Inexhaustible invitation to meditation

Coincidence? No doubt, but when the Church makes its voice heard on a topic of quite spiny company, which is rare enough to be noted Benedict XVI publishes what he has himself as a "front door" to his two previous books.

The pope, obviously outstanding theologian, reflects on the childhood of Jesus as we are told by Luke and Matthew. Building on many of yesterday and today's scholars (mainly French and German): "Part of lexégèse lhumilité just precisely meet this size, together with its requirements, often beyond us, and not to reduce Jesus' words the question about what we can believe him capable, "writes in conclusion, following a long development on the episode of Jesus in the temple, the most holy father, placing de facto in a posture of humility over the texts warning us against the "modern critical exegesis," which might tend to regard as naive or under linvention certain particulars of the scripture. It is the faith of each appeal that Benedict XVI made throughout this book.

Uninhibited, Benedict XVI would even ask the dune myth or historical truth concerning Mary's virginity, concluding that it is manifest that God works not only in the spiritual sphere the ideas and thoughts but also in the material sphere. On this subject he rejects, current theories linking this passage to ancient stories of the Egyptian pharaohs. Sure it will shock the "modern mind", it nevertheless recognizes that there is a certain difference between "real" and other passages "symbolic". Thus the Pope confirms in this text, the inaccuracy of Jesus' birth date now universally celebrated "the beginning of our time calculation -the determination of the birth of Jesus goes back to the monk Dionysius Exiguus (died 550 ), which in his calculations was clearly wrong a few years. The historical date of Jesus' birth is to set a few years ago. "

According to Father Federico Lombardi, the Holy See spokesman, "everyone is free to contradict" the book that Joseph Ratzinger did not write as pope, but as a theologian. So everyone will also draw the answers he wants to questions daily believer of his life.

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