Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for your support of the Logical Bible Study Ministry. What we want to do in this bonus episode is try to respond to some of the questions that have come in. And there have been quite a few questions lately, which is why we're doing a separate bonus episode.
Thank you to all of those who have benefited from this podcast, have told other people about it, and have sent your questions in. So I'm going to have a go at responding to some of these questions as far as I'm able to. First thing I want to say is if you ever want to know anything about the Catholic faith, the first thing you should do is check the Catechism of the Catholic Church and that is considered to be an official summary of Church teaching. It's got a dictionary and a glossary.
Cross references in the back, so you'll often find the answer to theological questions in there. catholic.com, which is the ministry of Catholic answers, is also really good on general Catholic theology. But we've got a few specific kind of biblical questions that we want to take a look at. So a question here from Cynthia. She asks, when Jesus is walking alone in the Garden of Gethsemane or privately talking to Pontius Pilate, how did the authors of the Gospels know what
he said in order to record it? It's a really good question, and one that I've wondered. Sometimes too, We can't be sure. Particularly in the Gospel of John, there's quite a few conversations that appear to be quite private, and yet somehow we have the full what appears to be a transcription of the conversation from the gospel author. For example, the conversation with the woman at the Well, supposedly all the other disciples are gone and it's just
Jesus and the woman. So how does that end up in the gospel? Same with this conversation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate with the one the conversation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate. It's a it's a little bit easier to answer that because in a so-called private conversation between Jesus and Pilate, it's likely that Pilate would still have people in the room with him, servants, guards, some of whom may well have become Christian later, and who relay the story to to the gospel
authors and. But thinking more generally about ones that are a bit harder to answer. For example, Jesus pray in the garden of Gethsemane or Jesus talking to the woman at the Well, one possibility is Jesus himself may have told them after his resurrection. Remember, there's a period of 40 days between his resurrection and ascension. We don't have most of what he said recorded in the Gospels, but he was with them in various forms and in various types of conversations for 40 days.
He may well have given them further information to include in the Gospels, including private conversations. We can't rule that out. There's also one possibility that I think is fairly convincing, which is John himself in the Gospel of John mentions, or Jesus mentions in the Gospel of John that the Holy Spirit will come after he's gone and the Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance all of the things
that he said. So there's this idea that the Holy Spirit working through the gospel authors will bring to mind specific things that might include private conversations that Jesus had with specific people. So that's a possibility as well. So there's certainly quite a few things for us to work with. She also asks a specific question about the parable of the 10 virgins or the 10 bridesmaids, and she wants to know how it's possible that in
the parable. So obviously the parable's a fictional story, but it should in some way represent a situation that would be fairly common in Jewish life. She wants to know how it's possible that the women could go out at midnight for oil when no oil markets would be open at that time. Well, firstly, I don't think that's known for sure. I think that would be
speculation. It's likely that there would be some oil markets open at that time, particularly because the time when you're most likely to need oil is at night time. So certainly there would be some merchants that remained open at night time. And she also wants to know she thought that women were not permitted to walk alone at night in that era. Again, we don't have that explicitly mentioned. So it could be, and I think it's it's likely that women couldn't walk alone, but they could walk
in groups. And the way this particular parable works is that there's a group of women who go back together and look for oil. So I think that that resolves most of those questions about that parable. We have a question here from Gwen about Elijah. So she says, my question is since Elijah was taken up to heaven and did not die, and indeed that is what the Old Testament says, is he in heaven, both body and soul.
So that's her first question. Now again, we can't be 100% sure, but the way it's depicted in the ascension of Elijah is that yes, his body and his soul was taken up to heaven. The same sort of thing is hinted in terms of Enoch, one of the first people in the Old Testament. It says that he was taken and did not see death, and the implication there is that he was also assumed into heaven.
So these two are considered to be prefigurements of the Assumption of Mary. So they didn't ascend there on their own power like Jesus did, but their bodies were assumed into heaven by God. So it does appear that yes, Elijah's body is in heaven. There's also some speculation that that might be the case with Moses, although we know that
Moses did die first. But the book of Jude indicates that something odd happened after Moses died, and there was some dispute between angels about the body of Moses. So it may well be that Moses's body itself was taken up to heaven. Remember that. And Jesus sees a vision of Elijah and Moses appearing to him, apparently in their bodies after death. So yes, I think we have a reasonable case to say that Elijah and Enoch are exceptions to the rule in that.
And the same with Mary and Jesus in that their bodies are already in heaven. They're the first fruits of what will happen to all Christians later. So it's not that it's impossible to have your body in heaven, it's just that most people don't. But there are some exceptions, she then says. Will there be a time when he will be appointed to die the same as all mortal men do? I don't think Elijah and Mary and Enoch do need to die because their body and soul has already
been taken up to heaven. There's possibly a question about whether their bodies need to be transformed again when the new heavens and new earth comes. But again, we could say that it's possible that it's already happened to them as a prefigurement of the Transfiguration that will happen to all of our bodies at the end of time. It seems likely that Enoch and Elijah's bodies have already
been transfigured in that way. So yeah, often we assume that it's only Jesus and Mary. But the Old Testament indicate that at least Enoch and Elijah also have their bodies in heaven, so there is certainly a precedent for what happens to Mary in her Assumption. I've also received a few questions about this phrase of John the Baptist when he says to Jesus or says about Jesus, I'm not worthy to untie this strap
of his sandal. A few people have sent in the same question here because there are some other popular Catholic biblical scholars who have a different interpretation of this
passage. So the interpretation that I've offered using the commentaries that I tap into when I'm doing these exegesis episodes is that when John the Baptist says I'm not worthy to untie the strap of the sandals, what is basically means there is that I'm not worthy even to touch his feet as and in that culture the foot was considered to be the the least pleasant part of the body to touch. Or perhaps even you've considered it the least wholly, almost. But John the Baptist says I'm
not even worthy to touch, that. I'm not even worthy to go near his feet. Is is sort of the way that a lot of these commentaries take it, and I think it makes sense.
But there were some in church tradition, and as I said, some Catholic scholars today who advocate that this is actually a reference to the bridegroom theology of the Old Testament, particularly present in the book of Ruth and the Levarite law, which was that if a man died and left a wife without children, then his brother was obligated under the law to take that wife
and to give her children. And there's this whole ritual that goes along with it where if the brother, the surviving brother, doesn't want to take up this obligation, then what he had to do was to take off his sandal and give it to the person who is going to be the new hospital. It was sort of a visible way of saying I am willing to relinquish the right that I have to take this wife and give it to
someone else. And in fact, it was considered shameful for a man to do that, for a man not to take his brother's wife. That was considered to be quite shameful. And there's also a version of of this law where the woman herself can take the sandal off the man and kind of shake it at him as a way of saying, I disapprove that you would not take me as your wife. So there's this whole interesting theology of the sandal in terms of the Levarite law.
So some in church history have said that when John the Baptist says I'm not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals, what he means there is that I'm not worthy to take away Jesus prerogative as the bridegroom. Indeed, we know from other passages that John the Baptist does call Jesus the bridegroom, and he says I'm merely the friend of the bridegroom, whereas Jesus is the true bridegroom.
So we do have a precedent here for thinking that John the Baptist thinks in terms of bridegroom theology, so possibly this might be the right interpretation. I do think it's a little bit convoluted because it requires us to think that when John the Baptist says I'm not worthy to untie this strap of his sandal, it's he'd have to be saying I'm not worthy to take Jesus right as Messiah and appropriate it
for myself. That's a bit of a strange interpretation, but but it might fit because it is true that John the Baptist has to repeatedly remind people I'm not the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. So perhaps there's something to that. As I said, the particular commentaries that I use haven't particularly tapped into that, but perhaps that is the right
interpretation. And as Catholics, we should certainly be open to that, particularly when there's a tradition of the Church fathers interpreting it that particular way. I've got a question here from Joe, who wants to ask about the pregnancy of Mary and in particular, what did Joseph think about it?
So one of the comments that we've made in the exegesis in these episodes is that initially it seems that Joseph thought that Mary had become pregnant by someone else, and that was why he wanted to divorce her quietly. Now, then the Angel appeared to Joseph and said do not be afraid to take her because she's become pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
So his question is, does this perspective imply that God and Mary have engaged in sinful action against the marriage vows that Mary and Joseph made to each other? And the answer to that would be no. So the Gospels themselves indicate that the Holy Spirit will over shadow Mary. Now, that doesn't imply any sort of sexual relationship between God and Mary, so there's no sinful action on the part of Mary in her pregnancy. So there's no no contradiction of the vows that Mary and Joseph
would make to each other. In terms of sexual fidelity, it's important that we maintain that as Catholics, it's not that God impregnated Mary in that very physical sense. It's that there is a miraculous overshadowing by the Holy Spirit that brought about the pregnancy. And Joseph seems to have understood that after the Angel explained it to him. So we're moving through the
questions well here. This next one is a bit more challenging from David, and it's more of a broader theological question, and I can only really have a go at this one. So David says if Jesus is divine, fully God and fully man. In the Old Testament, we learn the bad things happen when human sin comes into the presence of holiness. And presumably, David, there is referring to the occasions where the Israelite people don't follow the ritual law and
something bad happens to them. For example, when they're carrying the ark of the Covenant and it slips, and the person carrying the Ark of the Covenant touches a part of the covenant of the Ark that he's not supposed to touch, he ends up being killed on the spot. So we do have examples of that where God actually strikes people with some sort of illness or death if they are not ritually clean or if they're
sinful in some way. So he says if that's the case, Jesus being God, is obviously holy and yet he walked around and talked with and touched many people. How is this possible? Was he forgiving the sin of everyone around him so that they could be with him? I guess my question is, given our understanding of holiness from the Old Testament and the reverence and ceremony around entering into God's presence, how is it then possible for sinners to be around Jesus before his atoning death?
It's a really good question that is really asking how it's possible for Jesus as God to be in close proximity to sin. Given that God and sin are very much opposed, I think part of the answer here would be we shouldn't really think of sin. Thinking in terms of personal sin here as as an actual thing that exists in and of itself as like an evil force.
Perhaps one of the best ways, and the catechism does sort of point in this direction, is that sin, particularly when we're thinking of the individual actions a person makes, is really a deprivation of something that should be there. It's a lack. So when Jesus is walking among sinners, it's not that he's repelled by this evil force called sin that's sort of emanating from people, it's that
they they lack something. So in that sense, sin is not a challenge to Jesus. It's not going to put him off in that. In that sense, I think that might be part of the answer. And we also need to remember that Jesus mission here is to reach sinners. He wants to impart his goodness and holiness to sinners and he doesn't contract their sinfulness. And a good example of this is when Jesus interacts with the
lepers. The prevailing wisdom at the time was if you touch a leper, their leprosy will go into you. But we see Jesus touching the lepers, and His Holiness and healing goes into the leper. That's probably the way we should think about Jesus. Interactions with sinners in general is that His Holiness moves into their sinfulness, and he overpowers the sinfulness. So there's certainly not some sort of equivalent here of the sinfulness is equal in power to
God's holiness. That's not the case at all, and in Catholic theology we see sinfulness as more of a lack of something. Also, when you think about the Old Testament sacrifices and what Jesus was trying and what God was trying to teach the Israelites about holiness, it's mostly that it's mostly God trying to teach them things
about God's holiness. Rather than there being this strict war going on between God and sin, it's mostly God giving them specific laws to teach them about their sinfulness and if they break those laws God has consequences in place. I hope that helps answer the question, but it is a really good theological question. We've got a question here on Patreon from God. First, he wants to know how to reconcile two different verses here. One of the verses is Romans 9 verse 13 as it is written Jacob
I loved but Esau I hated. And then the other verse is from Wisdom chapter 1124 to 26 which is an extended section where God says I where the author says God would not have made anything if he had hated it. He goes on to say you spare all things for they are yours, You who love the living. So how can we reconcile these verses? Wisdom says God doesn't hate anything, he loves all the
living. But the Romans passage says he hates the person called Esau. I think one key way of answering this is that God doesn't hate anything that he creates and it's created form. But humans in particular can later then sin through their free choice, which can then put that person in a negative relationship with God, and in this case Esau. There is a sense in which God hated Esau after Esau did that particular sin, still loves God, still loves him in terms of his existence.
He wills Esau's existence, but he hates the choice that Esau made. So I think when we're dealing with humans there is a sense in which through the humans free choice and particularly you need to study the theology of Romans a bit more to get this in terms of the point that Paul wants to make here. But it is possible through free choice for then for God to be displeased with someone. So I hope that helps resolve the those two verses there.
We have a question here from Celeste and she's asking a good question about Luke chapter 2 verse 26 which says and this is the interaction with Simeon in the temple and Luke here says it had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had set eyes on the Christ of the Lord. So Celestia is asking about what's this phrase the Christ of the Lord? Are the Bible translations have this as the Lord's Christ and she wants to know what does that
mean? Well, it helps if we think about what does Christ, What does the word Christ mean? It basically means Messiah. In fact, that's that is what it means. The Jews in the time of Jesus were looking forward to the Messiah. In other words, they were looking forward to the Christ whom God would send. So when Luke 2 verse 26 talks about it, it's just saying this is the Messiah, this is the Lord's Christ, the Messiah that God has sent. This is the one Simeon has been waiting for.
And Luke is telling his readers that Simeon received a vision or some sort of information from God that he would not see death until he had seen the Messiah. So the Lord's Christ is just a way of saying the Messiah that God would send. It's a good question, Celeste. We've had a few questions about why the lectionary jumps around a bit and also why the lectionary doesn't include all of the Gospels.
As you know, if you've been listening for a while, if you go to mass everyday for the whole 3 year cycle, you'll hear about 80% of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But there's still 20% that isn't read. And particularly CJ here wants to know why is that? Why is why is it that not all of the gospels are read as part of the lectionary? There's a few reasons.
One is if you add up, well, if you think about the small chunks, the Goss, the Mass wants to read the Gospel in small chunks, there's actually still not quite enough days across a whole one year weekday cycle plus the Sunday cycle to include the text of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In terms of small chunks, there's just not quite enough time in the year to do that. That's one reason.
Secondly, there's a few passages which is seen as a bit too controversial to read it Mass or a bit too strong from the Gospels. For example, some of Jesus interactions with the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew, particularly towards the end of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says to the Pharisees you will be sent down to hell. I think the lectionary editors felt that that was too strong to have Reddit mass and so that might be one of the reasons why
some passages are left out. The Sunday readings are very carefully chosen because we, the lectionary editors, want to make sure that they really. Good solid stories or good solid parts of the Gospels that the priest or the preacher can do a really good homily from, so they're very carefully chosen. The weekday readings typically do move through pretty continuously through the gospels, but there are parts that have to be read out largely due to time constraints.
That would be my understanding of why the lectionary editors have set things up the way that they did when they worked out which gospel readings would go on which day. And by the way, many of you would know this already, but you can actually get access to that missing 20% of the gospels. We have done an exegesis on the missing 20% of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that is available to you through the Patreon page.
If you're willing to support the ministry at $10 a month or more, you can get access to all the bonus exegesis episodes so that you can eventually hear all of all four Gospels. We also have available entire verse by verse, chronological audio commentaries of the Gospels, which are slowly being
released. So if you want to study a particular gospel in depth from start to finish, that is available to you as an audio package, and you can see more information about both of those things in the episode description here. We've got a great question here from Vivian who wants to know a bit more about the link between
Satan's influence and illness. This is something the Catechism itself mentions, and it's something that we've brought up in the episodes relating to when Jesus is healing people. So Vivian's question is, can you please explain what you mean by in a way, all sickness or illness is a result of Satan's influence on the world? So firstly I'll refer to the Catechism paragraphs from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
which talk about this. SO paragraph 1502 says it is the experience of Israel that illness is mysteriously linked to sin and evil. And then a few paragraphs later 1505 says Jesus healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing, the victory over sin and death. Through his Passover on the cross. Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the sin of the world, of which illness is only a
consequence. So you can hear there that the Church pretty clearly teaches that illness is a consequence of the sin that is in the world now. It's not a direct one to one relationship where if an individual sins, they then receive an illness. It's this more kind of cosmic influence of sin on the world
has led to illness. And this would go back to Adam and Eve. Had Adam and Eve not sinned, there would not be illness in the world, particularly because they would have access to the Tree of life. We can't exactly explain how this works because a lot of what happened in the Garden of Eden is mysterious. But the imagery we get is that as Adam and Eve were taking from the Tree of life, that was preventing them from death and probably preventing them from illness.
And since Adam and Eve can no longer access the Tree of life as a result of their sin. And remember, sin is the result of Satan's influence on them. Therefore, humans are not protected from illness and death anymore.
It's broadly that kind of link. Hopefully that kind of gets to what you're asking and Vivian says, But by that inference, is it logical to conclude that if illness is not healed or demons not exercised, the Kingdom of God has not come to that person, or Satan still has a hold on that person? There's two different things we need to distinguish here. If illness is not healed in a particular case, it doesn't necessarily mean Satan has a hold on that individual on an
individual level. Not every individual is due to Satan's, not in every individual. Illness is due to Satan's direct influence. So it's not as simple as saying if they're not healed, then
Satan has power over them. But in the case of an exorcism, if an exorcism is not successful, then there is a sense in which Satan does still have a hold on that person, but often through multiple exorcisms that hold can be weakened, and it's worth studying what contemporary exorcists have to say about the influence of Satan over people and how that can be
broken down slowly. I hope that helps answer your really good question there, Vivian, another really great question here from Matthew, and this is one that I've wondered about sometimes too, he says. My question relates to the demons calling Jesus son of God, and Jesus silencing them. It seems that most of these encounters are public.
As such, I would expect that some people heard what the demons said about our Lord. If people heard what the demons said, how is it that no one seemed to know that Jesus was the Son of God until later? It's a great question, Matthew, and I think the Gospel of Mark is a really good one to study here because there's quite a few encounters early in the Gospel of Mark where the demons call Jesus the Son of God, or at least a similar title to that, and Jesus immediately silences
them and says don't tell anyone. Presumably you're right that some people would hear the demons calling Jesus the son of God, and particularly because remember, Peter is likely the source of Mark's Gospel, so certainly Peter would have heard it and others who were nearby Jesus at the time. Maybe part of the answer here is remember there's often huge
crowds here. The crowds can't always hear exactly what's done, particularly if Jesus immediately silences the demon, and then you know, the rest of the day Jesus moves around with the crowd. Not going by that title, I suppose just in terms of percentage amount of time that people are with Jesus, they're unlikely to hear Jesus being called the Son of God. There's really only rare occurrences where he's briefly called the Son of God and then Jesus immediately silences them.
Maybe that's enough for this title, Son of God, not to enter into the consciousness of the people who are in the crowd. Another possibility is that some people did actually think he was the Son of God, but it was not the dominant theory. It was more likely that people would think he's a prophet or Elijah returned from the dead, as we see in that conversation between Jesus and the and the key apostles. I hope that helps answer the question.
It's not an entire answer, but I suppose we just have to think about the dynamics that would be in place with huge crowds constantly following Jesus around and different opinions that are circulating amongst the crowd. Last question we'll look at today is from Jessica on Patreon. She says Was Mary at the Last Supper? It seems clear from the Gospels that she was in Jerusalem, probably for the Passover, as any observant Jew would be. If not at the Last Supper, then
where was she on Holy Thursday? It's a good question. Was Mary present at the Last Supper? Some theologians have thought she might be. The gospel seemed to indicate that it is only Jesus and the
apostles in the upper room. Now that's not 100% certain, but in terms of the way the narration goes, in terms of the instructions Jesus gives the apostles to prepare the room, it does sound like he's deliberately choosing to just be there with his apostles, and therefore it's likely that Mary and other disciples were not with Jesus at the Last Supper. Now you will find some scholars and theologians who think that's not the case and that they were present.
But if we assume that Mary was not present at the Last Supper, we can say that she would be celebrating the Passover with some of her own relatives. Remember, for the great feasts of Jerusalem, like the Passover, people would travel in crowds and in families from where they lived up to Jerusalem. So Mary would have travelled with people from her hometown of Nazareth and they would have shared some sort of Passover
together. That's just speculation, we can't be sure, but I hope that kind of gives you an option to think about when we consider what Mary was up to in Jerusalem in the last week of Jesus life. So I hope these attempts at responding to the questions were helpful. There've been so many recently that I thought it was worth
doing. As a additional bonus episode, if you've got another biblical question that you'd like answered, feel free to send it through either to logical.biblestudy@gmail.com or you can even leave a voice message, and there's a link for that in the episode description. Thanks so much for your support of the Logical Bible Study Ministry. I'm so glad to hear that this approach to Scripture is opening up the Bible for so many of you.
Please keep telling other people about it, keep the ministry in your prayers, and please keep tuning in. We'll see you for the next episode.