Scriptural View of Mary

Catholic Pages ^ | Dr. Scott Hahn

[Tax-chick]

LOL! Those are funny.

[Campion]

Jesus said that John the Baptist was greater than any born of women. Mary was born of a woman. Thus, John the Baptist was greater than Mary.

You'd best consider the whole verse: "He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than [John]."

[DungeonMaster]

Well, here we go. What I would like to do now is to begin to change our focus to scripture itself. Of course, the place we have to begin in order to see what the scripture says about the Blessed Virgin Mary is found all the way in the beginning of the Bible. Let's turn to Genesis, chapter 3. There we see the first Eve having been seduced and, I believe, brutally intimidated into a kind of disobedient submission. You can go back and listen to this tape that I think we made two or two-and-a-half days ago about how often we distort what really happened in the temptation narrative, because we don't know how to read Hebrew narrative. There is a literary artistry there at work that's very hard for the Western mind to grasp, understand and appreciate. But I believe, just to sum it up, that Adam was called to be a faithful covenant head in a marital covenant, and he was called to show forth, as the representative of the covenant, the love, the hessed, the loyalty of the covenant to the fullest degree. And, as our Lord says, "Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his beloved."

So, if he is truly going to love his covenant partner in marriage, he has to be willing to lay his life down. Now, how does God, the Father, test his son's loyalty and love? Well, that's what the serpent is there for. The serpent, nahash in Hebrew is, I believe, misunderstood to be a snake. Medieval art work, and this has been carried on into the modern tradition where you have Eve depicted as some dumb, perhaps blonde, but some dumb air-head who just basically is tricked by some little snake, hanging from a branch in a tree, to eat the apple. All right, and so all men just kind of sit back and say, "Yeah, it's still the same way." And they congratulate themselves on being so worldly wise that they wouldn't be so dumb as this air head.

Total misreading, I believe. This is my own hypothesis. This is my own interpretation. You don't have to abide by it, but my view is that the nahash, the serpent is deliberately depicted as a kind of, I'd say mythical figure but I don't want to deny the historicity of this text. It's just that Hebrew historical narrative can often use mythical imagery to communicate historical truth. In Daniel 7, I mentioned four gentile kingdoms are described as being "four beasts." So, I believe, here we have the serpent as a kind of dragon. The word is used and used and used in Hebrew to connote or denotes a dragon figure like Leviathan or Banmuth or Rehab, the monster later than Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament. In Revelation 12:9 in the New Testament confirms this translation of nahash, not as serpent/snake, but as serpent/dragon, because there Satan is described as the "ancient serpent" and then it goes on to describe a seven-headed dragon.

So in his upclose look at scripture about Mary it took him 3 paragraphs to say absolutely nothing, but to sound very intelligent in saying it.

[Salvation]

You haven’t ever taken on Mother Angelica, have you? Believe me, you would lose. LOl!

Read about her on the EWTN website.

[Iscool]

There's going to be room for all sorts of comments directed at falshoods put out by this Scott Hahn...The first one right from the beginning...Scott can't figure out what to do with the serpent, the snake in the Garden of Eden...

The question, then, as you read through this narrative is not based upon anything that is explicitly stated, but rather that which is so conspicuously unstated, and that is, where the heck is Adam in all this? By the end of the narrative you discover that he's right by the woman because she just turns and gives him the fruit to eat; but the question is, where was he all along? This loving covenant head, this loving covenant partner who is to show the great love that he's willing to lay down his life for his beloved? Well, he was probably rationalizing his silence by saying, "Well, if I oppose such a serpentile monster as this, I stand no chance."

Scott Hahn things Adam was afraid of this snake/serpent/dragon...Perhaps Scott should just believe the bible...

Gen 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: ...

Good ole Lucifer wasn't a snake til AFTER he beguiled eve...The fact that he was referred to as a snake in the bible is because the Garden of Eden account was written 1500 years after it took place...

So here we go...

[fwdude]

If Mary has God so wrapped around her little finger, I much prefer venerating the Grandmother of God, Anna, Mary's mother. If you think a parent can spoil a child, man, you haven't had grandparents!!

(Silliness for silliness.)

[fwdude]

I checked out the EWTN site and almost puked from the blasphemy I viewed there. It amazes me when Catholics deny worshiping Mary when all evidence points to the contrary. Consider this "Pray of Consecration to Mary" posted on the site:

O Mary, Virgin most powerful and Mother of mercy, Queen of Heaven and Refuge of sinners, we consecrate ourselves to thine Immaculate Heart.

We consecrate to thee our very being and our whole life; all that we have, all that we love, all that we are. To thee we give our bodies, our hearts and our souls; to thee we give our homes, our families, our country.

If this isn't worship, than the word has no meaning.

Sheer unadulterated blasphemy.

[Pyro7480]

Oh, c’mon! Don’t act like a drama queen.

[fwdude]

How about a Drama Queen of Heaven?

[TASMANIANRED]

bookmarking.

[Salvation]

As I said above, evidently you don’t know much about Mother Angelica. Believe me you would lose if you tried this with her. You lose with God too, because you are ridiculing the Divine Mother of his Holy Son, Jesus Christ.

What will you say to God the Father at the moment of your particular judgment about that? Remember the time you ridiculed my mother?

BTW, particular judgment takes place at the moment you die; I am not talking about the Last Judgment when Christ separates the lambs from the goats.

[Salvation]

The Early Church Fathers on Mary’s Perpetual Virginity - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus

The Early Church Fathers on the Immaculate Conception - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus

The Early Church Fathers on The Mother of God - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus

There are also Biblical references in all the threads linked in this post.

[fwdude]

The Mary you venerate, and whom I rediculed, is not the Mary of Scripture, so I am in no danger of judgement on this count.

[fwdude]

As I said above, evidently you don’t know much about Mother Angelica.

I did watch the short video of "Mother Angelica" tenderly holding and kissing a statue, presumably of Mary. Now, if the statue could kiss back, she might have a point.

[Salvation]

So you are saying that you don’t believe in Scripture, because the Mary in Luke is the Mother of Jesus Christ, true God and True Man. “Hail Mary, full of grace”

You have just incrimated yourself in my eyes. So sorry to hear that you don’t believe in the Book of Luke. (You must not believe in Acts, either, because Luke authored that. Am I correct in that assertion?)

[Salvation]

Did you read any of the scriptural references in those links I gave you? Please do.

[fwdude]

I have read those Scriptural references many times. I still fail to see a Mary immaculately conceived, sinless throughout life, perpetually a virgin, co-redeemer with Christ, Queen of Heaven, bestower of all graces, and Mediatrix between men and Christ. Please provide scriptural references to these extrapolations, preferably from a protestant Bible.

[Quix]

He goes on to talk about how Isaiah . . . then historicizes it with reference to the coming Messiah, as the ritual technical term for an embodiment of a divine mother, who is both a fecund mother, a fruitful mother, as well as a perpetual virgin.

Not so fast, hot shot. Isaiah says nothing of the kind.

I kind of assumed that the great theological arguments from the lofty magicsterical based GRAND ARCHETYPAL SEMINARY OF MM THEOLOGY would be a kind of fun thing to respond to . . . but this is ridiculous.

It appears that we have left of with BRAZEN ASSUMPTIONS, BRAZEN INFERENCES, BRAZEN EXTRAPOLATIONS AND BRAZEN INVENTIONS OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH and made some galactic leaps into fantasized theological postulations from the mystical ethers.

I don't find a shred of a hint in Isatiah that says anything of the kind. The author may as well have referenced that THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL TRETISE:

"THE PERPETUAL PROFUNDITY OF BRIEFLY VIRGINAL VERACITIES FROM THE DAYDREAMS OF THE GREAT SAINTS OF HOLLYWEED" BY HOWDY DOODY, GONZO, GOOFY AND DAFFY DUCK.

Actually, the latter treatise would probably make more sense and have more accurate historicity to it.

The declaration that Isaiah's mention of a virgin to bring forth the Messiah . . . EQUALS . . . perpetual virginity is akin to . . . what . . . from the GREAT SEMINARY OF MM THEOLOGY . . . ? ? ?

Let me think . . . ponder, ponder . . .

1. Yogi Bear Being the archebypal Great Father with Boo-Boo as John the Baptist. Or perhaps . . .

2. Don Quixote as contractor of the Twin Towers with a new assistant--Inspector Clouseau. Or perhaps . . .

3. The great spiritual truths outlined in that magnificently miraculous biography of that galactic love story: SPOCK MARRIES HELLO DOLLY. . . or maybe . . .

4. The perpetual wisdom of Opie, Barney Fife and Roger Rabbit.

Any of the above would have AT LEAST AS MUCH theological historicity as the postulations, wild haired extrapolations and bounced-off-the-moon theological fantasies from the ESTEEMED GRAND ARCHETYPAL SEMINARY OF MONOPOLY MONEY THEOLOGY . . . outlined in the doc originating this thread.

[Salvation]

I already did.

The angel Gabriel greets Mary

Mary, full of grace.

That’s equals someone who is not tarnished with sin. One of the biggest indicators in the Bible of the Immaculate Conception.

Another was in the apparition at Lourdes to Bernadette when Mary claimed she was the “immaculate Conception.”

Bernadette had no idea what she was talking about and was instructed to go tell the local priest or bishop. (I forget which right now.

Have you read anything about that apparition? Mary also tells us to pray for peace.

[Quix]

In fact, you can actually difscover, and I'm going to unpack this a little bit more later on, that in the Ancient world, it was usually the throne for the Queen Mother. For instance, one of the greatest German scholars in his book, Symbolism in the Biblical World, speaks about the great popularity of cherubim thrones, box thrones with cherubim angels over top. It goes on, in Canaan and in Phoenicia during the late Bronze and early Iron Ages, excavators describe it "as a female figure sitting in a square armchair." Odd? Why would these ancient cultures have an ark on which sat this female figure on kind of a throne posture? And why did they also just like Israel often lead that ark out into battle ahead of the troops? Because it was a kind of Queen Mother figure perhaps.

Sounds to me like an OPPOSITE kind of “support” for a QUEEN MOTHER figure. God has HIS people carry around an EMPTY ARK DEVOID OF, ABSENT, EMPTY OF any hint of a QUEEN MOTHER FIGURE—in STARK CONTRAST to the PAGAN customs of the heathens round about. And this is supposed to convince us that the QUEEN MOTHER is . . . BIBLICAL?????

GTTM! ROTFLOL! What a humor break these docs are! What robust laughter they foster. So good for the immune system. . . . Until the gravity of the deception sets in.