Lucas Banzoli is a very active Brazilian anti-Catholic polemicist, who holds to basically a Seventh-Day Adventist theology, whereby there is no such thing as a soul that consciously exists outside of a body, and no hell (soul sleep and annihilationism). This leads him to a Christology which is deficient and heterodox in terms of Christ’s human nature after His death. He has a Master’s degree in theology, a degree and postgraduate work in history, a license in letters, and is a history teacher, author of 25 books, as well as blogmaster (but now inactive) for six blogs. He’s active on YouTube.
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The words of Lucas Banzoli will be in blue. I used Google Translate to transfer his Portugese text into English.
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This is a reply to Lucas’ article, “Quando a descrição vira prescrição e a exceção vira a regra, a heresia é certa” [When description becomes prescription and the exception becomes the rule, heresy is certain] (6-23-18).
I take this opportunity to address the only text in the entire Bible frequently used by Catholic apologists to base their doctrine around the cult of relics, which is the famous text on bones, from Elisha:
“Once, while some Israelites were burying a man, they suddenly saw one of these troops; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb and fled. As soon as the corpse touched Elisha’s bones, the man came back to life and got up” (2 Kings 13:21)
It’s not the only biblical text used to defend relics, by any means (I will cite many more in this reply), but I agree it is the most frequently used.
Catholic apologists look at this text and say, “See? Man was resurrected because of Elisha’s bones. Then our doctrine of relics is proved!”
It’s more subtle and nuanced than that. What the story does is offer concrete evidence of the primary underlying premise of the doctrine of relics: “inanimate objects can be used by God to convey grace, or salvation, or healing, etc.” The story of Elisha’s bones undeniably supports that premise. It’s in the inspired revelation of the Bible for a reason. Does Lucas think that God wills material in the Bible that is purely extraneous and of no relevance to our instruction? Really? An omniscient God would do (or allow) that? I don’t think so.
If it seems to you at first that the argument is bad, congratulations, you are right: it is really bad.
I don’t see how it is “bad” at all, once one understands the actual reasoning being employed (which Lucas seems not to grasp).
First, because the text does not say that Elisha performed the miracle.
That’s irrelevant to what we can learn from it, as I have already explained. It’s inanimate matter which is in play here, not Elisha’s intentions (he being dead at the time).
The Old Testament Jewish doctrine of death did not even contemplate a conscious world where the prophet could be alive and performing miracles in a world “beyond” (Ps 6:5; 94:17; 146:4; Eccl 9:5; 9: 10; Isa 38:18-19). “Abraham does not know us” (Is 63:16), Isaiah already said, and presumably Elisha did not either.
This is Lucas’ false and heretical doctrine of soul sleep, which is rejected by virtually all Protestants, as well as all Catholicism and Orthodoxy. I disposed of it in a 2007 article, and it included analysis of Lucas’ supposed “prooftexts” Ecclesiastes 9:5 and Psalm 146:4. The prophet Samuel was certainly still conscious, because he appeared to King Saul and correctly foretold his death the next day (1 San 28:12-19). As for Abraham, Jesus noted that he was quite alive, in His story about Sheol / Hades (Luke 16:19-31). The “mighty chiefs” in Sheol speak and thus are conscious:
Ezekiel 32:20-21 They shall fall amid those who are slain by the sword, and with her shall lie all her multitudes. [21] The mighty chiefs shall speak of them, with their helpers, out of the midst of Sheol: ‘They have come down, they lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.’
Isaiah 63: 16 in context has nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham being conscious or not (see Protestant commentaries on the passage). So, nice try but no cigar . . .
And nowhere in the text does it say that the prophet’s “spirit” or his intercession were responsible for the resurrection.
It doesn’t have to. That’s not the Catholic understanding of relics or how we understand this passage at all. It’s simply more Protestant misunderstanding.
“Oh, but if God wanted to heal through Elisha’s bones on that occasion, then that’s a doctrine and period!” This is the main point of this article. We must not confuse description with prescription , which is the most primary error in hermeneutics. I’ve already talked about this a lot in my book “Exegesis of Difficult Texts of the Bible” (available on the books page ), but it’s worth repeating a bit here. A description is something that the biblical writer is just describing, not imposing as a rule or doctrine on everyone else.
The biggest alleged prooftext for sola Scriptura, inevitably trotted out by Protestants, is this one:
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (RSV) All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [17] that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
This doesn’t prove sola Scriptura in the slightest, but it does absolutely prove that 2 Kings 13:21, as part of inspired Scripture, is “profitable for teaching.” “All” means “all”. If “All scripture is . . . profitable for teaching” then it inexorably follows from logic that 2 Kings 13:21 (and other similar evidences for a theology of relics) is “profitable for teaching”. I didn’t make either the Bible or logic what they are. I’m just reporting the facts and using my brain to think.
Whether this passage is descriptive or prescriptive (a distinction itself not spelled out in the Bible, as far as I know, and we don’t see Lucas attempting to prove that) it still reports the fact that a man came to life after coming into contact with a dead holy man’s bones. That is an occurrence worth pondering. God was communicating something to us through this, which is why it is included in Holy Scripture, by His providence and will. Nothing God does is meaningless. Therefore, His inspiring 2 Kings 3:21 has a reason. Does Lucas wish to argue the contrary?
As Hebrews 4:12 states: “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword . . .” The writer of Psalms 119 understood this some 3,000 years ago: “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (119:5); “The sum of thy word is truth” (119:60). Jesus Himself said, as recorded in John 17:17: “thy word is truth.”
Who is the one exhibiting more reverence and respect towards all of Scripture here: myself (and Catholics en masse, in this instance) or Lucas?
For example, when the Bible insinuates that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering ( see here), she is not imposing this as a doctrine. She is not saying that all fathers must sacrifice their daughters, nor that it pleases the Lord. She is just narrating an event, in the same way that she narrates David’s sins and Peter’s denials, without setting it as an example or a rule.
If the Bible / particular Bible writer regards something as immoral, it is certainly noted as such. I wrote about this incident in 2009. There is no hint of the approval of God in this passage. Just because a man does something, it’s not a given that God wanted him to do it. According to orthodox Jewish religion, under the Mosaic Law, human sacrifice was strictly forbidden (Dt 12:31; Lev 18:21; 20:2-3; many other passages implying the same: see my article).
It’s simply a matter of a man sinning and not knowing what was right and wrong in this instance. Jephthah was half-Canaanite (Jud 11:1), and so he was influenced by some tenets of the false Canaanite religion (cf. Ps 106:36-39), as was often the case among the Jews (and one reason why God judged the heathen nations so harshly). He had been living among the heathen, who regularly offered human sacrifice (cf. 2 Kings 3:27), and the law of Moses was fairly unknown and not much practiced. He wrongly assumed that God would be propitiated in the same way as was believed about the Canaanite false gods. The non-approval of the author of Judges shows that he may have regarded this as an instance of what he expressed later in the book:
Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes. (cf. 21:25: identical language)
On the other hand, a prescription is more than just the narration of an event, rather it consists of a rule or principle that applies and imposes itself on readers in a timeless way. For example, when Christ says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39), he is imposing a principle, demanding a standard. The text is not just describing a person who loved someone else, but wants us to love our neighbors ourselves. It is an imperative, like the “go” of Mark 16:15.
That’s fine, but it’s not the only way to teach or direct Christians. For example, Hebrews chapter 11 is the great chapter on the “heroes of the faith.” Their heroic and holy deeds are recounted, but it never says “imitate them” or that they are our examples. There is no command. Nevertheless, the clear intention of the passage is to show us models to imitate. St. Paul does say many times that we ought to imitate him and his companions as a Christian example of conduct. Certainly many other similar examples could be found in the Bible.
The point is that the text of Elisha’s bones, like that of Jephthah’s sacrifice, is clearly a description of an event, not a prescription of a commandment, rule, or ordinance from God to all of us. The text only says that on that particular occasion God wanted to raise the dead in that way, and not that in order to raise someone we must bring him to the bones of dead people.
Technically, that may be correct, but Lucas has not proven to us how the example does not suggest and support the central principle behind relics (to repeat: inanimate objects can be used by God to convey grace, or salvation, or healing, etc.). I could just as easily argue (and will!) that if God didn’t want us lowly, ignorant Catholics to use this passage as a proof for our supposedly wicked, false belief in relics, that God could have either 1) not included it in Holy Scripture, or 2) not brought about the miracle of this man being raised from the dead after coming into contact with a holy man’s bones.
God can do anything! And He would have, I believe, done one of those things, if the doctrine of relics were false and dangerous. But since He didn’t do either, and the passage is in the Bible, it’s altogether reasonable to conclude that it has a purpose and a meaning, and that it is indeed as I and Catholics have described it.
In other words, the text is not establishing any doctrine, any standard, any rule. It is just the description of an isolated fact, which is not repeated anywhere else in the Bible, not even as another description.
Nonsense. Lucas exhibits his “biblical illiteracy.” It’s not isolated at all. There are several other similar passages. We have the mantle of Elijah: an incident described just eleven chapters earlier:
2 Kings 2:13-14 And he [Elisha] took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. [14] Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, ‘Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’ And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other; and Elisha went over.
And we have St. Peter’s shadow:
Acts 5:15-16 . . . they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. [16] The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.
And St. Paul’s “handkerchiefs” and “aprons”:
Acts 19:11-12 And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, [12] so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” (cf. Mt 9:20-22)
Elisha’s bones were a “first-class” relic: from the person himself or herself. These passages, on the other hand, offer examples of “second-class” relics: items that have power because they were connected with a holy person (Elijah’s mantle and even St. Peter’s shadow), and third-class relics: something that has merely touched a holy person or first-class relic (handkerchiefs that had touched St. Paul).
In the Pentateuch, we have a remarkable foreshadowing of relics and specifically of receiving holiness as a result of touching sacred objects:
Exodus 29:37 Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar, and consecrate it, and the altar shall be most holy; whatever touches the altar shall become holy.
Exodus 30:25-29 and you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; a holy anointing oil it shall be. [26] And you shall anoint with it the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, [27] and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, [28] and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the laver and its base; [29] you shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy; whatever touches them will become holy.
Note here that first there is a “holy anointing oil” which is applied to the ark, tabernacle, and related sacred religious items “that they may be most holy.” They in turn impart holiness to all who touch them. If this is not sacramentalism and the underlying principle of relics, nothing is.
God said to Moses about the body of a lamb offered at the temple: “Whatever touches its flesh shall be holy . . .” (Lev 6:27). So now we again have a dead thing (like Elisha’s bones) imparting holiness. How is that any different from Catholic relics? Likewise, the same was said even of the cereal offering (Lev 6:14-18).
Remember, the ark of the covenant had relics in it, too: “a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant [the two tablets of the Ten Commandments]” (Heb 9:4; cf. Ex 16:33-34; Num 17:10; 1 Ki 8:9; 2 Chr 5:10). The manna (a type of food produced by God to feed the wandering post-Exodus Jews) was biological, so presumably it had to be supernaturally preserved if it lasted very long. Again, the parallels to relics and the practices and principles connected to them is very clear.
God specifically said that He would “meet” people in conjunction with the ark (specifically, the mercy seat on top of it: see Ex 25:22; 30:6; Lev 16:2; cf. 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Ki 19:15; 1 Chr 13:6; Ps 80:1; 99:1; Is 37:16; Ezek 10:4; Heb 9:5).
Accordingly, it was thought that holy things (the temple and the ark of the covenant) gave special power and efficacy to prayers. For this reason, the Jews worshiped “toward the temple” (Ps 5:7; cf. 99:9; 134:2; 138:2; Is 27:13). King Solomon prayed before the sacred altar: both standing and kneeling (1 Ki 8:22-23; cf. 8:54 [kneeling]; 2 Chr 6:12-14; the Jews swore oaths by the altar in the temple: 2 Chr 6:22). The prophet Daniel prayed to and thanked God in the direction of Jerusalem, three times a day, even from Babylon (Dan 6:10; cf. 1 Ki 8:44, 48; 2 Chr 6:20-21, 26-27, 29-30, 32-34, 38). The Israelites bowed down before the temple, while they worshiped and praised and thanked God (2 Chr 7:3; cf. Ps 138:2). Joshua did the same before the ark of the covenant (Josh 7:6). Levites talked to God before the ark as well (Dt 10:8; cf. 1 Ki 3:15; 8:5; 1 Chr 16:4; 2 Chr 5:6).
So how — in light of all of the above — can there possibly be an objection to praying in conjunction with relics? The principle is precisely the same as what we have in the Bible, as far as I can see.
And speaking of an isolated fact, it is important to emphasize this aspect, because those who “twist the Scriptures” (2Pe 3:16)
. . . like Lucas did above in defending his heretical notion of soul sleep with Bible texts eisegeted and butchered . . .
love to appeal to exceptions to vindicate a rule. They do this all the time. There are neo-Pentecostals who use a descriptive and isolated text where people were healed with Paul’s handkerchiefs and aprons (Acts 19:12) to substantiate as a doctrine that it is only necessary to bring handkerchiefs and aprons to the “bishop” x or the “apostle” and that people will always be healed.
First of all, it’s there for a reason, as argued above. It validates the principle behind relics, and that is its purpose. It’s purpose is not to teach that every attempted healing must have a handkerchief or apron. The practice Lucas describes above is a twisting of the passage anyway. The point is not the handkerchief or aprons themselves but rather, who they were in contact with (a holy person and great saint). But that is a silly brand of Protestants doing this practice, not Catholics. And they do it because they fundamentally misunderstand both the passage and the principle, whereas educated Catholics do neither.
It’s also a false doctrine, of course, to say that God always heals everyone just for the asking, or if enough faith is shown. I refuted that error from the Bible, way back in 1982, a year after I started doing apologetics; when I was a charismatic Protestant.
There are neo-atheists who appropriate isolated and distorted texts from Leviticus talking about not cutting the ends of the beard (Leviticus 19:27) and about not wearing clothes of different fabrics (Leviticus 19:19) to demand such a thing as a rule for the current Christians or accuse us of being “hypocrites” for not following this.
That has nothing to do with our topic, but is a question of how the Mosaic Law applies to non-Jews today. That was settled at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) which made its decree in conjunction with the Holy Spirit. The decree was binding on Christians wherever they were (see Paul agreeing to that in Acts 16:4). So we have an infallible, Holy Spirit-guided council making binding decrees, which is expressly in contradiction to sola Scriptura, which denies that anything but Scripture is infallible.
And in the same way, there are Catholics who take the text of Elisha to support the doctrine of the cult of relics, even though the text does not even speak of worship.
That’s beside the point again. It upholds the principle involved, and we do not worship anyone but God. We venerate holy people, angels, and things.
In the article, Bruno gives us other biblical examples:
Jesus, for example, healed a blind man using clay. Naaman was healed by diving into the Jordan River. The fact that God used such means does not imply that the Jordan River or the mud is a special channel of grace to be regularly resorted to. The fact that God uses a specific medium for a miracle does not make that medium itself possess any supernatural power.
This is what Catholic apologists don’t understand, or pretend not to understand so they can go on inventing ridiculous pretexts to support their false doctrines.
Bruno makes a correct point. What is wrong and wrongheaded is Lucas then claiming that Catholics (even we despised apologists!) don’t “understand” the point he made. All that these examples prove is the principle of relics. I’ll repeat it again for the third time, so that even Lucas can grasp it: “inanimate objects can be used by God to convey grace, or salvation, or healing, etc.”
The case of Elisha’s bones was as “doctrinal” as Christ’s spit to heal the blind, which no one uses to support doctrine these days (thankfully).
We would mention that as yet another example that God uses matter to convey grace (the incarnation itself and the crucifixion were examples of this). The question is: why did Jesus do that when all He had to do was declare a healing? He did so because it was one of many examples of the sacramental principle behind relics. Once again, we think all Scripture can and does teach, as 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (one of Protestants’ favorite Bible passages) expressly states. Lucas seems to think there are many accidental or meaningless or worthless Bible passages. I think that ultimately belittles God (though it’s surely not Lucas’ intention).
By no means does the method that God teaches in the Bible for people to be healed to be healed is by spitting on them (thank God), but only through prayer in faith (cf. Jas 5:13-15), despite the fact that in an isolated and descriptive case the miracle occurred after spitting or touching a bone.
It’s not isolated; it’s repeated over and over: the woman touches Jesus’ robe and is healed. Jesus touches people before healing them, etc. Also related is ordination and receiving the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, and indeed, all seven sacraments, which are physical means of receiving more of God’s grace.
Catholic apologists, desperate to provide justification for an unbiblical teaching, take an isolated, non-prescriptive text referring to a specific extraordinary case and twist it in such a way as to turn it into a model and make a doctrine out of it – and we are still we who interpret the Bible “anyway”. This is how we see the difference between an authentic and serious theology and one that is only concerned with arranging any infamous pretext to justify its unbiblical practices.
I have made my case above with plenty of biblical support. Lucas is welcome try to refute it: that is, if he ever decides to answer my critiques. It’s now up to twelve with no answer. I believe that a person who is confident of his position will be willing and able to defend it against critical scrutiny.
This is the fundamental difference between exegesis and eisegesis. While the exegete extracts from the text what is in it and follows the prescriptions that Scripture commands as a rule or norm, the eisegete is only concerned with justifying his previous beliefs, often in a desperate way, precisely because he knows that there is no serious justification for the exegete. deceit that preaches. Thus, his mission is no longer to extract its true meaning from the Bible, consisting solely of looking for as many isolated and out-of-context texts that he thinks can be useful to confirm what he believes, but that will be completely useless in an intelligent debate.
That is a true description of exegesis and eisegesis. Where we disagree is that I think Protestants are doing this when they battle against Catholic doctrines.
While the eisegete only uses the Bible to “find” his previous beliefs, even if he has to twist many texts in the process and do some Cirque du Soleil juggling, the honest exegete is willing to give up any previous conviction to follow. just what the Bible actually teaches. It is not for nothing that the Catholic interpretation is admittedly biased, as free examination is prohibited, leaving them only to accept the teaching interpretation, whether it is good or not. Whereas the Catholic interpreter already has the “truth” and seeks to use the Bible only to confirm his or her previous beliefs, the evangelical interpreter goes to the Bible to discover the truth.
Both sides do exactly the same thing: we seek to find validation of our views in the Bible. The biggest difference is the fact that most Protestants are wholly unaware that Catholics have hundreds of biblical proofs for our views (I did a whole 445-page book consisting of precisely that [just Bible passages] ). Once they learn of some of these (it has been our failure ands fault that so few are aware of them), then they are responsible for properly interpreting and accepting what they have learned, or to (conversely) show the Catholic why he or she is wrong.
In my experience, overwhelmingly when the Protestant learns of our complete (not caricatured or distorted) actual argument, the dialogue ends and there is no more discussion. Or they are never willing to talk about it at all, as in Lucas’ methodology so far.
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Photo credit: Lucas Banzoli, Facebook photo as of 5-3-22, dated 15 January 2018.
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Summary: Brazilian Protestant apologist Lucas Banzoli tries mightily to knock down the many biblical proofs for relics (or a caricature thereof), but fails miserably every time.
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