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July 20, 2006
Theology and Body News
First the new translation of John Paul II's Theology of the Body has been released by Pauline Media. For those not keeping track:
John Paul II’s The Theology of the Body remains a masterwork of Catholic teaching — an invaluable guide to understanding the spiritual communion of life, love, marriage, and sexuality. But previous editions of the work were based on individual Italian transcriptions of the 129 catecheses the Pope delivered between 1979 and 1984, resulting in many translation inconsistencies, inadvertent omissions, and intentional edits. While they were theologically true and pedagogically helpful, nevertheless these editions lacked the coherence originally conceived by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla.
Pauline Books and Media presents The Theology of the Body: A New Translation Based on the John Paul II Archives, a brand new translation based on a previously unknown version of the text discovered in Vatican Archives by acclaimed biblical scholar Michael M. Waldstein, Th.D. Now, for the first time in 22 years, the true beauty of The Theology of the Body can be appreciated.
In addition, this edition has the subheads which the Pope included, but were not included in the previous editions.
That previous link is to a CD version. There's an mp3 version available for download at a third of the cost of the CD set, here.
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Comments
I love Janet Smith's talk: Contraception, why not. It's just amazing. Every once in a while I listen to it again. Everyone should. She presents the case against contraception so powerfully.
In other news:
http://tinyurl.com/gjrpe
Posted by: BillyHW at Jul 20, 2006 11:45:49 PM
Anyone know what's in teh new version?
Posted by: BillyHW at Jul 20, 2006 11:46:24 PM
If you try to put in the Pauline shopping cart, it says "Being Released September 2006," so the website seems to be some pre-release publicity.
Posted by: Dan of the Holy Whapping at Jul 21, 2006 1:17:42 AM
Have some reviewers mistaken inconsistencies in the translations for inconsistency in the philosophy? I remember somebody, from Commonweal perhaps, making much of a contradiction in terms used across a couple of these audiences.
Posted by: Kevin Jones at Jul 21, 2006 1:19:03 AM
Kevin - I believe the article in Commonweal that you are recalling is this one by Luke Timothy Johnson:
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=200&var_recherche=Luke+Timothy+Johnson
From what I read, I don't think a new translation will appease his critique of the TOB - he's got some pretty fundamental beefs with it.
Posted by: Daniel W at Jul 21, 2006 9:05:13 AM
As a husband just short of his 40th anniversary, I'm glad to see the positive emphasis on sexuality found in the Theology of the Body. It strikes me, however, that the emphasis is to narrow. As any athlete, public speaker, actor, therapist, or artist knows, there is a more to the mind body relationship that just sex. What we need is a spirituality of the body that includes teachings on emotional intelligence, health, communication and a host of other issues. Books such as senior marathoner George Sheehan's "Running and Being" and even Lance Armstrong's story of recovery from cancer have much to teach us.
Posted by: Herb Ely at Jul 21, 2006 9:18:06 AM
Zenit had a 2-part interview (1, 2) with the editor of the new Theology of the Body edition that explains in more detail the reasons for the new translation.
Posted by: Papa-Lu at Jul 21, 2006 9:25:37 AM
There has been a lot of body and incarnation theology put out over two thousand years. The problem is that a lot of it is not available to ordinary people. I think it might be nice for some theology student to put together a book like that -- good quotes put in context with discussions of where the body fits into Christian theology, the fact that soul and body were not originally meant to be enemies, the glorified body, and so on.
And it wouldn't have to be just about life and death issues, either. Work, play, singing as ways of prayer and revelation... what it means that we grow up and grow old, as opposed to staying the same always... athletics images in theology... all that kind of stuff. Somebody could have a lot of fun researching it.
Posted by: Maureen O'Brien at Jul 21, 2006 10:33:15 AM
Herb,
Excellent point. From what I know (I haven't read the actual text of Theology of the Body, but I have read and listened to Christopher West teach about it), it seems that the Holy Father would have been the first to agree with you, and I believe he acknowledges the fact that this is applicable in numerous other ways in his addresses.
It's application to many other areas of our lives (indeed, our entire lives) and not just sexuality is one of the many reasons we will be uncovering and learning from this beautiful teaching for centuries to come.
Posted by: Jeff Ocken at Jul 21, 2006 12:38:44 PM
+J.M.J+
This is great news! When I first tried to read JP2's TOB lectures, I gave up because they were just too dense, too hard to understand. Maybe it was the translation and lack of coherent headings. I ended up reading pre-digested discussions of TOB by guys like Christopher West and Steve Kellmeyer, but I would still like to read JP2's own words, to discern what he said -vs- the elements some of the TOB teachers sometimes add.
In Jesu et Maria,
Posted by: Rosemarie at Jul 21, 2006 3:26:14 PM
+J.M.J+
Oh, and one more thing (from the second Zenit article:)
>>>Of course there are many tributaries to John Paul II's vision of sexuality, but at the very heart of his vision, John Paul II unfolds the implicit theology of marriage in St. John of the Cross
Well, maybe that's another reason I didn't understand it. When I tried to read St. John of the Cross many years ago I became hopelessly confused and had to give up. :-) Though that was about 17 years ago; maybe I should give his writings another chance...?
In Jesu et Maria,
Posted by: Rosemarie at Jul 21, 2006 3:31:45 PM
"I think it might be nice for some theology student to put together a book like that -- good quotes put in context with discussions of where the body fits into Christian theology, the fact that soul and body were not originally meant to be enemies, the glorified body, and so on."
Hasn't Christopher West done just that?
Posted by: Kevin Jones at Jul 21, 2006 3:40:08 PM
"Hasn't Christopher West done just that?"
Well, I wouldn't know. I know more about his talks than his books (which isn't saying much, alas). I've never seen any of his books in a library or bookstore, just online stores. That is not exactly the maximal way to browse.
And yes, I am awfully cheap not to have just gone ahead and bought his books anyway, since everybody says his books are good. But you have no idea how many books are on my list of books to buy sometime... especially since the pile of unread books keeps getting higher....
Posted by: Maureen at Jul 21, 2006 6:22:27 PM
Regarding Luke Timothy Johnson's critique of the Theology of the Body:
Christopher West wrote an article of response to it. you can go to the Theology of the Body web site and click on "articles" to read it.
http://www.theologyofthebody.net/
Posted by: Dim Bulb at Jul 22, 2006 1:00:48 PM
