Biblical Contradictions and more on USC!

Today is the Feast of St. Boniface of Germany, who is half-way the patron of this blog. I say half-way because my profile picture is actually of Pope Boniface VIII, not St. Boniface, and the blog title "Unam Sanctam" is a reference to the famous 1302 Bull of Pope Boniface VIII. But, since Dante put Boniface VIII in hell, I like to hedge my bets and claim St. Boniface as my co-patron.

I have been very busy lately, but have managed to get a few great articles posted over on the new website. I would especially like to draw attention to a post on alleged Contradictions in the New Testament that I worked for a long time on, and you will see why when you read it. I have made it a point over the years to address concerns about alleged contradictions of discrepancies in the Bible; whether synthesizing Resurrection appearances, dealing with the problem of genocide in the Book of Joshua, or whatever. I have noticed that it is a given among atheists and skeptics that the Bible is "full of contradictions", which is something I have always taken umbrage at, since in 19 years of intensive Bible study I have never run across what I consider to be a true contradiction. Well, earlier this week in a conversation with a friend about the uniqueness of the mediatorship of Jesus Christ, some smarmy skeptic posted some link to a site that claimed to find "194 Contradictions in the New Testament" and I thought, "That's it. I'm taking these down." I spent the next several days refuting every single alleged contradiction; the result is this post. Please share with all your skeptical friends. I will get Part 2 and 3 up when I can.

Here's what else is new:

The Exorcism of Nicola Aubrey: An exorcism of 29 demons out of a young girl in 16th century France proves the reality of our Lord's Presence in the Eucharist and converts scores of Protestants.

Dulling Disparity: A survey of how various cultures in the western tradition have attempted to deal with the problem of wealth disparity by cultural or legal structures that entrust the care of certain projects or individuals to the rich.

Contributions of the Cluniacs: Four important ways the Cluniac movement shaped the medieval Church and civilization.

Evaluating Private Apparitions: In an age when people are following absurd private apparitions of anonymous "prophets" on the internet, here is some sanity on how we are to judge whether a given private apparition has any legitimacy.

Can a priest and people 'dialogue' during a homily? Latest liturgical quod libet on an irritating modern trend.

"For the sake of our salvation": Revisiting the controversial passage in Dei Verbum 11 in the context of the reflections of Cardinal Bea (who actually wrote the document) proving that the Council Fathers intended the text to be interpreted in continuity with previous statements from Pius X, Leo XIII, etc.

St. Triduana (sancti obscuri)
Like Stars on Earth (movie review)

Also, in case you have not seen it or haven't had time to check it out, I have edited a book of St. Cyprian's writings for Arx Publishing, now available on the Arx website as well as on Amazon. The book is a complete compilation of all of Cyprian's works in English with apologetical footnotes (as opposed to the anti-Catholic footnotes in the Ante-Nicene Fathers). The introduction to the book was written by none other than Ryan Grant, formerly of Athanasius Contra Mundum.

Thank you for your continued patronage of this blog and website.