This is from America Magazine's blog, In All Things, the post is entitled, Remembering Ray Brown, I point this post out because of the seemingly innocuous wording, there underlies a torrent of biblical controversy. Fr. Raymond E. Brown has authored many books, he is best known for his work as the co-editor the New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Fr. Brown advanced many 19th century Protestant idea's, that the Infancy Narrative's are untrue and are nice Jewish midrash. The New Testament was really a second and third generation Christian interpretation of oral history of the Apostles and Disciples. Fr. Brown also championed the Biblical myth of Q. His critics included Lawrence Cardinal Shehan and Father Richard Gilsdorf, who described Brown's work as "a major contribution to the befogged wasteland of an 'American Church,' progressively alienated from its divinely constituted center?”[reference 27] Remembering Ray Brown
An excerpt.
August 8 marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Raymond E. Brown, S.S. Brown combined the best in many areas—priest, teacher, preacher, ecumenist, writer, and scholar. He was hailed by Cardinal Roger Mahony as “the most distinguished and renowned Catholic biblical scholar to emerge in this country ever.”
Read the full post (here)
More articles on the same subject
New York Times Obituary: Paid Notice: Deaths BROWN, RAYMOND E., S.S.
Traditional Catholic Scholars Long Opposed Fr. Brown's Theories
A Review of Fr. Raymond Brown's book, Biblical Reflections on Crises Facing the Church
Contemporary Catholic Biblical Scholarship: Certitudes or Hypotheses?The Case Against O: Ten Reasons to Question Q
3 comments:
You miss the point that Raymond E Brown, SS was appointed twice to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome by two different popes. I call that a double imprimatur.
As for controversy, what little there is generated by the uninformed or misinformed or do not want to be informed. Pope Benedict XVI certainly admires Father Brown's scholarly work. As a good biblical scholar, there is food for thought, but no doctrinal controversy. In fact, if you had ever heard Father Brown lecture, you would admire how much, in all joy and humility, he was a true disciple of Jesus and a son of the Church. Father Brown served the Church he loved so much as a biblical scholar bringing Catholics and other Christians closer to God by helping us (including members of the hierarchy) better understand God's Word.
I could not agree more. Perhaps you have to have listened to Father Brown, I don't know, but I have listened to a lot, and read a lot, of his work and have yet to find the evil that he seems to have been accused of.
That's very interesting that you shoukld find no problem with Ramond Brown. The first time I ever heard Raymond E. Brown and Q referenced was at a bible study of St. Mark's Gospel in my Catholic Church run by two retired university professors. I couldn't believe the complete doubt and utter nonsense that was being taught. I questioned if Raymond E. Brown was Catholic. Oh, he's the best biblical scholar. When I questioned the validity of Brown's writings and pointed out observations he made that made little sense, I was told that no one is allowed to ask such questions of Brown! Really, I said. Brown was allowed to question 2,000 years of Catholic biblical teaching, it's about time someone expressed some criticism about this man. His findings are based on fallacy and his degrees from a protestant university. This man's books should not be in bible study--rather, they should be thoroughly analyzed by Catholic theologians because what this man says is heresy. I could hear it after listening to two sentences. Brown trashes and mocks the basic tenets of the Catholic Faith. To teach and advance the theory of Q as a fact is to state that the entire new testament, the inspiration of the holy spirit, the
fact that the apostles were witnesses and heard stories directly from the blessed mother is a lie and that, in fact, their stories are only similar because they shared the same source material from Q--we don't know who that guy was--but he's the one that really knew what was going on--not, God forbid, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John or Paul and Peter and Mary.
Brown is one of the reasons the Catholic hurch loses the faithful--the man is certaibnly not a Catholic--Jesuit or not--and he definitely has a problem believing in Christ asw the son of God and his mother as revered.
Maureen
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