'JESUS OF NAZARETH', Vol. 3:
Foreword by the Holy Father
Translated from
October 9, 2012
In connection with its participation in the annual Frankfurt Book Fair this month, the Vatican Publishing House LEV, has released the Foreword and some brief excerpts to the third book that completes Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's trilogy on JESUS OF NAZARETH. Here are translations of the Foreword and the excerpts.
FOREWORD
Finally, I can turn over to the reader the small book I promised some time ago on the stories about the childhood of Jesus.
It is not really a third volume, but a kind of small 'entrance room' to the two earlier volumes on the figure and message of Jesus of Nazareth.
Here I have sought to interpret, in a dialog with exegetes of the past and the present, what Matthew and Luke recount at the start of their Gospels, about the childhood of Jesus.
I believe that a correct interpretation requires two steps.
On the one hand, one must ask what the respective authors meant in their respective texts, at the historical moment in which they were written - this is the historical component of exegesis.
But one cannot just leave the text in the past, archiving it among events that happened a long time ago.
The second question for correct exegesis must be: Is what the text says true? Does it concern me? If it does, how does it do so?
In confronting a Biblical text, whose ultimate and most profound author, according to our faith, is God himself, the question about the relationship of the past to the present is an indispensable part of of our interpretation. With it, the seriousness of historical research is not diminished but augmented.
I took it upon myself to enter into a dialog with the texts in this sense.
I am well aware that this colloquium at the intersection of past, present and future can never be completed, and that every interpretation will be deficient compared to the grandeur of the Biblical text.
I hope that this small book, despite its limitations, may help many persons in their journey towards Jesus and with him.
Castel Gandolfo
Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary to Heaven
August 15, 2012
Joseph Ratzinger – BENEDETTO XVI
JON-3: 2 brief excerpts
(…) Jesus was born at a time that can be determined with precision.
At the start of his account of the public ministry of Jesus, Luke offers yet again a detailed and careful dating of that historical moment: It was the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. He also mentions the Roman governor of Palestine that year, and the tetrarchs of Galilee, Iturea, Traconitis and Abliene, as well as the high priests [in Jerusalem] at the time (cfr Lk 3,1ff).
Jesus was not born and then appeared in public in the imprecise 'once upon a time' of legend. He belongs to a time that is precisely datable and in a geographical setting that is precisely indicated: thus, the universal and the concrete are reciprocally in contact.
In him, the Logos, the creative Reason of all things, entered the world. The eternal Logos became man, of which time and place are part of the context.
Our faith is anchored to this concrete reality, even if later, by virtue of the Resurrection, temporal and geographical space are superseded, and "going before (the Apostles) to Galilee" (Mt 28.7) on the part of the Lord would bring him to the open vastness of all mankind (cfr. Mt 28,16ss)...
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(…) Mary wrapped the baby in swaddling cloths. Without any sentimentalism, we can imagine with what love Mary looked forward to her time (to deliver) and how she would have prepared for the birth of her son.
The tradition of icons, based on the theology of the Fathers of the Church, has interpreted the manger and the swaddling cloths theologically.
The baby tightly wrapped in swaddling cloths seems like an anticipation of his death: From the very beginning, he was the Immolation (the Sacrifice), as we can see in even greater detail if we reflect on the words regarding the firstborn. And thus, the manger is seen to represent a kind of altar.
Augustine interpreted the significance of the manger with a thought which initially appears almost inconvenient, but when more closely examined, contains a profound truth: The manger is a container from which animals feed. But now, there lies in the manger he who would describe himself as the True Bread descended from heaven - the true nourishment that man needs for his very being as a human. He is the nourishment that gives man true life, eternal life.
In this way, the manger becomes a reference to the banquet of God to which man has been invited in order to receive the bread of God. The poverty of Jesus's birth delineates in a mysterious way the great reality by which the redemption of man takes place...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/10/2012 17:04]