Close Encounters of the Catholic Kind  ## Metadata - Author: [[YouTube]] - Full Title: Close Encounters of the Catholic Kind - Category: #articles - Document Tags: [[video-notes]] [[youtube]] - Summary: Close Encounters of the Catholic Kind - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2pVUWUFUts For those of us who don't know, talk a bit about what that means. >> Oh, yeah, sure. >> Explain yourself. >> You have a you have a very educated audience. I can't just say quasi Marcianite and walk away from it. Hey everybody, I'm Dan Mlelen. >> And I'm Dan Beecher. >> And you're listening to the Data Overdogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan? >> It's a good day. It's a good day because we're uh we get to interview somebody and that's always fun having a different voice on the show. It's always a nice time. So uh why don't you introduce our lovely guest? >> Happy to. Today we have the pleasure and the privilege of talking with Dr. Michael Peppard who is professor of theology at Forom University as well as associate director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Michael, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. >> Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to uh to talk about some data and actually a little bit of dogma maybe too. >> A little bit of dogma. >> We'll get all of it. We we'll just squeeze it all in. We'll figure out how. >> And uh and there are actually two books that I hope we get to talk about uh a bit during the show today. I'm holding one up that doesn't have the dust cover because I am I am not pro dust cover. Uh but this one is called The Son of God in the Roman World, which is what 14 years old, something like that by now. Uh yeah, that's right. That's right. 14. >> Yeah. Uh wonderful discussion of Christologology in Mark, which I think does a wonderful job on on some stuff we'll get to later. Uh but much more recently and much more topically and relevant to today's show, how Catholics Encounter the Bible. Both of these are with Oxford, aren't they? Yes, they're both >> those are with Oxford. And then the middle, the the world's oldest church about Duropos was with Yale in in between those. Oh, was it the uh the library that that was >> No, no, it just would made sense considering the their role in the excavation there for book number two. Yeah. >> Oh, I I I have missed that one somehow. But Dura Europus is such a cool uh such a cool place. I'm going to have to uh circle back around for that one. But um I think I think what we're most interested in tonight is is how precisely Catholics encounter the Bible, which is not how Catholics read the Bible. uh which is something that uh you actually made a point of explaining uh why that was the title that you chose in the book. Could you explain for for those who are wondering why would you write the title that way? Uh Michael, what was the logic here? >> Sure, happy to. Uh the the way this book came together was uh I mean it in part goes all the way back to my childhood which I also talk about with some trepidation on page one basically. But um the more approximate cause was uh an email from from OUP from Oxford University Press from Steve Wiggins, the editor for Bibles and Biblical Traditions. >> And he, you know, he he kind of said, "We we don't have a book about Catholics on the Bible, about Catholic biblical interpretation, and you know, that seems like we should. And we uh we've heard that maybe you'd be a person who might write one like that." There aren't actually that many uh practicing Catholic biblical scholars, even though there's a lot more than there were 100 years ago. There's still a relatively smaller number than um than some other faith traditions or those of no trai faith tradition. Um so they got my name and they said they wanted it to be called How Catholics Read the Bible. And I just kept pushing back and saying I'm not going to write a book called that. And I might write a book about Catholics and the Bible, but but they don't read it. And Steve laughed and he laughed and he said,"I don't that can't be true." And I said, "Well, it's kind of true, Steve. I've been out there in the field." And um I I I said I'm willing to grant that 5% of Catholics globally do something like pick up a copy of the Bible, open it, and read it as an individual act. But I'm not I'm not willing to go more than 5%. And so if you want a realistic book about Catholics in the Bible, reading will be there, but it's going to be sub, you know, kind of subordinated to a lot of other modes of of engagement with the text. And we settled on the word encounter because I thought it was capacious enough to, you know, to bring in lots of different modes of modes of engagement and different types of hermeneutics. Um, and I also thought Pope Francis uses the word encounter a lot and that's kind of apppropo of mo of the Catholic moment. So, so that that's kind of how it got in there. I love that. you know, you open the book uh by sort of setting a scene uh an average traditional Catholic church and and you you sort of you you have us, you know, imagine this church as as as you know, we sit in a pew and and sort of the the the service is about to start and you look around and ain't no Bible there and and then even when the service starts, a big book is trucked about >> still not a Bible. >> Yeah. >> What's going on with that? Talk a bit about that and about and sort of set that scene for us and talk about why that's not a Bible. Like what are we looking at? What's happening? >> Well, uh what are we looking at? So, there's there's the kind of phenomenological answer to your question of what's happening in the room and then there's the historical answer to your question of, you know, how did it come to be this way? Um I mean the phenomenological answer kind of the religious religious experience answer to that question is that most of the world's Catholics don't have any texts at all in the room. If you think about like when I go to when I'm when I'm visiting in Latin America or visiting um a church a Catholic church that doesn't have a a significant budget there's frequently nothing printed at all. There's no pretty materials anywhere. When you walk, when you are there to pray, you listen and you look and you kneel and you smell and you taste and you're you're having a multi-ensory experience, um, but you're hardly ever reading anything. So the even the idea that there would be a pew Bible so-called or the idea that someone might carry their personal Bible with them is very much a a Protestant framing of what happens when one worships um a traditionally Protestant framing. I also need to add for your listeners right away because they haven't read the book yet that when I talk about Protestant framing and make this a book that does kind of draw into contrast Catholic encounters with the Bible and Protestant encounters with the Bible, I do so out of a position of love and a somewhat divided identity having a very devout Protestant evangelical side of my family and a very devout Roman Catholic side of my family. So I I do have significant religious experience of both of both traditions that I can draw from and also a lot of participant observation in all kinds of different Christian denominations over the years. Um the historical answer I go into much more in the book but in short three4s of Christian history has not had a printing press. And so if you're going to say that you need a printed Bible to be Christian in worship then you're saying three4s of Christian history didn't have it didn't have it. and and many of many of the worship experiences today. So um so yeah so kind of the combin as you both well know the combination of the the printing press and the reformation they are they go hand in hand um there in in the 1500s it does make sense right that the uh the sort of the whole the impetus for the Protestant Reformation you know Martin Luther takes the Bible and starts to say hey we need to center onto this and so yeah they like Protestantism is basically suddenly a laser focus on the Bible itself where traditionally I you know for centuries before that the church the sort of Catholic unified church uh had been something less focused on the Bible itself and more more sort of the Bible is something that uh that props up the church or that is that informs the church, but the church is is the thing. >> Well, >> would you say that that's correct? >> Um that that is part that is part of the truth for sure that that the church is the thing and that you know ecclesial structures and ecclesial structures of authority have interpretive magisterium. We would say in the in the Latin West have magisterium. Um but or and in addition to that I would say that Catholics have always been a people of the word and they've always been a people of the story and they and the word and the story are are a mode of encountering having an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. So the Bible is a is a means of doing that but the Catholic tradition has not been solos scriptor right so there are other means of doing that um it's the that person of Jesus is encountered in the Eucharist the body blood of Christ Lord supper that person can be encountered in mystical prayer that person can be encountered through the visual arts that person can be encountered uh in pilgrimage that person can be encountered in all sorts of other ways um besides the printed page. So, so yeah. So, that's kind of where I would go with it. Um I'm not telling Catholics not to read the Bible. I mean, I I still am a biblical scholar in the Catholic tradition at a Jesuit university who tries to get my undergraduates to read more of the Bible. It's it's not that I'm, >> you know, pushing them away from that. Um, >> yeah, >> but I uh am I I try to be honest in a in a kind of lived religion approach about what actually happens in the Catholic tradition. >> Well, and and like you said, threearters of of Christian history has not had a printed Bible. The lived experience of Christianity is a rich tapestry that I I think a lot of people do a disservice to, particularly on Twitter when they reduce it to just get a Bible, read the Bible, that's all that matters when that's and which is a misrepresentation of their own lived experiences and and the way the Bible they're engaging the Bible themselves. But um you you use a you kind of take uh a metaphor that John Dominick Crossson came up with uh in the book. Can you talk a little bit about the altar, the sides of the altar, and how this informs your discussion of of the different ways that one can engage the Bible in the Catholic experience? >> I would love to. I think John John Dominic Crossen doesn't get enough credit. Honestly, I think he's so brilliant and he's so he's so clever and his turns of phrase are just just amazing. So when when he wrote a memoir um called A Long Way from Tipperary um I you know I went out and got myself a copy and I wanted to see what this uh this man's life was like. How does a how does an Irish monk end up at Depal University in Chicago and um writing writing seemingly a book a year for for many many years filled filled with uh great insights. Um, so in his, so I said the origin story was kind of my parents and also you know up asking for this book, but I mean honestly this one line in Dom Crossen's memoir is also another part of the origin story when he's talking about his experience of growing up Catholic in mid 20th century Ireland um prevatican 2 which is in the 1960s and did a lot of church reform lurggical reform for the Catholic Church. So growing up prevatican 2, he says, "When I first heard the words epistle and gospel, they were not parts of a book but sides of an altar." And he becomes a New Testament scholar. He's known like when I picked the book up, I knew of him as a New Testament scholar. Yeah. >> So, the fact that he then goes on to say he didn't even know epistle and gospel as in book form until he went to seminary, >> right? He didn't he didn't think of it that way. And so, another thing I do in the book is that my um well, during right before the writing of it, my my father on the Catholic side passed away in in 2019. and he uh you know so I I I was going through all of his stuff and deciding what I might bring to my house and one thing I grabbed is this little book called Concise Catholic Dictionary and it was clearly from his childhood and I thought I'll just grab that and and didn't you know put it put on the shelf for later with some other of those kind of items rosaries and whatnot. Um, and then when I was writing the book manuscript, I'm like, I wonder what it says in this dictionary under the word epistle. And sure enough, you go there and you look up what it says for epistle and it does not refer you to, you know, one of the 13 letters of Paul or anything like that. It refers you it refers you to the liturgy. It refers you to the the reading like when the reading happens during the mass. >> Oh, interesting. talk a little bit about about that because you did you in the book you talk about um when when you're talking about that sort of um epistle and gospel being sides of an altar you go through what what >> the Catholic uh mass kind of looks like in terms of the readings of the Catholic mass. So just give us a sense of that because this is kind of the first way in which a Catholic does and maybe the primary way in which a Catholic does encounter the Bible >> for absolutely absolutely right. Um, so you're right. I should should have said more about to to close the loop on that epistle and gospel point because in a um traditional now you need an asterisk here because there's a lot of Catholic church architecture that is is not this way. But if you take a kind of traditional Catholic church with, you know, a linear nave and a central altar, um there were two different pulpits, right? Two different places from which one could read and speak. And one was for like announcements and the psalm and the and the if there is a first reading from the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, it would be there. If there's an epistle reading, it would be there. Um, and then the other side of the altar has a more ornate, usually taller, usually grander pulpit from which the gospel is proclaimed, meaning a reading from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. And then that's where the homaly or sermon is delivered about usually about the gospel reading. So, prior to Vatican 2, there's only there's hardly any Old Testament readings at all uh in the mass. Hardly any. A few a year. It's really really limited. So, so there really is a big change after the after the Vatican 2 about that, but that's why the readings were called the size of the altar, gospel, and epistle because those are the two main readings. So, there's the ghost of Marcian is always always with us and there's a there was a bit of a Marcianite um lurggical expression of what of what was in uh what was in the word. >> So, for those of us who don't know, talk a bit about what that means. What? What? Explain yourself. >> You have a You have a very educated audience. I can't just say quasi Marcianite and walk away. >> They are. But you have to at least bring me back into the into the into the conversation cuz I'm easily lost. >> No, I mean to put to put it simply, Marcian is is known for for two main things. a second century uh ends up being kind like an arch heretic but he's a very popular at the time has a lot of followers and is very seems to be a very innovative and intelligent early Christian who um thought that the the revelation of God in the old what was called the old testament in Hebrew scriptures the revelation of God that came there was revealing a different god than it was revealed by Jesus in his person and so Marcian create was the first real canon cannon maker and created an early Christian cannon by eliminating what we think of as the Old Testament. So that's what I meant by um >> so talk about how that comes into play uh during a cath in in in the sort of the Catholic >> you you know you go you go to church yeah >> and you you hear uh a couple readings and somehow >> this this Marcianite idea comes out. So how does that play out? >> Sure. So, so I should divide kind of prevatican 2 and post Vatican 2 because they're quite different. So, before Vatican 2, I would say the liturggical expression was I don't know was Marcite. I mean, it it really had subordinated the Old Testament so much that that hardly any practicing Catholics knew the stories or or or knew these knew these prophetic teachings. Um so part of the Vatican 2 liturgical reform was to um provide as they say like a more rich a more rich treasury of the word of God and they say that they want all the principal pages of the old testament to be um to get their moment you know during the mass. So post post Vatican 2 there are there are three main readings and a psalm. So if you count the psalm as a reading then you have four main readings at every Sunday Sunday mass. Uh week day weekdays is less but you have a an old testament reading a psalm an epistle and the gospel. Um so on the face of it then you'd be like this is great. And in fact um when protestants come to Catholic mass with me one of the things they often say is like oh actually there was quite a bit of scripture read. That was more than I thought there would be. And actually a lot of time at Pro like at an evangelical church, you just have one reading. And so actually you're you're getting four readings. That's pretty that's pretty good. And I said true. But they almost never preach on the non-gosspel readings still. >> Every once in a while you'll get a Catholic homalist who will a priest who will who will preach about one of the other readings. But the whole thing liturggically is designed to to culminate in the proclamation of a story from the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. So that absolutely is the framing. So in chapters one and two just to bring it back to how I structure the book. I decided to struct structure the book um in terms of descending frequency of the modes of encounter. Meaning chapter one is how does a Catholic encounter the Bible at a Sunday mass? And that's the one thing that you can pretty much guarantee if a Catholic is practicing Catholic they're doing that. And you can't guarantee much about anything else in the book, right, that they're doing. So, so it's structured that chapter one is about um how how is what's called the lectionary structured, which is a a cycle of readings. How is a lectionary organized and how do people then experience it? And then chapter 2 is called the Old Testament and the Gospel. And it's about this um foundational juosition of of pairing text pairings, right? So a gospel text is is is chosen for the lectionary and then a text from uh from the Old Testament from the law or the prophets or the writings is chosen to thematically correspond in some way. >> And are these did I understand it correctly that these are actually chosen not by the the the priest at that parish but but by a larger organization uh within the church. >> Yeah. Well, yeah. And then they they were chosen at the end of Vatican 2 and haven't changed really too much since. So they were chosen by a group called study group 11 which was study group 11 of the second Vatican council and when I was researching the book I I went to a Vatican 2 archive at Notre Dame and photocopied they have the all the notes all the meeting minutes from study group 11. um we didn't have them here in New York. So I went there and it's all in neolatin and the the version they had actually have a lot of marginelia too of note not notes in French and German and various people who are part of the meetings uh on the on these meeting minutes. So they I I came away quite impressed actually with the scholarship. they really were studying what scholars were saying uh about the Bible and were were trying to incorporate it into the structure of the lectionary. So in fact the very idea of synoptic gospels and John meaning synoptics being one unit and John being another unit that finding from the world of scholarship um is reflected in the Sunday lectionary of the Catholic Church in the sense that there's a three-year cycle of readings with Matthew in year A and Mark in year B and Luke in year C and then John is like like John is like a free floating spiritual pastor who just like gets plugged in, you know, the bread of life discourse gets plugged in in Yeah. >> in part of Mark and the, you know, Samaritan woman at the well and man born blind and Lazarus get plugged in during Lent during the seasons of special kind of heightened attention. Um, and so so they really did um, you know, draw a lot from scholarship in the construction of the lectionary. Um, sorry I could really go down a lot of rabbit holes here. So, do you want to bring bring me back to your uh your question? >> Well, you you did I I just wanted to briefly because I've got it pulled up here in the book. I wanted you you did talk about how where what Old Testament books they drew from for their Old Testament readings. And uh and and it's like it's all Isaiah like there's so much Isaiah and then a >> dut Isaiah even dut. That's right. It's dudero Isaiah and then a little Genesis, a little Exodus and then the rest is like >> uh Yeah, it's it's some poulry things here and there uh from from and some from some books that I didn't grow up with because I didn't >> I it was very late in my life when I learned that Catholics had a different Bible than I had. That was uh that that was surprisingly late in my life. But yeah, that's interesting. One one gets the impression from this. You you you talk with with um respect if not reverence for this process, but at the same time are kind of uh to some degree critical of the way this is a very carefully curated experience through carefully curated lenses designed to present the biblical texts in a in a rather limited um and narrow way. And do you do you find this as a um obviously if cath only 5% of Catholics are are regularly reading the Bible uh their biblical engagement is is already uh could be called a bit of a a liability. But but do you think that this in some way kind of is a bit of a hermeneutical straight jacket when it comes to the way Catholics if they do get into the Bible are going to where they're going to go, what they're going to read, how they're going to interpret it. Does this um does this kind of pigeon hole the the Bible for for Catholics? >> It's a good question. Uh yes. So I I I'm going to answer in a few different ways. Um well the first is to say that Catholic knowledge of the gospels is pretty solid for if you're looking at practicing Catholics because of how the liturgy is structured and and how the year is structured and how Holy Week is structured. And when I one thing I say about talking about my dad in the book is and when I when I'm kind of comparing him to his wife who reads the Bible every day and my dad never did and I say you know as a teenager like well how do you know what's in it dad if you don't ever read it? And his answer is I know the stories. >> And he he didn't he was tell he thought he was telling the truth. He's like I know these stories. I went to Catholic school his whole life. He went to Catholic mass every week. He's like I know the stories. I don't need to read it. And I think about the gospels he was telling the truth. >> Yeah. >> But if you ask my dad to tell say tell me the story of Esther he literally would be like what? >> Well that is one of the blind spots. >> He literally would not know what you're talking about. >> You you point out that one of the big blind spots is that uh women are not centered uh in in this. So I I I tried um I tried to choose my spots very carefully as we as we do when we are um being critical scholars about a living tradition and a tradition that I have I don't have an interest in it being less alive. I don't have an interest in it being I don't have an interest in it in it in it being harmed. I really don't. I have I have I have an interest. There's like it's like patriotism like you want your country to be better and call it back to its ideals. You know, you want your church to be better and call it back to its ideals. And so, so I try to choose my spots very carefully. And what I chose was in one chap in one of the le re lectionary chapters I choose its presentation of Jews and Judaism and the way in which the presentation of Jews and Judaism falls short even of falls short of the ideals of Catholic theology >> as articulated by official Vatican documents. So I I'm not even calling for some radical revolution in the Catholic theology of Judaism or the Catholic theology of of the Old Testament. I was calling for just to line up the rectionary with what you're already saying in your theological documents. >> Um so I believe that I mean I I believe that that section of criticism is is uh it's unimpeachable because it's really intraatholic. It's about getting Catholic theology and Catholic hermeneutics and Catholic liturgy to talk to each other and be coherent. Um the second spot I chose um not everyone in the Catholic church will like which is the treatment of women in the in the lectionary. So if the lectionary well I argue that the lectionary is functionally the Bible for Catholics. So if it's functionally the Bible for Catholics, then we have to be much much more careful about representation and uh of stories. So I I go through in in some detail. It's not like I'm the first to do this. I mean I I standing on shoulders of of giants here. Um but uh but I I kind of go through and say like here here are the patterns of omission of women in the Sunday readings. Um and often even in the weekday readings and and you look it's just very hard not to see it as it's hard not to see it as intentional Dan's. It's very hard. I mean, I' I I would love to believe some of it's subconscious, but some of it just feels very very intentional. >> The exclusion of Phoebe from the whole lectionary just feels like too close for comfort. We don't want it in there. We don't want >> Never mind Junior. >> Ne never mind Junior, right? >> Yeah. But um but uh yeah, but just because of the the living office of deacon and the and the questions about ordination of women to the diacinet. Um that one is really hard not to see as an intentional omission. But there's also I end that chapter with is something I didn't even notice till I wrote till I wrote this book. Um and I was teaching Proverbs 31. Is it the about about about the >> Yes, exactly. So when I was teaching that text, it was a similar time to when that text appeared in the lectionary. And I actually had the experience just as a churchgoer where I was like, wait, what did they leave out of they left out some pretty interesting stuff? And so >> can you sorry, can you elucidate what the stuff sure that was left out is just so that >> I'm I know Dan would be able to figure it out. >> No, no, that's fine. So there there's this section uh in Proverbs I think in my Catholic study Bible the subtitle is the ideal wife or something like that. I mean that's the kind of heading you get. And this is a pretty amazing person as it exists in Proverbs, right? This is this is someone who um you know is is organizing organizing domestic life. This is someone who is I would say running a business. >> I think of the the cake song. She is touring the facilities and picking up slack. Um, but yeah, she's she's managing the household. She's going off. She's making business deals. She's buying property. She's doing all this kind of stuff. >> And she's doing all the works of mercy, too. And she's bringing bringing good name to her husband at the city gates. I mean, this is amazing stuff. And when you go to look at the part the excerpted in the lectionary, they she's not a global business leader. she's not buying property, you know, she's she's not an international making international land deals. She's not bringing that kind of honor. And it it it really made me mad. It made me mad because this is not necessary. This is not you don't ha you don't have to omit this to like make what it makes the reading what 20 seconds shorter. It's not it's really not a big deal. >> Um and there's nothing doctrinally challenging about these sentences. It just gives a really full picture of a biblical femininity that that in the lectionary version is is a is a shadow or a sketch of that and and it it it really it really bothers me. Um so >> is it focused primarily on domestic responsibilities? That's where the the reading >> Yeah. So it it makes it kind of makes that that figure seem like she is in the home and not fussy and doing nice things. >> Fair enough. >> And so you know I I came into it more mad about Phoebe and oh also the Hebrew midwives vanish. I mean that that one really got me mad. So when I started doing more research into like Regina Bosclair as a as a scholar who's written a lot about this and when I was doing research into her writings and kind of going through it all myself I decided all right these are my two spots where I'm going to take this on. I'm going to let I have a lot of other things I could criticize but I'm gonna you know choose these two. >> But what was you you had another question Dan or you had a different way of asking that that I've now forgotten. Oh, if you've forgotten it, trust me, we've forgotten it. I >> I need to take notes here. I I'll come back to it. >> It's It's fine. We're We're just jamming, man. It's uh we're just having a good time. >> Now, I wanted to You You talk about some um some things that that I think Dan and I both uh appreciate. Uh I I want to share the the first time I ever visited uh St. Peters in the Vatican. >> Yeah. Uh I remember I was I walked through the door after waiting in line for a very long time. Walked through the door and I was just kind of like where to go and I turned to my right and there's the pieta >> and I I was floored. I was like it's right there. It's right there. And and went over and uh the lighting was all was was very dramatic which I appreciated very much. it kind of heightened the the uh uh the experience, but um >> but Catholicism and art obviously uh this is something that a lot of uh a lot of Protestants are very unhappy about but uh not just art, statuary, reoiquary uh all this kind of stuff is is a central part of the Catholic experience as well. How is how is the Bible translated through artwork and presented to uh to a Catholic worshipper? >> Well, I start with uh I'm glad you had that experience by the way of the PA. It's it is pretty exciting. Um especially if you don't know it's going to be right there. >> I have no clue. It sneaks up on you. It's got your hat. Well, I start I start with the pieta in the book because uh I would argue it is the most viewed work of biblical art um in history. I think if you kind of run the numbers on who's seen it in person on how many visitors to the Vatican there are each year and then you kind of run the numbers on how many photos and reproductions of this there are. I think it probably, you know, apart from the cross itself, I think it it's probably the number one. Probably our lady of Guadalupe is one below that. But anyway, getting getting ahead of getting getting lost there. But so I start with the pieta because it is that and it captures the the two figures that are most emphasized in the Catholic biblical tradition of Jesus and his mother Mary. It also captures the two sides of the Catholic imagination meaning grace and suffering. And those who study the Catholic imagination in the arts, in literature, in film uh often note that that Catholics have a they kind of can't let one exist without the other. They have to have these as two sides of the same coin, two sides of the same human experience. And you're never just going to have grace. You're never just going to have suffering. And so this >> let me just jump in and just say sorry that uh the pieta for those who don't know >> yes >> is is an image of Mary >> holding Jesus after his death. >> Yes. >> Uh she he his dead body is is is laid across her lap and she's holding him. >> Thank you. And it is uh so Michelangelo >> was a 22year-old when he when he made the uh carved the the piet. So don't feel bad about yourself. Uh that's >> I'm I'm a musical person, but I'm not a visual or arts person. So I it truly boggles my mind that any human can do these things. >> Um but uh but right so this this type of image is a devotional prayer image. It has a forerunner usually called the Vesper build in German. And you can see medieval versions of the Vesper build in in medieval collections. um from the 1300s and so but Michelangelos is of course the most famous and the most beautiful. What he does is he manipulates the ages uh well he manipulates the age of of Mary by making her face very very young so that when you're looking at the it's not it's not intended to be historically representative image. It's it's an image that um invites the viewer into a prayer experience that oscillates between two periods of time where you're feeling this is a mother and child at the as a when he is a baby and this is a mother and child when he is an an adult who has just been crucified and you you kind of can't stay just in one. You're flickering back and forth. But if you ask anyone who's Catholic um who who doesn't read their Bible um they would assume this scene happens in the text. >> And so the reason I start with it is that it's the most famous example of Catholic biblical art, but it's literally not in the Bible. And so how do you how do you reckon with that? How do you reckon with with that fact that Catholics traditionally imagine things between the lines? >> And this is where I joked about the data on the dogma part of your podcast title because >> there's no textual data of Mary holding Jesus' body off the cross, right? the the the body comes off the cross and goes to Joseph of Arythea in in in the text >> and Mary is there in the gospel of of John right near the cross. >> Um but it's not narrated that that she holds him. But this imaginative filling in the gaps is is happening all throughout the history of biblical hermeneutics. And so if the mother's there, of course she would hold him. Of course you would. What what mother wouldn't? I mean that's of course it's not in the text but but yes that is part of the story and it becomes part of the story through the visual arts. So so I decided to well when I started I was going to have one chapter on the visual arts. It ended up being two chapters. They're also very long chapters. So it's about 30,000 words. It's about a third of the maybe more than 30,000 words. It's a lot of the book and a lot of image permissions. Dans, don't don't write don't write books with pictures. >> Oh, I I I was I was once in charge of getting image permissions for a an illustrated uh Bible guide, so I know how much of a headache it is. And also, I do I do that's why I do my own artwork because I don't have to go get any permission. And now I've got friends. I've done artwork for Francesca Stra Capulu. I've done art for Canada Moss. I I do artwork for lots of folks. So, yes, I know I know how much Well, I'm I'm not cheap. Um, but >> now it's all chat GPT, man. It's all it's it's all the robots that'll do the art from now, >> right? So, I >> Well, I just wanted to kind of close to wrap up that answer because you asked me why the visual arts and I and I talked about the PA talk for a long time, but >> but the So, the real answer of why the visual arts is it gets back to an earlier part of our conversation that I think it's honest. I think it's honest and authentic about how Catholics encounter the Bible and how they experience it. >> Um, and and when you um what I wanted to try to figure out was during the formative periods of Catholic biblical art, what kind of a Bible are they seeing? Like what is the biblical cannon and the kind of hermeneutic that's suggested by the visual cannon? And so I worked with Robin Jensen. I worked with Felicity Harley McGawan. I worked with uh a few other colleagues who are early Christian art nerds like me. And and I said, "This is what I'm putting together as kind of the the visual cannon of late antiquity." And they helped and said, "Oh, you take this one out, add this one." And I feel pretty confident that we're being representative of of what was there. and and so I kind of trace it up from late antiquity into uh medieval iconography and even into liturggical drama to try to get the pre-reformation sense of things. So that's why >> before it all got before it all got chucked. Uh >> well it didn't get chucked. It's still there but it's >> well it's still there but but there were there were an awful lot of folks who said this this isn't for us anymore. which which I think is I'm I'm fond of and I don't know if if you think this rings true. I I'm fond of saying that prior to the Reformation, >> the main focus, not the only focus, but the main focus of Christianity was how genuine is your love of God? >> And then the reformation turned the main focus into how true are your propositions. M >> uh and and the reformation I I think you lose so much of the experience of the lived experience of Christianity when you turn it into just about propositions and texts. And that's one of the things that I love so much about uh visiting places where Catholicism is uh is a dominant tradition or or some kind of orthodoxy is I I can still remember the the first time I visited Athens. I got up in the morning to go for a run and went up um Filipu, which is I think the best view in Athens. But I was running around the Acropolis and uh there was this little like half submerged in the the road church just tucked up on the side of the the northern side of the Acropolis. And I saw and there was smoke coming out of the uh the door and I heard like chanting and I just sat down and smelled the smell of this incense and listen to these people singing and it was an incredible experience and I got up and kept running like man why can't our church do this? But um I think it's it's more of an all-encompassing experience of of Christianity. It's something that touches a lot more of the senses and I think resonates with a lot more of of the human uh when when it comes to trying to make this uh you know trying to deeply entangle this within the the human psyche and the human experience. I think it's uh the Catholic and and Orthodox traditions are are way out ahead, which is I think one of the reasons they don't have to always be arguing about uh about uh you know, interpretations of of the Bible and and who's not reading the Bible enough and and all this kind of stuff. So that's it's it's a frustration of mine that that is a a source of criticism for a lot of folks when it comes to Catholicism. >> Sure. Sure. Well, I I'm I appreciate that you have that that sense of the of its of its beauty and of the of the power of ritual to to form form human lives and form human culture. Um you bring up the Eastern Orthodox. I mean this book I I you know you have to draw your boundaries somewhere. I'm already writing about how the world's largest human organization deals with the world's most famous book. So it was already a pretty a pretty daunting task. But my my eastern my Greek Orthodox colleagues >> that I work with um you know who who they've read it and and they agree like there there's many many similarities. uh you could kind of write a companion >> companion book about uh about orthodox traditions that that would be quite similar. Honestly, there's a lot of comparisons to Judaism as well. Not the visual arts piece, but um there are there's quite a few similarities in terms of the the hermeneutics of encounter that that my Jewish colleagues and I have discussed. Can I sorry I I there's a question that's been sort of needling me uh that I wanted to get to since we as we were talking about the arts and about uh you know you call you say in the book that Catholics are people of the imagination. >> Yeah. Um, and you know, the these artistic representations, you know, the pieta is is is is sort of, as you said, reading between the lines of the book and and imaginatively filling in >> uh scenes that should have been there, like why wasn't that there sort of thing. >> But I also think about ways that that could go off the rails >> because imagination is obviously uh boundless. And you know, I it I I think about there's a comfort in the in the sort of the Protestant idea of like let's nail some stuff down. Let's keep it let's keep it tight. let's keep it uh uniform and uh and there so so there's the beauty of the Catholic imagination but then what happens when my imagination clashes with your imagination or you know you look at art and this imagining is uh is is sort of one thing and then there's you know >> Heronomous Bosch just goes completely off the charts and gets and gets crazy about things. So like uh is is there is there a downside to this imaginative encountering of the Bible? >> Um sure. Uh I mean in terms of conflict you could say something like Martin Scorsesi's version of Last Temptation of Christ uh in the 1980s one of the most controversial films in the history of Hollywood. And so an imagination also that comes out of Kazanakus' novel, right? So we have a Greek and an Italian combining their in their imagination. But you know an imagination of the person of Jesus, the person of Mary Magdalene, um, Holy Week, the cross that is that is so different definitely leads to a great amount of conflict even even as there's a lot of philosophical and theological depth to that story and that film. Um but Dan, I guess you know just the the the Catholic side of me would say that there is there is way more positives than negatives uh in terms of the imaginative process. And I would also say that Protestants are also doing it. Uh they're not willing to admit it and it because then it feels like you know as Jesus or reading into the text. An example that I think I give in the book I actually can't remember but one that I one that I use a lot is about the enunciation and I think I think I do say this because I close the book with the annunciation you know and I say so enunciation is uh sorry in gospel of Luke chapter 1 when angel Gabriel announces miraculous pregnancy to uh to Mary and only narrated there it's a onewoman one minute story that is has an outsized influence uh in in global history. Um, >> okay. So, why do I bring it up here? If I take a room full of Christians of different denominations, fundamentalist, textual, Protestants included, and I say to them, um, you know, the story of the enunciation, um, imagine it in your mind like where is she? What's where's where's the story happen? And I'll tell you what, very few people will say, "I don't know." >> If they're if they're like devout Christians, they will tell you where it happens. >> The text does not tell you where it happens. >> Well, and this is an inevitability. anytime you want to try to represent it artistically uh in film and in song uh anywhere anytime you want to try to figure out motivations what's going on how how to reconcile stuff like just you know asking a Protestant to reconcile the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke you have to be very imaginative you have to you have to fill in lots of gaps and so when um you know the the chosen is a a television series that is doing an awful a lot of that. >> Yes. >> And and it seems to me that it is aimed at a primarily Protestant audience. Yes. >> And and so I I think there's it's an inevitability. You can't get around this uh and and still actually make the Bible something that's informing your life and your experience. And so I I think it's there's some picking and choosing going on here uh when it comes to when it's a problem uh and when it's not. >> I love the Prince of Egypt. I, you know, when it opens up, I'm like, well, th those buildings are on the wrong side of the Nile. Um, like, you know, I I can be critical of that, but at the same time, >> um, you know, you have to fill in the gaps. And, um, there's a there's a point at which you go from seeing a bunch of pictures to seeing live animation. And, um, you just have to get to the uh to the other side of that. And so, yeah, I think that's that's a um kind of a silly complaint or or criticism, but at the same time, I think there is value in recognizing, hey, just so you're aware, this is the product of Michelangelo's um imagination. This is not actually something narrated in the text. And and far too many people talk about, you know, the story of the Exodus and really they're just recalling the prince of Egypt and things that aren't >> and it's hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine even a Protestant whose idea of hell isn't informed by Dante. You know what I mean? Like, no. >> Like the like these imaginative uh sort of speculations or or elaborations seem to be uh just sort of a thing of humanity >> or or anybody really talking about Genesis 6 2-4 without filling in the gaps with First Enoch uh which an awful lot of them don't think is is uh is real. So um >> and and with the with the annunciation um you know you know Dan the >> so most people say at home like if they you say where is she they imagine at home and I say well you you're saying that because you've been to an art museum >> that's likely why you're saying that and you didn't realize that that's getting in your head but if you go through the history of enunciation art prior to the medieval period >> um she's at a water well for a lot of it because of the pray of James >> and she's at uh the temple or she's or she's weaving because of the protegelium of James which is a non-cononical text about the life of Mary which is extremely widely distributed in early Christianity >> and so you have water well weaving temple eventually much much later you get to her at home >> and you know so there's even a kind of visual or maybe not a competition but a kind of different traditions of he geography about Mary that are informing people's imagination even when they're looking at the text. >> Yeah. in their New Testament >> and and yeah I'm even even Protestants today will have been so influenced that when they think of Mary they think of a writing on a donkey >> right >> pro Evangelium of James um they might think of of uh you know them being in a cave pro Evangelium of James very few of them think of the midwife ah pulling back a hand that's on fire but uh but surely there are some out there that don't know that that comes from the protoangelium of of James but yeah that's that's how the the discourse about the story becomes the story. >> Yeah. >> And it can be influenced by by all kinds of of different things. The the notion that and and one of my favorites is the notion that uh Mary was uh delivered Jesus in a stable. >> Yeah. >> Which is which is based on an interpretation of uh the a word in um in Luke that probably just means guest room, but we interpret it very differently. >> Sure. And that becomes the way we we fill in the gaps in our mind. >> Um yeah, fascinating, fascinating story. I wanted to we don't have a ton of time left, but but I wanted to briefly get to the son of God in the Roman Empire just because um that was a book I uh really enjoyed as I was going through graduate school, particularly because Christologology and and the conceptualization of deity that was something so >> uh central to what I was working on. But um can do you mind just giving the 30,000 foot view of what you were doing in in that book? >> I was looking for a dissertation topic, Dan. >> New New Testament is a pretty small book, you know, >> yeah, >> per per word. It's maybe the most interpreted thing out there. No, but but uh honestly I was um the the origin story of that book was um I was I was sitting in one of my required doctoral seminars and one of my professors was forcing us to read the lives of the Caesars and you know other other aspects of Roman imperial ideology to kind of get the social setting of early Christianity. And I had not realized how many of these powerful Romans were adopted. I just I knew that Augustus was, but I didn't realize it was such a dominant part of the succession uh of of Roman emperors. And I started, you know, I started asking that same professor. I said, "Well, if that's true, and if this is one of the only other people called son of God in the world, doesn't that seem relevant?" That's how it started and and the professor said I think that is relevant and you should look into that. Uh, so I did and then I and then I the next thing I found was um an old well these are all old books now but uh Greg and Grow we called it Robert Greg and Dennis Gro wrote a book about aranism in the 1970s I think. Um and Aryanism theory of salvation I think it's called and there's a footnote Dan and there this is what you want when you're looking for a dissertation topic. They talk about the image of adoption and there's a footnote that says something like um you know it it's possible that the Roman imperial context of adoption is relevant for further study of this you know it's it's like this perfect thing you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then you have to go make sure nobody actually already stumbled across that footnote. >> Sure. Yeah. And there there were people who I mean it's you know nothing's totally new under the sun. there were people who had had kind of sketched some interest in this but uh you know I thought there was there was enough to make a booklength argument out of it. So so what I wanted to do uh then in the dissertation was was really two things. I wanted to take as seriously as possible the fact that the term son of God, whether in Greek or in Latin, um without a named God, right, not son of Hercules, not son of Apollo, but just son of God, was used for the emperor and for Jesus and for hardly anyone else. I wanted to just zoom in on that and say this has to matter. because this is the most known person in the world. And if you are walking along a Roman road, you know, in CIT or in Cyprus or in the middle of whatever, every mile you're seeing mile Roman milestones that have this on it, right, that say like the titul of the emperor, which includes Dilio, the son of God. So I'm like this just has to be part of of the visual oral um ideological landscape that everyone's encountering. So how can I understand how that matters? The second thing that I wanted to do was to um get deeper into the tension between begotten sons and adoptive sons, natural sons and adoptive sons. And then I realized that at the upper echelons of society in elite father-son relationships, not only in the imperial family, but also in other wealthy families, that this tension is very strong and often adoptive sons have higher status that they are they are often seen to right if like the problem of dynastic succession is that not everyone has a good son, right? So you you have problems, right? It doesn't always work. And so the Romans, they they know this and also there's a lot of of course mortality. Um but they they kind of can get around this problem of dynastic grammar by the by the adoptive succession model. Um so you get some some classic tensions between the two. And so I I basically said, look, if the Roman imperial divine sunship is is as well known as as I think it it is, and if the adoptive mode of sunship is the primary mode of gaining power and status in the Roman Empire, then let's read the New Testament with that in mind and see what happens. And I focus on the Gospel of Mark for one long exeetical chapter. And then I also talk about uh I talk about Paul and I talk about the kind of road to Nika um in the in the last chapter and try to try to bring it up up to that point. Love it. That sounds really interesting, Dan. Thanks for uh cluing me in that we were going to be talking about that so that I could be boned up by the time we got to it. But yeah, that's a really interesting uh topic. I'm We might have to bring you back. Yeah, it's you know >> well there's mark and christologology. Uh I argue about it a lot on social media. So >> it's it's for I mean it's like you said 14 years ago but it was you know one's dissertation and is always dear dear to the heart you know. So >> yeah. Yeah. Well if if it's not loathed uh I mean an awful lot of I know an awful lot of people who are like I never want to touch my dissertation topic ever in my in my life. But yeah, I feel I feel grateful that I that I ended up with that one. There were there were many roads not taken before that one. So grateful for it. Um >> well, if >> I'm sorry, go ahead. >> I was going to say it led to some I mean it led to some significant arguments. Uh Dan, you may or may not know about, but uh Larry Herado of Blessed Memory really hated the book. Um, and >> well, and you bring you bring Larry up a bit and you know, he he was always incredibly generous and and and nice to me, even though most of the time I was arguing with him as well. So, >> and yeah, he he he really didn't appreciate my tone. And my own adviser, who is Harold Atridge, um, Harry said when it was all said and done, he said something like, "Oh, you you might have had too much fun with that that couple pages there, you know. I >> I I think a lot of a lot of that needed to be said. I I think you the you brought up some stuff about the influence of Platonic philosophy on the conceptualization of of deity. I think you know you pointed to Clifford Ando and and the idea of more of a spectrum of humanity and and deity. That was something that was not being talked about. But I was I was working on um uh prototype theory and conceptualizations of deity in the Hebrew Bible, which is exactly how >> um you know that that relationship is is just naturally conceptualized. So that was I thought that was very >> Weren't you like a Psalm 82 guy? >> I'm a Psalm 82 guy. Yeah. Yeah. I've I've published on that as well. I'm I'm working my way towards a book. There's an editor I've promised a book on uh christologology uh and I've become I've become very focused on Johannine christologology right now just because of how much >> how much out there I think is is missing the mark uh because of the the retrojection of much later philosophical frameworks into the first century where they didn't uh really exist. So but but that stuff we can talk about in the afterparty we have a little time. >> Yeah. Let's let's let's take this conversation over there. >> But before we do that, before we do that, um, How Catholics Encounter the Bible and the Son of God in the Roman world, two phenomenal books from Michael Pepper go out and, uh, they're both Oxford University Press. So, wherever you get your Oxford University Press material, you can find uh, these two books. >> And the newer one is very is priced to sell. They're very reasonably priced. Well, and written and and I do want to say uh Michael that it's written in a way that uh that I could understand. So I'm sure our listeners could also uh understand it. It is not uh it it is not mired in uh in acade academia so much so that that it becomes uh impenetrable. So I really appreciated that. >> Yes. And not nearly as pmical as uh as the first one evidently. Um >> all right. Well, uh, we're g we we're we're going to end this as, as you say, we're there's going to be more conversation in the afterparty for our patrons. Uh, you're going to want to be there cuz Michael has promised to take Dan to task for something he did in some one of his videos. So, we're going to we're going to get all of that action. Uh, so you might want to become a patron. Now's a good time to do it. Go over to patreon.com/data overdogma. Sign up at the I think it's the $10 a month level to get the uh to get the the afterparty every week. That's bonus content. Helps us get keep this thing on the air. Uh it's it's it's absolutely uh necessary for us and we thank all of our patrons so much. Uh and Michael, we thank you so much for joining us today. >> Happy to be here. We we we covered some of the main topics and the rest of it you can find in here. >> Go get that book, everybody. Uh, thanks so much to Roger Gaddy for editing the show and thanks to all of you for tuning in. We'll talk to you again next week. Bye everybody., Close Encounters of the Catholic Kind, YouTube, 01k9q2jaassgn2jr4pfa5z6979.