The pope's preface

The pope's preface in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth, contains a great lesson in itself, as well as telling the reader where the author is going with the book. One of the neatest lessons in the preface is contained within the following quotes from the text. This is what the pope calls canonical exegesis.

If you want to understand the scripture in the spirit in which it was written, you have to attend to the content and unity of the scripture as a whole.

This Christological hermeneutic (method of interpretation) which sees Jesus Christ as the key to the whole scripture and learns from him how to understand the bible as a unit presupposes a prior act of faith. It cannot be the result of a purely historical method.

The really neat thing to me is how it mirrors the Westminster confession in its discussion of scrpture. See esprcially, Chapter 1, paragraphs 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9. The pope and the westminster divines were saying the same thing about understanding the bible - that it is a spiritual activity ad that it must be a holistic thing, taking into acount all of scripture. This canonical exegesis is what Westminster is talking about when it says that the infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is scripture itself (WCOF I;9)

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The pope goes on to debunk the idea that the divinity of Jesus was a relatively late creation historically speaking. The idea that Jesus and his apostles did not see Jesus as divine, but at some point later on the Church created this idea to consolidate its power. The pope brings up the fact that Philippians, which is known to have been written within about 20 years of Jesus' life, contains a fully-developed Christology:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11; NIV)

So, how did such a fully developed Christology, consistent with all of the rest of scripture, come about within 20 years of the events if it was merely a manufactured myth? The pope answers...

Isn't it more logical, even historically speaking, to assume that the greatness came at the beginning and that the figure of Jesus really did explode all existing categories and could only be understood in the light of the mystery of God?

Amen, pope-man! Testify, brother!