Christianity: Details about 'Raymond E Brown'
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Father Raymond Edward Brown, S.S., (born 22 May 1928, died August 8, 1998), appointed in 1972 and in 1996 to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which advises the pontiff on scriptural matters, and professor emeritus at the Protestant Union Theological Seminary in New York where he taught for 23 years, was widely regarded as one of America's preeminent biblical scholars. Cardinal Mahony spoke of him as "the most distinguished and renowned Catholic biblical scholar to emerge in this country ever" whose death was "a great loss to the Church". Brown was awarded 24 honorary doctoral degrees by universities in the USA and Europe, many from Protestant institutions, and received the Catholic Press Book Award, Edgar J. Godspeed Award, BAS Publ. Award, Best NT Comm. He served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association, the Society of Biblical Literature (1976-7) and the Society of New Testament Studies (1986-7). He was a member of the scholarly Society of Saint-Sulpice and a Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of Baltimore. Brown's approach to Scripture – the orthodoxy of which has been challenged by some of those Catholic scholars whose outlook Brown considered "fundamentalist" (cf. Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible, London 1991), but reputedly praised by Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI – is premised on the assumption that it may contain error in matters not pertaining to salvation; this is a relatively modern stance, but Fr Brown was equally insistent on the limitations of scientific biblical methods including textual criticism in solving the Church's problems or addressing central questions of faith . The traditional approach to Scripture is that it contains no error, and that all of it is in some way related to salvation. This shift in the scholarly approach is at the root of the conclusion of some who consider his scholarship open-minded and measured. The more permissive stance in relation to Scripture is appealing to skeptics and a great number of Christians alike; and his books enjoy wide success. He was an expert on the hypothetical Johannine community and wrote the volumes covering the Gospel of John in the New Anchor Bible Commentary. In Theological Studies #26 (1965) p.545-73 he wrote the article entitled "Does the NT call Jesus God?" which can be summarized as follows: Mk10:18, Lk18:19, Mt19:17, Mk15:34, Mt27:46, Jn20:17, Eph1:17, 2Cor1:3, 1Pt1:3, Jn17:3, 1Cor8:6, Eph4:4-6, 1Cor12:4-6, 2Cor13:14, 1Tm2:5, Jn14:28, Mk13:32, Ph2:5-10, 1Cor15:24-28 are "texts that seem to imply that the title God was not used for Jesus" and are "negative evidence which is often somewhat neglected in Catholic treatments of the subject." Also: "Jesus is never called God in the Synoptic Gospels, and a passage like Mk 10:18 would seem to preclude the possibility that Jesus used the title of himself. Even the fourth Gospel never portrays Jesus as saying specifically that he is God. The sermons which Acts attributes to the beginning of the Christian mission do not speak of Jesus as God. Thus, there is no reason to think that Jesus was called God in the earliest layers of New Testament tradition. This negative conclusion is substantiated by the fact that Paul does not use the title in any epistle written before 58." And "The slow development of the usage of the title God for Jesus requires explanation. Not only is there the factor that Jesus is not called God in the earlier strata of New Testament material, but also there are passages, cited in the first series of texts above, that by implication reserve the title God for the Father. Moreover, even in the New Testament works that speak of Jesus as God, there are also passages that seem to militate against such a usage - a study of these texts will show that this is true of the Pastorals and the Johannine literature. The most plausible explanation is that in the earliest stage of Christianity the Old Testament heritage dominated the use of the title God; hence, God was a title too narrow to be applied to Jesus. It referred strictly to the Father of Jesus, to the God whom he prayed. Gradually, (in the 50's and 60's?) in the development of Christian thought God was understood to be a broader term. It was seen that God had revealed so much of Himself in Jesus that God had to be able to include both Father and Son." He died at St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park, California. His total of 25 books on biblical subjects include:
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