Subtitles
some years ago I had just given a talk 00:00:06
some years ago I had just given a talk on television in Canada when one of the 00:00:10
announcers came up to me and said you 00:00:16
know if one can believe that this 00:00:21
universe is in charge of an intelligent 00:00:24
and beneficent God don't you think he 00:00:29
would naturally have provided us with an 00:00:32
infallible guide to behavior and to the 00:00:36
truth about the universe and of course I 00:00:39
knew he meant the Bible I said no I 00:00:42
think nothing of the kind because I 00:00:45
think a loving God would not do 00:00:46
something to his children that would rot 00:00:48
their brains because if we had an 00:00:52
infallible guide we would never think 00:00:54
for ourselves and therefore our minds 00:00:57
would become atrophied it is as if my 00:00:59
grandfather had left me a million 00:01:00
dollars I'm glad he didn't and we have 00:01:06
therefore to begin any discussion of the 00:01:09
meaning of the life and teaching of 00:01:11
Jesus with a look at this thorny 00:01:14
question of authority and especially the 00:01:17
authority of Holy Scripture because in 00:01:21
this country in particular there are an 00:01:23
enormous number of people who seem to 00:01:25
believe that the Bible descended from 00:01:28
heaven with an angel in the year 1611 00:01:32
which was when the so called King James 00:01:34
or more correctly authorized version of 00:01:37
the Bible was translated into English I 00:01:40
had a crazy uncle who believed that 00:01:43
every word of the Bible was literally 00:01:45
true including the marginal notes 00:01:48
and so whatever date it said it said in 00:01:51
the marginal notes that the world was 00:01:53
created in 4004 BC and he believed it is 00:01:56
the Word of God until one day he was 00:01:59
reading I think a passage in the book of 00:02:01
Proverbs and found a naughty word in the 00:02:03
Bible and from that time on he was 00:02:05
through with it hello how Protestant can 00:02:09
you get now the question of austerity 00:02:17
needs to be understood because I am NOT 00:02:20
going to claim any Authority and what I 00:02:21
say to you except the authority such as 00:02:26
it is in history and that's a pretty 00:02:30
uncertain authority but from my point of 00:02:34
view the four Gospels are I think to be 00:02:39
regarded on the whole as historical 00:02:40
documents 00:02:40
I'll even grant the miracles because speaking is one heavily influenced by 00:02:49
Buddhism we're not very impressed by 00:02:53
miracles the traditions of Asia Hindu 00:02:59
Buddhist Taoist and so forth are full of 00:03:02
miraculous stories and we take them in 00:03:06
our stride we don't think that there are 00:03:10
any sign of anything in particular 00:03:12
except psychic power and we in the West 00:03:16
have by scientific technology 00:03:20
accomplished things of a very startling 00:03:23
nature we could blow up the whole planet 00:03:26
and Tibetan magicians have never 00:03:30
promised to do anything like that and 00:03:32
I'm really a little scared of the 00:03:35
growing interest in psychic power 00:03:37
because that's what I call psycho 00:03:39
technics and we've made such a mess of 00:03:43
things with ordinary technics that 00:03:44
heaven only knows what we might do if we 00:03:47
got hold of psycho techniques and 00:03:49
started raising people from the dead and 00:03:52
prolonging life insufferably and doing 00:03:56
everything we wished in the whole answer 00:03:58
to the story of miracles is simply 00:04:00
imagine 00:04:01
that your God and that you can have 00:04:04
anything you want well you'd have it for 00:04:07
quite a long time and then after a while 00:04:10
we said this is getting pretty dull 00:04:12
because I know in advance everything 00:04:14
that's going to happen and so you would 00:04:16
wish for a surprise and you would find 00:04:19
yourself this evening in this church as 00:04:20
a human being so I mean that that is the 00:04:26
miracle thing I think miracles are 00:04:28
probably possible that doesn't bother me 00:04:30
and as a matter of fact when you read 00:04:33
the writings of the early Fathers of the 00:04:34
Church 00:04:36
the great theologians like sin Clement 00:04:38
Gregory of Nyssa and John of Damascus 00:04:41
even Thomas Aquinas they're not 00:04:45
interested in the historicity of the 00:04:46
Bible they take that father for granted 00:04:50
but forget it they're interested in its 00:04:52
deeper meaning and therefore they always 00:04:55
interpret all the tales like Jonah and 00:04:58
the whales they they don't bother even 00:05:01
to doubt whether Jonah was I was not 00:05:03
swallowed by a whale or other big fish 00:05:05
but they see in the story of Jonah and 00:05:09
the Whale a prefiguration of the 00:05:11
resurrection of Christ and then even 00:05:14
when it comes to the resurrection of 00:05:16
Christ they're not worrying about the 00:05:17
chemistry or the physics of a risen body 00:05:22
what they're interested in is that the 00:05:25
idea of the resurrection of the body has 00:05:28
something to say about the meaning of 00:05:32
the physical body in the eyes of God 00:05:34
that the physical body in other words is 00:05:37
not something worthless and unspiritual 00:05:39
but something which is an object of the 00:05:42
divine love and so therefore I'm not 00:05:48
going to be concerned with whether or 00:05:50
not miraculous events happened it seems 00:05:54
to me entirely beside the point 00:05:54
so I regard the four Gospels as on the whole as good a historical document as 00:06:06
anything else we have from that period 00:06:08
including the gospel of cynjohn and that's important 00:06:16
it used to be fashionable to regard the 00:06:20
gospel of sanjana's late in other words 00:06:23
at the turn of the century of the higher 00:06:24
critics of the New Testament assigned 00:06:26
the gospel of San John to about 125 ad 00:06:29
and the reason was just simple those 00:06:33
higher critics at that time just assumed 00:06:36
that the simple teachings of Jesus could 00:06:38
not possibly have included any such 00:06:40
complicated mystical theology and 00:06:44
therefore they said well it must be 00:06:45
later now as a matter of fact in the 00:06:50
text of the Gospel of st. John the local 00:06:52
color his knowledge of the topography of 00:06:55
Jerusalem and his knowledge of the 00:06:58
Jewish calendar is more accurate than 00:07:00
that of the other three writers Matthew 00:07:03
Mark and Luke and it seems to me 00:07:06
perfectly simple to assume that John 00:07:09
recorded the inner teaching which he 00:07:12
gave to his disciples and that Matthew 00:07:16
Mark and Luke record the more esoteric 00:07:18
teaching which he gave to people at 00:07:21
large 00:07:21
now what about them the authority of these scriptures we could take this 00:07:28
problem in two steps a lot of people 00:07:37
don't know how we got the Bible at all 00:07:37
we Westerners got the Bible thanks to the Catholic Church the Catholic Church 00:07:46
and members of the church wrote the 00:07:52
books of the New Testament and they took 00:07:55
over the books of the Old Testament 00:07:57
which even by the time of Christ had not 00:07:59
been finally decided upon by the Jews 00:08:01
the Jews did not close the Canon of the 00:08:05
Old Testament until the Year 100 AD 00:08:07
or there abouts at the Synod of Jamia 00:08:10
and then they finally decided which were 00:08:12
the canonical books of the Hebrew 00:08:14
Scriptures and embodied them in the 00:08:16
Masoretic text the earliest copy of 00:08:19
which dates from the 10th century early 00:08:21
in the 10th century AD 00:08:21
the books to be included in the New Testament were not finally decided upon 00:08:28
until the Year 382 AD again at the Synod 00:08:39
of Rome under Pope Damasus so it was the 00:08:43
church the Catholic Church that 00:08:44
promulgated the Bible and said we are 00:08:48
giving you these scriptures on our 00:08:51
authority and by the authority of the 00:08:55
informal tradition that has existed 00:08:57
among us from the beginning inspired by 00:08:59
the Holy Spirit so you receive 00:09:03
historically the Bible on the church's 00:09:05
say-so and the Catholic Church insists 00:09:09
therefore that the church collectively 00:09:12
speaking under the presumed guidance of 00:09:16
the Holy Spirit has the authority to 00:09:19
interpret the Bible and you can take 00:09:22
that or leave it 00:09:22