Anne Rice, Catholic

John bar Zebedee wrote the books attributed to him; Matthew the tax collector did write Matthew; Luke is the physician who traveled with Paul;

Not even serious Catholic scholars like Brown and Meyer subscribe to that.

...and Mark did transcribe Peter's sermons.

How could she claim this? Where did Mark record any of Peter's sermons in the New Testament? All we have ascribed to Mark is the short gospel (which "Matthew" and "Luke" copy almost in whole). Does she think Mark perhaps wrote the Petrine letters?

One should read the author's note at the back of CHRIST THE LORD: OUT OF EGYPT before reading the novel. Anne Rice goes into more detail than in this interview re: what persuaded her about the truthfulness of the Gospels. The failure of the Gospels to mention the Fall of Jerusalem was crucial to her "conversion."

Amazing how pissy some people can get over somebody that they do not know and who never hurt them. Life. Get one.

but I do not begrudge Anne Rice her solace in Catholicism or Rod Dreher his solace in Orthodoxy.

Well, they can't both be right, can they?

"but I do not begrudge Anne Rice her solace in Catholicism or Rod Dreher his solace in Orthodoxy.

Well, they can't both be right, can they?

Posted by: Leroy | August 1, 2008 1:16 AM"

Yes they can both be right.

I don't know from what angle Leroy is looking at it, but it's only when (and if) Rice says "my Catholicism is right where it differs from Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy is wrong at those points" or Rod says the opposite that one must be wrong. Only about such are the traditions mutually exclusive. Otherwise, there's a lot in common, as one would expect when both retain much from the first millennium of the Church.

The differences matter quite a lot, especially in the ethos of the traditions (ISTM), but I cheerfully tell Protestants "if you say you believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, as the creed has it, your choices are narrowed to two."

"Hard to believe the woman who wrote "Lasher" is now talking this way."

I don't know about this. There is something so imminent in Rice's writings about witches, vampires, demons, etc. that demonstrated a intense affinity to the supernatural. That the focus of that affinity changed (for the better) is less surprising than it would be if that affinity had not existed in the first place.

Man from K Street,
Cardinal Ratzinger praised Raymond Brown when he spoke on scriptural exegesis in New York around 1990, a speech where, in general, he was very sceptical of practitioners of modern criticism.

Zak,

Brown was an interesting case. He can't really be characterized as either liberal or conservative, or especially modern. He certainly got criticism from both sides--he was a strong critic of the Jesus Seminar, for example.

Who are these "plenty of serious scholars" who think that a rustic Galillean fisherman produced the theologically sophisticated and literarily beautiful Gospel of John, in a language he almost certainly couldn't speak, let alone write??

The Synoptic Gospels, maaaybe you could find reputable scholarship that supports the traditional attributions, but considering that general consensus is that not even all of Paul's epistles are actually Paul's, it's hardly a mainstream view that any except perhaps Luke are correctly attributed. Of course, if one does as K-Street and Mrs. Rice, and simply declares the entire field invalid because it doesn't uncritically accept ancient miracle stories and parables as historically accurate journalism, I guess one is free to accept whatever makes one happy.

Sorry, "plays" should be "plays and sonnets."

Dan, I'm well aware of the status of Greek in that time and place, but you overestimate the average person's facility with it. The Greek that John bar Zebedee might have spoken would have been something like the English spoken in Hong Kong or the Spanish spoken by Anglo restaurant owners in Texas. That's not the kind of language we find in the Gospel of John. The "native" language of the Jews in that region was Aramaic -- it's what they'd have spoken amongst themselves, which is most of what's recorded in the Gospels -- Jews talking to other Jews. Discussions with Pilate or a Roman soldier? Sure, they might have used Greek.

And your comparison of John to Shakespeare is off for a number of reasons. As a merchant's son, Shakespeare was part of the emerging middle-class, he attended formal schooling, he's known to have traveled and been relatively well-read. A first-century Jewish fisherman in Galillee would have done none of these things. Nothing we know about the period or its people suggests that someone of his background could have produced the Gospel of John.

Well, any boy who went to Hebrew school would be "literate" in Hebrew, maybe not by the modern definition (where we have constructions like "functionally illiterate") but enough to read the Torah scroll when called upon to do so.

Any boy who functioned in commerce -- like, say, a fisherman's son -- would probably have been able to read enough Greek to deal with small notes and aides-memoire ("ostraca", which are things jotted down on shards of pottery, are pretty common from that time and place, AFAIK).

But yeah, we too often forget that "writing" a document in those days did not mean the same thing that it does today. Cicero was certainly literate even in the modern sense, but writing own documents Just Wasn't Done. Remember the bits in Paul's letters about "see, I'm writing this greeting with my own hand"? I'd be surprised if that sort of thing didn't appear in a lot of correspondence of the time.

K-Street, my impression has always been that the "rustic and unpolished" critique mostly fell on the epistolary texts, particularly those most attributable to Paul. One of my professors commented that Paul's grammar would have struck sophisticated ears like Busta Rhymes' might strike CS Lewis. That none of it would have won prizes in Athens? I don't doubt that. But that's not really the point. It's really the theological sophistication of John that makes it so hard to swallow that it came from an unlettered, uneducated fisherman.

Greek scholars despise Koine to this day. When we studied Greek at school, we asked if we could read the NT, and we were told Koine was bad and vulgar Greek. A Greek teacher of my aquaintance, who was a Christian, used to say the difference between classical Greek and the New Testament was like that between the English of the Times and the Sun [a tabloid newspaper].

I think the very vulgarity of the Koine used by all the NT writers, including of course John helped them express themselves in an especially vigorous way.

And your comparison of John to Shakespeare is off for a number of reasons.

As a merchant's son, Shakespeare

John Shakespeare was a small-town glover, and a part-time petty civil servant (almost certainly dismissed for refusal to conform). "Merchant" as you are using the term implies one of the New Rich of the Tudor dissolution and emerging maritime trade, which the Shakespeares were definitely not members of.

he attended formal schooling

Stratford Grammar School. Which probably gave him a first-rate education, but it was not Oxbridge.

he's known to have traveled

We know no such thing. Apart from Stratford and London there is no evidence of William Shakespeare ever having been anywhere else on the planet.

and been relatively well-read

His will contains no details of his library, if he had one. By way of comparison, we know the details of Spinoza's library later in the 17th century. He had well under 300 books of all kinds.

A first-century Jewish fisherman in Galillee would have done none of these things

And you know this how? Following his early fishing career he, um, spent some time traveling around a rather far-flung cosmopolitan empire talking to people about some notable events of his earlier life. When he stayed put he was mostly to be found in Ephesus, which was the largest city in Roman Asia Minor, and one of the largest in the world, with as many as a half million residents, attracting travelers from around the ancient world to its libraries, theaters, temples and sporting events--it was one of the major intellectual hothouses of its time or any other.

Wow! It's hard to understand the negative comments being leveled at Anne Rice's conversion.

For my part, the kvetching isn't at her conversion. It's that she's trashing a major field of study. True, it has its share of cranks and agenda-pushers, but it also includes a great many serious scholars, some of whom have been licensed by the Catholic Church and praised by popes!

there are serious Catholic scholars who don't accept the traditional attributions.

Yes, and that is understating it. Just read the introductions to the Gospels in the NAB Bible published by the US Bishops. Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the Gospel of Matthew:

"The questions of authorship, sources, and the time of composition of this gospel have received many answers, none of which can claim more than a greater or lesser degree of probability. The one now favored by the majority of scholars is the following.

The ancient tradition that the author was the disciple and apostle of Jesus named Matthew (see Matthew 10:3) is untenable because the gospel is based, in large part, on the Gospel according to Mark (almost all the verses of that gospel have been utilized in this), and it is hardly likely that a companion of Jesus would have followed so extensively an account that came from one who admittedly never had such an association rather than rely on his own memories. The attribution of the gospel to the disciple Matthew may have been due to his having been responsible for some of the traditions found in it, but that is far from certain."

Also, it is quite proper for Catholics not to accept traditional attributions of gospels uncritically...after all, the Church itself presumably rejects that apocryphal writings, such as the Gospel of Thomas, etc, were authored by the Apostles or religious figures they are attributed too. Heck, St. Paul himself says during his life others were passing off spurious letters in his name! (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:2).