Perhaps you've heard some of the hubbub over a document being called "The Gospel of Jesus' Wife." Well, I say "document," when it's a scrap of parchment showing fragments of sentences, one of which contains the phrase "Jesus said, 'My wife....'" But from the dramatic news headlines and the sheer volume of attention this find has received, you'd think someone had found an autographed picture of the Messiah and the Mrs. on vacation. You'd think we'd have learned before, from reports on comments made by the pope to pretty much everything blogged about at GetReligion, that newspapers aren't the best source for clarity and insight when it comes to things religious, but it appears we have one more lesson. Let's take a look at an example article and strain out the assumptions, hyperbole, and leaps of logic so that we can get something of a clear idea of just what it is we're dealing with.
This article from the Boston Globe is headlined "No evidence of modern forgery in ancient text mentioning 'Jesus' wife.'" The lead reads:
New scientific tests have turned up no evidence of modern forgery in a text written on ancient Egyptian papyrus that refers to Jesus as being married, according to a long-awaited article to be published Thursday in the Harvard Theological Review.
Already in the headline, and here in the first sentence, we have a problem. The smidgeon of text we have does not posit that Jesus had a wife. Jesus begins a sentence saying, "My wife...." How does that sentence end? It very well could end, "My wife is the one who follows my teaching." Think of Matthew 12:50: "Whoever does the will of my Father is my brother and my sister and my mother." So, first problem: people are inferring too much from these four words.
Second problem: the article calls the text "ancient." But dating the text precisely is difficult, and very problematic. One carbon-dating test put it in the 4th century BC, leading to the apparently miraculous conclusion that a text recording Jesus' words was written 300 years before he lived; another carbon-dating test placed its origins in the 8th century AD, 800 years after Christ lived. You could just as well call the 700s AD "medieval" as "ancient"--it's right on the borderline. So calling it "ancient" (or assigning any time value to it at all) is a tad misleading.
Third problem: the article calls the text "authentic." If by "authentic" they mean it isn't a modern forgery, that may be an acceptable usage of the term, provided that's true. But many people will read "authentic" to mean "telling us something really true about Jesus." I may have an "authentic" (meaning "not forged") text of Harry Turtledove's book The Guns of the South, which imagines a time traveler coming to the Confederacy and giving Robert E. Lee automatic weapons; but that doesn't mean that the text has any relation to reality. There were all kinds of false gospels written in the early centuries, like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas, that made up all sorts of stories about Jesus--think of them as "Jesus fan fiction." And those false gospels were a lot older than this thing appears to be. This text, even if it's not forged, could just as well be one of them.
"Ah," you say, "but it's an ancient text. It was written close to the time of Jesus! It must be telling us something true!"
You mean "ancient" as in 700 years after Christ lived? That's like saying I have an "ancient" copy of St. Thomas' Summa Theologica because my copy was printed last week--it's only 700 years older than the original!
And even assuming that this text was written much closer to the time of Jesus, that just makes it old fan fiction. There's no attestation to this idea from any other authority or tradition in Christianity. You would think if this were true, and since it would be a fairly important or interesting piece of information about the life of Our Lord, somebody somewhere, and indeed, everybody everywhere, would have remembered it. If your cousin says, "Hey, wasn't Uncle Jack married?" and everybody said, "I never heard anything mentioned about a wife of his," you'd conclude, "Oh, then he must not have been, because surely someone would remember that Uncle Jack had a spouse."
Don't let the headlines and the hype mislead you. There's no reason to believe that this bit of paper tells us anything actual factual about the life of Jesus. It's probably the equivalent of stories written in online forums in which fans write that Han Solo is really the secret eldest son of Anakin Skywalker--it may have been written down somewhere by someone, but it's not canon.
Showing posts with label GetReligion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GetReligion. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Why the Press Doesn't Get the Pope
Once upon a time, in the halcyon days of my undergraduate education, I majored in journalism. Well, technically speaking, I majored in Communication Studies with an emphasis in journalism, but the point is that which my courses were directed toward was a formation and education in the journalistic art. I entered college wanting to be a sports writer, so I took classes called Writing & Reporting, Public Affairs Reporting, Communication History (which was basically a history of newspapers), and so forth. This is pertinent only to establish my credibility for the topic at hand: when I talk about journalistic mindsets and practices, I know a little of what I speak.
The media hubbub in the last few days over Pope Francis' comments to reporters while flying back from World Youth Day has demonstrated once again that, by and large, the news media knows about as much about religion as I do about internal combustion engines: that is, not much. Why is this? I can think of a few reasons.
First, journalists are primarily educated in the field of public events reporting. Anything that involves a basic who-what-when-where-why-how breakdown, they can do pretty well: "two people were injured on Mulberry Street Thursday morning in a freak gardening accident that has some questioning the practice of marketing chainsaws as lawn trimmers," and so forth. Easy enough. Anything that requires a little specialized knowledge usually requires a specialty reporter: our science correspondent, our sports reporter, etc. But news bureaus are getting smaller these days, meaning that specialty topics are being covered by non-specialists. This seems to be most true with religion reporting (or perhaps just appears to be so to me because it's something I know a little about), and the result is often pretty shoddy. The website GetReligion is dedicated to bringing to light these sorts of poorly told tales and is filled with examples of reporters misrepresenting the most basic of Christian beliefs (the best are always at Christmas and Easter, when reporters try to explain what mysteries are being celebrated--it would be hilarious if it weren't so sad)--never mind the subtleties and nuances of, say, moral theology or sexual ethics, or the all-important distinction between the sinner and the sin. They often just plain don't know what they're talking about.
This leads to our second point. Before they might gain a specialty (assuming they aren't a specialist-turned-journalist), usually most reporters are encouraged to be well-versed enough in politics to enable them to report on the important events of the day, so that political reporting becomes less a specialty than a standard modus operandi for the reporter. And because most reporters are trained in politics, they tend to see every story as a political story, a story about groups struggling for power or influence. Look at the reporting on global warming, for example: it's much less about any of the science involved and much more about various political pressure groups or international scientific bodies vying for the nation's attention. Too often, it's the same with religious reporting.
Reporters tend to view religious groups, such as the Catholic Church, solely as political organizations that have "policies" and "agendas" and do "messaging"; they definitely do not view the Church as the organized body of believers in Jesus Christ, convened under the headship of Peter among us, preaching the Gospel and teaching the truth for the salvation of souls. (Though to play devil's advocate for a moment, the Church does have a bureaucratic structure and does, in fine Italian fashion, have in-fighting between various offices at times, so the press can't be entirely blamed for treating it like any other organization on occasion.)
To the point: when Pope Francis makes comments on the Church's pastoral responsibility toward homosexual persons, on the importance of distinguishing the sin from the sinner, on the reality of the forgiveness of sins and the duty to recognize that fact in people's lives, he is simply expressing, as a true shepherd of his sheep, what the Church's Magisterium says in a dozen other places. But because most of these reporters 1) do not know the Church's teaching on this topic and think the Church "hates gays or something," and 2) see everything through a political lens, they start reporting that the pope "may have signaled a shift in tone" or "may be setting up a change in policy," etc., as though he were a senator "pivoting" on an issue to gain a few points in the polls. But of course, it was nothing of the kind.
So, guys, a few helpful hints here. First, learn your facts: when given an assignment on a religious story, do your homework, read up on the issues and doctrines involved, and don't always go to the same three dissident priests for quotes. Second, stop thinking everyone is a political schemer grasping for power; you'll sleep much better at night when you realize not everyone is out to get what they can for themselves.
You have a responsibility to the public: you provide the data from which people in this free republic shape their conclusions. The least you can do is give them accurate info.
The media hubbub in the last few days over Pope Francis' comments to reporters while flying back from World Youth Day has demonstrated once again that, by and large, the news media knows about as much about religion as I do about internal combustion engines: that is, not much. Why is this? I can think of a few reasons.
First, journalists are primarily educated in the field of public events reporting. Anything that involves a basic who-what-when-where-why-how breakdown, they can do pretty well: "two people were injured on Mulberry Street Thursday morning in a freak gardening accident that has some questioning the practice of marketing chainsaws as lawn trimmers," and so forth. Easy enough. Anything that requires a little specialized knowledge usually requires a specialty reporter: our science correspondent, our sports reporter, etc. But news bureaus are getting smaller these days, meaning that specialty topics are being covered by non-specialists. This seems to be most true with religion reporting (or perhaps just appears to be so to me because it's something I know a little about), and the result is often pretty shoddy. The website GetReligion is dedicated to bringing to light these sorts of poorly told tales and is filled with examples of reporters misrepresenting the most basic of Christian beliefs (the best are always at Christmas and Easter, when reporters try to explain what mysteries are being celebrated--it would be hilarious if it weren't so sad)--never mind the subtleties and nuances of, say, moral theology or sexual ethics, or the all-important distinction between the sinner and the sin. They often just plain don't know what they're talking about.
This leads to our second point. Before they might gain a specialty (assuming they aren't a specialist-turned-journalist), usually most reporters are encouraged to be well-versed enough in politics to enable them to report on the important events of the day, so that political reporting becomes less a specialty than a standard modus operandi for the reporter. And because most reporters are trained in politics, they tend to see every story as a political story, a story about groups struggling for power or influence. Look at the reporting on global warming, for example: it's much less about any of the science involved and much more about various political pressure groups or international scientific bodies vying for the nation's attention. Too often, it's the same with religious reporting.
Reporters tend to view religious groups, such as the Catholic Church, solely as political organizations that have "policies" and "agendas" and do "messaging"; they definitely do not view the Church as the organized body of believers in Jesus Christ, convened under the headship of Peter among us, preaching the Gospel and teaching the truth for the salvation of souls. (Though to play devil's advocate for a moment, the Church does have a bureaucratic structure and does, in fine Italian fashion, have in-fighting between various offices at times, so the press can't be entirely blamed for treating it like any other organization on occasion.)
To the point: when Pope Francis makes comments on the Church's pastoral responsibility toward homosexual persons, on the importance of distinguishing the sin from the sinner, on the reality of the forgiveness of sins and the duty to recognize that fact in people's lives, he is simply expressing, as a true shepherd of his sheep, what the Church's Magisterium says in a dozen other places. But because most of these reporters 1) do not know the Church's teaching on this topic and think the Church "hates gays or something," and 2) see everything through a political lens, they start reporting that the pope "may have signaled a shift in tone" or "may be setting up a change in policy," etc., as though he were a senator "pivoting" on an issue to gain a few points in the polls. But of course, it was nothing of the kind.
So, guys, a few helpful hints here. First, learn your facts: when given an assignment on a religious story, do your homework, read up on the issues and doctrines involved, and don't always go to the same three dissident priests for quotes. Second, stop thinking everyone is a political schemer grasping for power; you'll sleep much better at night when you realize not everyone is out to get what they can for themselves.
You have a responsibility to the public: you provide the data from which people in this free republic shape their conclusions. The least you can do is give them accurate info.
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