Franciscan Casey is Half-Right and Half-Wrong in Explaining the Bible

Franciscan Casey is Half-Right and Half-Wrong in Explaining the Bible · Debating the Take of Casey Cole

The Two Ways to Read the Bible
Breaking In The Habit, 22 Febr. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm9ugJjpbnY

1:20 "the fallible human author" / "the infallible divine author"

When I explain to Protestants how Papal infallibility works, I tell them "as we agree, Luke and Mark and the other guys" (all the way from Moses to John) "were habitually fallible, could be in error, as humans, and even so God preserved them from error when writing those books - so, why not the Pope in interpreting them?"

It seems, to you I have to turn this around.

As we agree, Peter, Linus, Cletus, Clement up to Pius XI and probably Pius XII, and again (on my part) possibly in a secret Siri papacy and then the late Pope Michael, or (on your part) "John XXIII through Francis" are personally fallible men. Nevertheless, God grants them identifiable infallibility, for instance in signing Nicaea I or II or in partly confirming Constantinople II about Honorius or in writing and signing Ineffabilis Deus, so - why not grant the Biblical authors even more, also on limited occasions, namely inerrancy as to every fact in the original manuscript.

Speaking of inerrancy and infallibility, Ineffabilis Deus seems to have as infallible, quite a lot with Genesis 3 as inerrant. The most basic definition of Mary's complete sinlessness is Genesis 3:15 along with Luke 1:28 and 1:42. Given, obviously, that the Blessed Virgin is the third person called in some form "blessed among women" (though the two former with some restriction as to locality), and the two previous ones had killed, that is utterly destroyed and "crushed" the heads of Sisera and Holophernes. Credits to Patrick Madrid for pointing out this Jael / Judith connexion, I have used it more than once.

1:38 "at face value without the use of reason"

I'm sorry, but Ken Ham was not on the index librorum prohibitorum, and his view of Genesis most certainly was not condemned in Trent Session IV.

Besides, "without the use of reason" is not a good paraphrase of "at face value" ... it is even reminiscent of a straw man.

It could also be seen as an expression of detecting a certain naiveté.

But taking things you otherwise trust at face value (Bible, senses, traditions about authorships, original genres or other events) is the default. Not doing so is the exception which needs a motivation.

2:56 What you have outlined is properly speaking called the "philological" method. The "historical critical" is later. It involves idiotic statements like "the pentateuch had several different authors" (apart from last chapter~s of Deuteronomy being written by Joshua and apart from Genesis being based on earlier accounts to which Moses had access, apart from the six day account which was granted himself on Mt Sinai).

3:10 Yes, Antipope Ratzinger when speaking of "historical critical" is indeed speaking of "such reconstructions" - i e like Jahwist and Elohist and Priestly Codex and like Isaiah with Deutero-Isaiah - and it is bad of him to ascribe to them even "relative certainty" - they more properly have no certainty at all, or even they do have a certainty of being wrong when conflicting with tradition.

From your part, it is very unwary to conflate this with taking figures of speech like figures of speech. Or things of that nature.

6:22 For the three spiritual senses, you were basically right.

I don't agree with changing the literal for the anagogic sense in Joshua's conquest, just because the modern reader can feel uneasy. And the twist you put on it, some cynics (I have a particular one in mind) might feel "great, instead of a past genocide, we get the promise of a future one - hooray!"

But, you now say the human author cannot have comprehended everything that's in the text at the time.

The Bible is great, but to my knowledge not infinite.

Finite number of passages, each has a finite number of senses, and each author is responsible for only a finite number of the texts - a Protestant who believes in 66 books would claim 40 authors, and we claim that's 7 books short of the Bible, so, perhaps 47?

Hence, any particular passage can have been fully understood, both literal and all three spiritual senses when the human author was writing. St. Thomas says they were given the gift of prophecy - so, Moses, and before him even Abraham and Isaac, would have known the Via Dolorosa was implied in Isaac carrying the firewood for the holocaust.

Also, that another parent would consent to the sacrifice in which a Son died. The Mater Dolorosa is part of what Abraham signifies typologically.

The serpent's head was crushed by both the woman and her seed.

7:05 Why would St. Luke not have understood what St. Augustine did?