Sunday, May 22, 2011

BOOK REVIEW OF RAYMOND BROWN, The Birth of Messiah, by Bartholomew YOMI

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I.    Introduction

Can one agree with the rationalists that the events which surround the infancy narratives, namely, the frequent angelic appearances, the virginal conception, a marvelous star guiding the Magi from the East, make them fiction stories and package of legendary themes? If not, while combining the problem of corroborating witnesses and the crucial problem of conflicting details linked with the infancy narratives, can one then prove objectively and convincingly the factual historicity of the infancy narratives? In other words, to which extent did the use of Midrash (which is used purposefully to make the OT account intelligible) and the data collected from the Anawin (Jews Christians who totally dependent on God) have influenced the evangelists Matthew and Luke in their writings? Raymond Brown in his book The Birth of the Messiah, made an attempt to solve these issues. For him, there is a crucial obligation for exegesis to give meaning to the existing texts regardless of their historical fact. In the case of the infancy narratives, Brown discarded the thesis of inspiration as a tool for it cannot ensure and guarantee their historicity. Then, Brown’s aim is to show that history does not merely deal with “what takes place”, rather it also deals with “what goes on in what takes place”, for history has to do with the lived-experience of people with all their subjectivities fully activated. In this sense, the infancy narratives are written by believers, for believers, from faith and for faith so as to enkindle commitment in the minds and hearts of the readers.  This write-up therefore aims at reviewing the book at hand, that is, The Birth of the Messiah. The book itself is divided into two parts. The first part which deals with the Matthean narrative is divided into six chapters while the second part which presents us the Lucan narrative is divided into eight chapters.

II.     The Author

According to the Catholic Website, Raymond Edward Brown (May 22, 1928- August 8, 1998) was an American Catholic priest and biblical scholar. He was professor emeritus at the Protestant Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is acknowledged to be the first Roman Catholic scholar to have applied the historical critical method in the Bible. The papal encyclical Divino- Afflante Spiritus in 1943 expressed the approval of the use the historical method in the biblical research. Brown saw it as the “Magna Carta for biblical progress”. In the same vein, Vatican II in his document Dei Verbum went a step further by encouraging the use of the historical method. However, Brown remained controversial among traditionalist Catholics for they claimed that he denied the inerrancy of the Bible. Similarly, his centrist view angered Roman Catholic conservatives when he questioned whether the virginal conception of Jesus could be proved historically. Nevertheless, he is the author of many books: The Birth of the Messiah, the Death of the Messiah, The Churches the Apostles left behind, An Introduction to the New Testament. Besides, Brown is for African biblical scholars, the most powerful biblical scholar of both Catholics and non Catholics of the twentieth century. Before his death, he was twice appointed member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission by Pope Paul VI in 1972 and Pope John Paul II in 1996.

III. The Problematic

Through the inerrancy of the Bible, the Church stipulates and maintains that the Holy Bible is free from any errors. The Church’s articulation implies that whatever story found in the Bible conveys the truth. According to Brown, such an indication in its fullness seems to be questionable while reflecting in the case of the infancy narratives. In fact, based on the ground that various dissimilarities exist within the two texts, Brown observed that the two narratives of both Matthew and Luke are not just merely different, but they are contrary to each other. For instance, Matthew in his genealogy says that Jesus’ grandfather is Jacob while Luke maintains that Jesus’ grandfather is Eli. While Matthew mentions the Magi coming from the East, Luke remains silent on this issue and talks about the shepherds who came to worship the child. Then, how can one understand all the disparities that appeared in the two texts while describing and narrating one event, that is, the birth of the Messiah? In other words, considering the obviousness of dissimilarities occurred in the evangelists’ attempts, can one therefore prove the historicity of the infancy narratives? How does Brown intend to solve this dilemma without compromising the Bible’s inerrancy? Does history remain the only criterion that validates the meaningfulness of a biblical story?

IV.   The Author’s Thesis

Considering the fact that the path to prove the historicity of the infancy narratives are obstructed and jeopardized by factual evidences that contradict them, and based on the ground that the leitmotif of exegesis is to give meaning to the existing texts, Brown shifted the focus of the problematic. He is no longer dealing with history as “what takes place”, rather he deals with history as “what goes on in what takes place”. On this note, he maintains that: “whether or not the infancy narratives were historical, whether or not they were based on eyewitness, whether or not they had a pre-Gospel existence, Matthew and Luke thought they were appropriate introduction to the career and significance of Jesus. To give them less value than the other parts of the Gospels is to misread the mind of the evangelists for whom the infancy narratives were fitting vehicles of a message they wanted to convey” (p.38).

V. The Author’s Argumentation

To articulate his thesis, Brown followed a twofold pattern which constitutes also the framework of his book. The first part deals with the Matthean account while the second deals with the Lucan account.

In the first part, Brown scrutinized all the details of the Matthean narrative. On this matter, it is noteworthy to mention that Matthew’s attempt aims at demonstrating that Jesus fulfills what was foretold by the prophets (2Sam7:12-16). That is why he is termed son of Abraham and son of David. Matthew for Brown did not consider the relevance of history while collecting materials to achieve his goal. On this note, Matthew, remarked Brown, has made use of the Midrash, and has purposefully constructed the genealogy of Jesus to show that Jesus is son of Abraham and son of David. About the use of the Midrash, Brown demonstrated for instance that Matthew through the influence of his community talked about the slaughtering by Herod of the innocent infants in aiming to kill the child Jesus. By applying the historical critical method, Brown found out that such a story is neither recorded in the Roman documents nor mentioned by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. For Brown then, Matthew linked the story with the events that surrounded Moses’ birth where pharaoh decided to slaughter the infants aiming also to kill Moses. Similarly, Matthew talks about the coming of the magi from the East to Bethlehem. Brown demonstrated that Bethlehem was a small town to attract such great peoples and that the supernatural character of the star guiding Magi from the East to Bethlehem could have been recorded in the historical documents of the Jews. But it was not the case. Brown on this note has shown that Matthew used the story of the magus Balaam who received the revelation from the East that he would frustrate the king (Num24:15-16) and linked it with the infancy narratives (p.194). Moreover, while applying the historical critical method on the genealogy built by Matthew, Brown discovered that Matthew’s intention was not to provide a record of man’s productivity but to demonstrate God’s providence. For instance, by naming Jacob the father of Joseph who is Jesus’ father, Brown demonstrated that Matthew did it purposefully first of all, to show the Davidic lineage of Jesus. Secondly, he did it to put a link between the Patriarch Joseph of the OT and Joseph of the NT. In fact, the former Joseph’s father is named Jacob as well, and both of them are specialists in dream’s records. This has been done to preserve the Davidic lineage of Jesus’ sonship. Due to these realities, Brown stated that Matthean genealogy is more logical than chronological. In addition, in the issue of the virginal conception, Brown showed that Matthew used Isa7:14 to maintain that the Davidic line continues as God’s plan revealed through the prophets (p.118). Following all these details, Brown arrived at the conclusion that Matthew made the narratives not for a historical purpose but fit for his theological purpose which is to show the theological significance of Jesus. (p.155).           

The second part of the book is consecrated to the Lucan narrative in which Brown assesses all the raw materials used by Luke. Inasmuch as the infancy narratives are logical than chronological, Brown stresses the fact that Luke interprets the conception of Jesus in the light of post-resurrectional Christology of the Church, particularly of the Jewish Christian Anawin of Jerusalem (p.363). Luke’s account for Brown can be divided into a twofold pattern. The first established a parallelism between John Baptist and Jesus while the second showed how Luke used the confession of faith of the Christian Anawin. By so doing, Luke aimed to establish that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah foretold beforehand by the prophets (p.310). To achieve this purpose, Luke used the Midrash. For instance, Brown demonstrates that Luke used the scene of the annunciation to Gideon in Judge6:12 to express the annunciation to Mary by the angel. Similarly, Brown observed that Luke constructed the characters of John the Baptist’s parents on the pattern of Abraham and Sarah. Still, using the critical method, Brown observed that the contents of the Lucan canticles do not fit with their various circumstances. For instance, the Magnificat makes more reference to Israel than to Mary; Brown as regards to all these phenomena, concluded that the Lucan canticles, namely, the Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis, and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo  were composed by the Jewish Christians Anawin and not by their main authors. For Brown, it was part of Luke plan to make the infancy narratives a bridge between Israel and Jesus (p.247).

VI.   Critical Evaluation and Conclusion

With regard to our presentation, it is worthwhile to mention that Brown has the merit for being the first biblical scholar to apply the historical-critical method in the study of the Bible. By so doing, he has contributed to the biblical progress. In our case, Brown has pointed out that the validity and the veracity of the infancy narratives are not anchored on their historicity, but on the message the evangelists wanted to convey to the Church. Similarly, Brown has the merit for having proved that the subjective dimension of history, that is, the author’s purpose to consider the lived-experience of people matters as criterion of validating objectively and convincingly a biblical story.

However, it is important to notice that Brown in his attempt relied much on hypothesis than factual evidences. In fact, hypothesis cannot stand as conclusion. By using the conditional tense in some cases, Brown seems having substituted hypothesis to conclusion. Also, there is no difference between the razor of Ockham and the historical cr


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