fradd
Like, how perverted has your will become?
- [170:47]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes. But in reality, I know enough. I've had enough life experience.
- [170:53]
Matt Fradd
I see it in my own life. The ways I choose stupid things that I know hurt me.
- [170:57]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly.
- [170:58]
Matt Fradd
I see the ways that the Lord invites me to joy and rejoicing, and I. I choose not to embrace it out of sullenness. God have mercy.
- [171:06]
Michael Patrick Barber
That's exactly right. Yeah. So I know that that's a possibility. I know that God loves me so much. He doesn't impose himself on me. He respects my freedom. And that's a terrifying thought, but in many ways. Right. It really is. But love can't be coerced. So on the flip side, if salvation. I always like to say salvation isn't just fire insurance. It's not just getting out of hell. Right. Salvation is entering into the life of God. In Catholic tradition, it's entering into the communion of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the saints, which is a communion of love. You can't be coerced into that. Right. So love has to be freely given. And so that means that there has to be a possibility of saying, I refuse to do that. Otherwise it doesn't seem to me that it can be truly freely given.
- [172:04]
Matt Fradd
Well, let me push back against that. Again, not cause I agree with what I'm saying. But why can't the love of God be so irresistible that it wins us over in the end in some kind of state that exists between here and there?
- [172:15]
Michael Patrick Barber
One might think it is unless one read Scripture.
- [172:21]
I might think it would be.
- [172:22]
Matt Fradd
This is quite interesting because it's quite interesting. Easy to philosophize based on a few premises into heresy. You know, God is Love. And he doesn't desire anyone to be saved, anyone to be damned.
- [172:33]
Michael Patrick Barber
Right. And this is where I really get.
- [172:35]
Matt Fradd
But then you read Scripture and it's like a bucket of cold water in the face.
- [172:38]
Michael Patrick Barber
This is where I get really worried about theologianology. Right. Because when you reduce theology to just the opinion of my favorite theologian, and that is not anchored in. There is, from a Catholic perspective, objective divine revelation recognized by the Church. This is divinely revealed. When it just simply becomes my preferences, well, that can lead in all kinds of horrific directions. And I am grateful to be grounded in a tradition of saints who have much more wisdom and much more holiness than I will ever have, but who have read these texts carefully and.
- [173:27]
With the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Church's authority, say, okay, well, there's a lot of room for debate and discussion about particular passages. But the existence of damnation, the reality that some people could actually take themselves to a place where they're damned forever, that would not be something that I would like to come up with. Right. I would prefer not to believe that. And so I have to be especially suspect of it then. Right?
- [173:56]
Matt Fradd
Yeah, that's good. Lewis says the same thing, doesn't he? Like, if there was any doctrine I could get rid of, but it has the full weight of Scripture and the patristics.
- [174:03]
Michael Patrick Barber
Exactly. And, you know, let's just. Also, just one last thing about that is the beautiful thing about Scripture is, as Joseph Ratzinger says, it's the model of all theology. Because in Catholic tradition, right. We recognize as books of the New Testament. Explain. These books are written in the Holy Spirit. They're written by the Spirit. So these words are not just the words of men, but the words of God. And so I love Aquinas. I do. His commentary on the Gospel of John is actually my favorite book after the Bible. I love it. I read it over and over and over and over and over. Love it. I love it. But that commentary is not inspired. We will never read Thomas Aquinas at Mass instead of Luke. We will never read St. Therese of Lisu instead of John or Paul. Right. And that's because we recognize that in these books, God is speaking to us in a particular powerful way. And that's not to say God can't use the writings of saints in other writings to speak to us. But Scripture is uniquely inspired and recognizes the word of God. And if we put some other thing at the center of theology, the study of some particular theologian or the study of our own experience or something like that, that ultimately becomes A kind of narcissism. Right. I want to determine what is central for me in theology. I want to choose the topic that I want to study. In fact, this is why I love Thomas's biblical commentaries. I prefer that over the summas. I think this has been a big problem in Catholic theology is the preference of the summas over the biblical commentaries. Because I love the summas. Thomas wrote those as helpful guides for his students. But the biblical commentaries is what he lectured on for students. And when you study Scripture and you make that the center, then you let go of your ability to choose what you want to study. You've got to study Mark 2. Now I've got to make sense of the story of this leper. Now I've got to make sense of the story of this paralytic. Now I've got to make sense of. I've got to hear what St. Paul says about charity. I don't want to think about charity. But if you follow the Scriptures, the choice is taken out of your hand what the subject matter is. Otherwise it's like, you know what I find interesting? I find this thing over. I find this thing interesting over here. And then you'll never end up focusing on something else. Well, when we make Scripture, the center of the God sets the agenda for us. And now we're constrained and we say, okay, now I gotta talk about this, because this is what the next chapter is, right? I'm not saying the other two. These things aren't unhelpful, they are important. Cause the text raises questions that we're gonna wanna answer. But if we make the text a center, then we have a study that is rooted in God's Word. And we also have something we can pray with. So we're not, you know, just. Now it's not just us talking at the text or imposing something, but ideally the Word is speaking to us. So we're constantly in that place of prayer.
- [176:59]
Matt Fradd
This reminds me of Dr. Peter Kreeft's joke about the theologian who dies and is given the opportunity to go to heaven or a lecture on heaven. And he chooses the lecture.
- [177:08]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yes, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.
- [177:11]
Matt Fradd
Well, thanks so much for coming all the way out here and being on the show.
- [177:14]
Michael Patrick Barber
It's been a delight to be here. Thank you so much.
- [177:16]
Matt Fradd
If people want to learn more about you or maybe book you to speak, I don't know.
- [177:19]
Michael Patrick Barber
Sure, yeah. So people can find me on online. I have a website, the sacredpage.com. or they can find me at the Augustineinstitute Edu. That's the school where I teach, and.
- [177:33]
We have lots of great opportunities there for deepening your faith, whether it be in the short courses or if you. Hey, if you're listening to the Matt Fradd show, how long have we been at this today? This has been a long time. If you're listening to all this stuff, why not get some course credit? You know, so you could do a master's or a certificate in theology from a distance.
- [177:52]
Matt Fradd
Right.
- [177:52]
Michael Patrick Barber
And you can do it from a distance, or you can do it on campus, which is. We have a beautiful new campus. And you could even do hybrid, which we really like to encourage. We like to have people come and see their fellow students. It's pretty affordable. You can come for two days, three days, do a little experience on campus, then do the rest of the class online. That's great. And you can find me on YouTube. Just look for my name, Michael Patrick Barber. And, yeah, I guess I need to be better about all this, but.
- [178:23]
I don't have one place or some. The Augustine Institute. Go to the Augusta Institute.
- [178:27]
Matt Fradd
Just do what you do. You're doing well.
- [178:29]
Michael Patrick Barber
Thanks.
- [178:30]
Matt Fradd
And we're all benefiting from you. You don't need to be, like, a YouTuber. You can be an academic who.
- [178:35]
Michael Patrick Barber
Yeah, I like being a scholar.
- [178:38]
Matt Fradd
That's enough. That's enough.
- [178:40]
Michael Patrick Barber
Thanks be to God.
- [178:41]
Matt Fradd
Thanks be to God. Thank you.
- [178:42]
Michael Patrick Barber
Thank you. I appreciate it, Matt.