Pelosi’s new Old Testament Posted by: McQ
on Friday, April 25, 2008
I've heard of people making up quotes (or using quotes that were later found to be fakes) from other politicians of some fame, but few politicians attempt to make up Bible verses and think they can get away with it.
Biblical scholars are challenging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's continued use of what she characterizes as a Bible verse to support her push for global warming legislation.
Pelosi said in her Earth Day press release Tuesday, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' "
She has quoted the same passage on several other occasions. But Cybercast News reports several experts say the passage does not exist and does not appear to be a paraphrase of something similar.
Claude Mariottini, professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Theologial Seminary, calls it "fictional," saying, "It is not in the Bible. There is nothing that even approximates that."
Rev. Andreas Hock from St. John Vianney Seminary says, "The quote does not exist in the Old Testament, neither in the New Testament. Even in pieces or bits, [it] cannot be found in the Old Testament."
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she really thinks this is a Bible verse. And I have to wonder why a competent staffer wouldn't have checked it out (not that hard, find an on-line bible and do a search) before she used it - repeatedly.
Of course, if she wanted to use a real Bible verse, there are certainly many in the Bible which speak about good stewardship.
But that wasn't Pelosi's angle here - she wanted to lay some "dishonor" on some people. Not just regular old dishonor, but holy dishonor. She wanted them to understand that not only were they politically not with it, but they were dishonoring God by not jumping on the global warming legislation bandwagon. Some might even say she was attempting to politicize religion and use it in the global warming fight.
Instead we have Speaker's office strangely silent about objections to her "Bible quote".
Just a suggestion - she might want to consider going back to her regular secular attacks, which, while normally as unconvincing as this one, at least don't demonstrate the good little Catholic girl's abject ignorance of her own religion.
It’s in HER bible, right next tot he parts that explain that even though you are in direct conflict witht he DOCTRINE of the Chhurch in in contravention of it’s teachings, you can receive Communion AND you’re still "Catholic."
She has her own copy of the Constitution too, the Second Amenement is blacked out....
I don’t recall the Old Testament being big in my Catholic upbringing, neither in a parochial school, or in the church itself. I can’t think once hearing about Abraham, or Solomon’s temple, or Exodus, or Joshua, or Jericho, or any of that. Maybe they were teaching Old Testament when she was learning to be a True Catholic.
New Testament...yeah, we were all over that.
Now, the bit about dishonoring God...I think that bit WAS in one of the recent publications linked to here to demonstrate why people who are not in a state of grace are not to take communion.
I’ve noticed an odd tendency for leftist Catholics to be (partially and/or selectively) ignorant about the requirements of Mother Church (or the contents of the Bible).
For instance, one recently claimed to me that the Bible’s hostility towards homosexual activity was introduced by the King James Bible. Oddly, said Catholic was unable to explain the Church’s position based on that belief, or explain why the Talmud also agreed with this supposed innovation of the Protestants.
Said leftist Catholic also considered it an insult to the Church to point out that the Church believes Christianity [if not specifically Catholicism] to be the correct religion, and all others incorrect. This is odd, since a) it’s absolutely true that the Church holds this position, b) it logically follows from the basic tenets of the faith and similarly c) it’s not an insult.
When your claims about Church dogma and positions boil down to "it’s what I believe" and "it’s what my local priest said", and they contradict the Catechism, Canon Law, and/or Encyclicals, that’s when you’re not talking about the Church, but some weird personal belief or a plainly incorrect priest.
(Said leftist Catholic, of course, is also in favor of abortion rights, the Church be damned on the matter.)
I having a hard time believing, in this day of google and the innertubes, why public figures are stupid enough to think they can float this past everyone. To take a cynical step further, do they know it’s a whopper and just plan on blaming KKKarlRove if they’re called on it? Let the nutroots do the rest?
They grew up in a time when you could sling anything you wanted at the public and it took time to verify and even more time to spread around that you were full of it to your eyeballs, assuming the media would allow that.
Just because they live in the same time frame as the net doesn’t mean they really understand it’s actual significance to information retrieval and dissemination.
What used to take an evening in the library now takes less than 5 minutes to Goggle. You think people like her spend any real time web surfing and getting an understanding of it’s power firsthand?
And some of them still quite haven’t understood the impact the net can have on them. In her case, I’d blame arrogance, she’s not stupid.
Render unto Caesar, that which belongs to Caesar, so that he may distribute it evenly amongst your comrades. If thou do not, thou shall be imprisoned by secret police.
Remember Barbara Streisand and her pseudo-Shakespeare? I figured at the time it was just a minder playing a little joke on Her Ladyship that got out of hand, but maybe it’s more a lefty behavior pattern of argumentation. Let’s see, not exactly the "Appeal to Authority," since you’re actually making it up ...
I hate to be "that guy", but the Catholic bible DOES have a few books that the ones we heathen Protestants use doesn’t have... Are we SURE it isn’t in one of those?
This reminds me of something my sister did when she was little. One day she was playing over at the house of a non-Mormon girl (we are Mormons) and the girl’s mother happened to overhear my sister saying "The Book of Mormon says..." so she listened in to hear what the Book of Mormon Says. My sister went on: "The Book of Mormon says, treat each other nice, and take your muddy boots off before you go into the house!" (The actual quote is "no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom," but to a kid that means take off your muddy boots.)
My sister had a single-digit age though. What’s Nancy’s excuse?
