... against false sophistication of the Robber Baron of Theology

Video commented on:

Fr. Robert Barron on Bill Maher and Biblical Interpretation
Bishop Robert Barron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGDDKlXl488

I

6:20 "culturally conditioned"

No one pretends Papal infallibility is verbal dictation by Holy Spirit, Pope acting as secretary.

BUT all agree (Catholics, that is) that notwithstanding any cultural conditioning, any Papal statement is free from catastrophic doctrinal error (if it's not the case with Bergoglio, it's because he's not Pope).

Therefore, any cultural conditioning in any way relevant for Hagiographers must have left them free to give an inerrant word which one way or other (sometimes secretarial, sometimes not quite so) God was inspiring them to.

I e, every word of a hagiographer is the word of the all knowing and all wise and all truthful God.

7:20 What's in Dei Verbum and what Dei Verbum teaches?

An idea of genre making a huge difference for literal veracity of parts of Bible which are nevertheless religiously accurate in what ... Robber Baron or sn? ... decides the part of the Bible having such and such a genre, may have been in the intellectual athmosphere of fathers of Vatican II (which is of course not a council, but you take it as such) and might not be what Dei Verbum actually teaches?

Seriously, there is a name for this figure : wax nose. A nose which is so soft anyone can turn it whatever way he likes.

If you want that for Dei Verbum, conciliar document of non-council assembled illegally 1962-1965, fine.

But if you want that applied Verbo Dei quod est Depositum Fidei (Scripturis et Traditionibus non scriptis traditum nobis), no thanks!

II

6:40 You speak of "saga" and "legend" as genres other than truthful history.

They are not. Some Pagan sagas and legends are not completely truthful - as some history by historians is not completely truthful. That is a failure, not a question of genre.

Herodotus has Assyrian army attacking Israel defeated by mice nibbling all bowstrings.

Now, that is not truthful, I'll take book of Kings.

III

7:05 There is no genre in the library which due to its very genre need not be taken literally - except novels and fairy tales.

No part of the Bible is really proven to be such.

At least not in the sense of not being literally true. Except parables. Perhaps.

That parts of Apocalyptic literature are figures of speech, does not preclude they were visions literally seen as such.

That they were visions whose ultimate content is a figure of speech, does not decide whether they were intellectual, phantasmic or even corporeal - like a bodily figure of a beast with ten horn actually standing before Daniel.

In the condemnations of Tempier, we find next to each other:

XVIII Error de raptu
1 (33). Quod raptus et uisiones non fiunt, nisi per naturam.
and
I Errores de Deo sive prima causa:
9 (34). Quod causa prima non posset plures mundos facere.

So, was St John transported to a "world of Pathmos" in which Christ was bodily present like among other things a lamb, like St Paul MAY HAVE been bodily transported to the seventh heaven (or third, can't recall which)?

Or was he given a corporeal vision in this world?

Or was the vision phantasmic?

Or were the different parts of differnet ontological status quoad literam?

That they include figures of speech about inter alia end times does NOT preclude against literal historicity in the lifeline of St John or of prophet Daniel.

God can have created a world to give a background for a vision, just as easily as He can have created bodily beings which were shown or exterior accidents unusual for the substance or sensations without exterior object.

IV

7:47 What the Bible teaches is what God intends us to know, what is inspired by God THROUGH the Bible?

No, what is inspired by God IN the Bible.

Otherwise you get this "wax nose" problem. God will not be mocked. If I cannot stop you from mocking God, I will at least not let you do so without contradiction. As far as I have any possibility of saying anything, that is.

8:00 Patterns, themes and trajectories throughout the whole of the Bible are fine, but they DO very much depend on - what is in the Bible, in actual passages, book by book, chapter by chapter or even verse by verse.

Genesis 3:15 is a great example, along with Gratia Plena in Luke 1, and with the three mentions of Virgin Mary being blessed (angel Gabriel, Elisabeth, Her own Magnificat).

But this does not preclude we owe total confidence to the words in Genesis 3:15 actually being spoken to the serpent in front of actually Adam and Eve, as well as these telling descendants Seth, Enosh, etc. as long as they lived, down to Mahaleel. Seth and his wife transmitting it to Enosh etc. down to Jared. Enosh and his wife transmitting down to Methuselah. Noah learning from all having lived since Mahaleel's generation, except Henoch, who was already raptured (unless he made a descent to converse with Noah too), Noah teaching Shem, Arphaxad (Cainan was a bad pupil, but had a son called) Shelah. Shem teaching to the youth of Eber, Arphaxad to the youth of Peleg, (Cainan was not a reliable teacher), Shelah to the youth of Reu, Eber to youth of Serug, dito for Peleg, Reu to the youth of Nahor, Serug, Nahor and Thera all surviving to the early years of Abram.

And from then on, we basically have "organised religion" as we know it.

Six chapters of Genesis, all the pre-Flood ones, are, in English, in 24 points, 21 pages on word. Five times the Greek version of Creed of Constantinople are, also 24 points, 7 pages on word. So, length in letters and comparably in syllables, a Genesis chapter of the early ones corresponds to 2.5 Creeds.

Can the Creed be orally transmitted correctly through some intermediates who have never seen it in writing?

I think it can, except perhaps for minor errors of wording.

It was years since I read:

Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.

I misquoted it on only one word to a "Jesuit" deploring the literalism of St Robert Bellarmine (by the way, what St Robert is your patron saint?) and that was "facias" instead of "agas".

I discovered it myself and made a little defense speech in advance if Paul Gabor were to challenge me. He hasn't.

But thing is, the error was bad enough for either hexameter or correct pronunciation of Latin, but totally beside the point for content. I had not meant "facere" as productive activity in the strict sense, but as activity.

So, we who live 70 years or 80 can make use of mnemotechnics, but the earliest fathers knew nothing of them (they come from Barcelona)?

Yes, I but the comment of Father George Leo Haydock that the transmission of factual history was correct from Adam to Abram, and from Abraham to Moses, even though my "minimal intermediates" are a bit more than his list, as I use LXX chronology:

Creation vs. Evolution : Longevity Charts as per LXX
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2015/11/longevity-charts-as-per-lxx.html

Therefore, Moses had access to reliable history. And that is what he wrote Genesis as (if we gloss over transition from "narratives" to "single narrative" which is less essential for question of facthood).

V

8:40 it suffices to assemble all slavery relative verses. Including whole letter to Philemon, including [relevant verses of] Ephesians.

And we can see:

• slave hunt except when extremely provoked by grave offenses, like those of Canaaneans, is a grave offense (Genesis character of Nimrod, the Pauline distinction between "dominus" - who can conditionally get saved - and "plagiarius", slave hunter or slave merchant, manstealer, who, unless repenting, will not see God's Kingdom);
• slavery is licit if slave is: grave offender, born to slavery, selling himself to slavery; * selling oneself to slavery is clearly discouraged (nolite fieri servi hominum) and can certainly be banned in a Christian state, like one can ban vendettas, even though on some conditions per se licit;
• slave owning is not per se an offense, but is a highly delicate position, which can lead to slavation either by very good tact or by freeing slaves. The latter course can be rendered obligatory, just as Ireland can render divorce illegal even for non-baptised;
• slavery and hired labour are in certain ways parallel. A hired labourer is also obliged to respect his paymasters, (etiam dyscolis) and his paymaster has so much of obligations to him that Ephesians clearly applies to him as well. Dito for serfs and landlords, dito for leaseowners and landlords.

This last point, plus the points "can certainly be banned in a Christian state, like one can ban vendettas, even though on some conditions per se licit;" and "The latter course can be rendered obligatory, just as Ireland can render divorce illegal even for non-baptised;" are the only ones not immediately found in Holy Writte, but are certainly contradicting no verse.

8:57 Actually, Wilberforce - a man much more measured and correct than John Brown or Beecher Stowe, I think - was also a man attentive to inerrancy of each and every verse in the Bible.

His one son became a Catholic convert, there is a Father Wilberforce descending from him, and his other son became the Anglican "bishop" Sam Wilberforce who took exactly the same position on Genesis as Father George Leo Haydock did (whose comment on Genesis 3 I just paraphrased).

VI

9:21 If I had to debate Bill Maher on this one, I would ask him if he considers it a correct slave hunt to try to put an assassin in gaol.

I would furthermore ask if he distanced him from such illicit versions of slave hunt as modern psychiatry has been since at least Nikita Khrushchev and Brock Chisholm and as Norwegian (like Danish and Swedish) child pretective services have been shown to be in the Bodnariu case.

I would also ask if he doesn't feel any inconsistency in the slave hunt of school compulsion (9 years or in some jurisdictions 12 years are more than the seven years in case of a Hebrew selling himself to slavery). I mean, Bill Maher is not world famous for opposing that legal atrocity.

OK, home schooling is technically legal in US, but for many poor and "less qualified" school compulsion is still the reality. Sweden has even homeschooling illegal, like Germany has since 1938 (since Hitler and Bohrmann decided).

VII

9:28 Sophisticated be blown!

Your version of sophisticated is giving an impression of being over the head of such ordinary folk who do not simply see through it as baloney.