The Holy Blood & The Holy Grail

[Frideswide]

I haven't been inside very many synagogues or mosques or other "holy" buildings, but I recall a similar feeling when removing my shoes and stepping into a mosque in East Jerusalem. It's the beauty and peace of such places that brings on the reflection, I think.

I think of that as "the beauty of holiness". It is numinous? There is a bit in T S Eliot's Little Gidding

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

 

[Xanatic*]

Is there any reason to believe the books of the apostles were actually written by the apostles? My impression was at least the written versions don't date back far enough.

 

[AnonyJ]

A believer writes: it is part of Catholic education if you get beyond the for-the-young stage. I used to be Pisky and one wing there held that the KJV was the gold standard and how God intends the Bible to be - often the 1611 version.

I don't think I personally know any practicing Christians - rather than the hatch, match and dispatch visitors or the Christmas Vigil Mass set (all of whom are loved and welcomed ) who don't know the practical history of the book.

Different parts of the universal church take different lines on the balance between revealed truth and scholarship being current and having it all fixed at various points in the past. Times and fashions change.

There is a tendency, indulged by different groups to a greater or lesser degree, to elevate the Bible rather than God. Rather like patriots who hunt for and explode over perceived slights to a piece of cloth.

Does that add anything @Souleater?

It is perhaps well to remember that believers do not read and study the Bible in the same way as non-believers. We aren't using the same glasses to read it! Our use of it is multilayered and complex.

Edit to add:



Can I ask why you would expect a gospel from each of them?

Indeed!

Although I personally regard all the stuff about the Merovingians, Templars, Cathars et all as guff [when connected to a family line of Jesus of Nazareth]; when it comes to suggestion that Jesus was married and possibly had children I am very open minded.

Given that he is often called referred to as 'Rabbi' when AFAIK all 'teachers' of faith in Judaism at that time were married men, it is entirely possible. The story of The Wedding At Canaa could possibly have been his own marriage.

The canonical scriptures and the apocryphal writings don't tell us one way or another. I don't see that it makes any difference to his teachings or reported words whether he was married, or not. The answer is - we don't know and we should maybe also ask ourselves "do we need to?"

 

[Xanatic*]

If his kids also had superpowers, it seems important.

 

[Themis]

:bish: Can't think they will be many other opportunities to use that, so might as well take it...

 

[madmath]

Is there any reason to believe the books of the apostles were actually written by the apostles? My impression was at least the written versions don't date back far enough.

I'm not an expert in the subject, this is what I recall learning as a Catholic.
The letters/epistles yes, the gospels most likely not. Many early believers thought He was coming back relatively soon, within their lifetimes, so they didn't write down, while the letter exchanges were communications between people who'd "been there". Anyone reading Paul's and Peter's letters will recognize they're not only religious tracts, they have plenty of ordinary communication that isn't relevant to theology.
Mark, Matthew, and Luke are second generation, written down by people who learned from the original Apostles and other disciples, while John was probably even later. Mark was probably written by one of his pupils from an oral relation, Matthew shows elements of having heard or read Mark, and Luke clearly states he'd interviewed disciples for his Gospel and the Acts. John has a very different tone to the other three.