Pope Benedict's comments more Roman Catholic then Christian

Submitted by A. Reedah (United States), Jan 19, 2006 at 14:26

This letter makes some interesting points:

The Pope And the Koran'

http://www.nysun.com/article/26158

Re: Daniel Pipes' questioning of Pope Benedict's analysis ["The Pope and the Interpretation of the Koran," Foreign, January 17,2006]

The Pope's statement that in Judaism and Christianity, it's "not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah," and therefore these beliefs are more adaptable than Islam, does not account for beliefs such as biblical inerrancy, which holds the Bible to be divinely inspired, word for word (e.g., Franciscus Gomarus and Gijsbert Voetius, and a thriving Calvinist and post-Calvinist tradition).

Pope Benedict's theology here is more particularly Roman Catholic than generically Christian. A fair part of Rabbinic tradition, I believe, also holds the Torah to be inerrant, down to the letters.

Even within the Catholic tradition, one may note the medieval and early modern iconography of St. Jerome translating the Bible into Latin, with his eyes to heaven as his hand writes - the implication being that he acted, as translator, solely as an instrument of God, not as a thinking, fallible human being.

Pope Benedict speaks for a powerful strain of Judaeo-Christian theology, but by no means for the totality of Judaeo-Christian belief.

DAVID RANDALL
Brooklyn

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