We don't. But thanks for the strawman burning.

Regards
DL

One attribute lacking among jewish writings is straightforwardness. It follows
that the message was not meant for modern audiences. We have no interest
in in primitive wool gathering or gnashing of teeth.

Are you saying my mother had a dirty spirit? I guess she was
right about catholicism.

I suppose could have given the book to another Catholic apologist to review, but what would be the point?

I just want a review on the substance of the book. How about a critique of the extra-biblical evidence presented. How about a critique of the exegesis. Seems to me it's easier to blow smoke that it is to offer a critique of Pitre's work. It's hard to appeal to those who are not willing to address the evidence, so no, Rowe was not among the intended audience.

Why in God's green earth would you cite a Presbyterian's review?

There's a very god reason. Rowe quotes the last paragraph of Pitre's Introduction to Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist:

So whether you’re Catholic or Protestant, Jewish or Gentile, believer or nonbeliever, if you’ve ever wondered Who was Jesus really? I invite you to come along with me on this journey. As we will see it is precisely the Jewish roots of Jesus’ words that will enable us to unlock the secrets of who he was and what he meant when he said to his disciples, "Take, eat, this is my body.”

Pitre is not writing merely as a Catholic biblical scholar with the intention of deepening the faith of Catholics. He's a Christian (and Catholic) apologist. He comes across in the Introduction (which I have just finished reading) as amazingly confident that—no matter who you are or what your background is—if you read his book, you'll see the light. I suppose First Things could have given the book to another Catholic apologist to review, but what would be the point? If it's truly a work of apologetics, presumably it has to have some appeal to those who are not already convinced.

So it seems to me that if we take Pitre at his word, C. Kavin Rowe was among the intended audience of readers for precisely a book like this. Why shouldn't he review it? One suggestion is that despite what apologists say, they know the overwhelming majority of their readers will be people who already believe.

I should also provide the weblink of the transcript of the interview:

https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/do-the-gospels-contradict-each-other-with-mike-licona

You're welcome. Licona is an Evangelical and teaches at a Houston Baptist University. It would seem when he is referencing what he says to his students it is safe to assume he is teaching from a Protestant POV. I wanted to make that clear in my original response to Marcus.

I'm scornful of the theological stance of double predestination where God creates human beings who are predestined for hell. This is a Reformed/Calvinist theological stance (which Rowe is) and not all Protestants promote it. Like many Reformed doctrine, double predistination is a non-biblical doctrine, which as you can see, Reformed seem to have no problem based upon how Rowe conceeds (notice church is not Church):

"By speaking of development, such thinkers make the simple but crucial point that biblically formed doctrine takes time. Doctrine is not simply there in the Bible for the taking, as it were, but instead develops in the historical unfolding of the interplay between biblical interpretation and church practice."

But this is a gross misunderstanding of how Catholic doctrine develops and clearly he either does not acknowledge that or simply uses his Reformed theology to attack Pitre. This is the theme of his entire critique: Reformed presuppositions attacking perceived (and wrong or oversimplified) Catholic doctrine.

We don't laugh at Protestants that do, but feel sympathy for them because poor theologians and poor reasoning (like Rowe's) have led them astray. The offensive truth is that "do this in memory of me" is reduced from a Sacramental interaction with Christ himself to the meaningless yearly rendition of Auld Lange Syne. Rowe is indeed using sophistry because his critiques are high on verbose Reformed theological parlance and low on actual evidence that is counterfactual to the claims Pitre made. It's as much an attack on history as it is Catholic Tradition. Rowe is the one doing the mocking. Calling Pitre naive and countering his claims with hand waving at some "true doctrine" (whatever the heck that means) is smug and not convincing. I still cannot figure out why you posted it, but if you want to make it about my response to it and not about an actual sound critique of Pitre so be it. Pitre wrote a compelling book that takes the Eucharistic tradition to a deeper historical level and contextualizes the Sacrifice of the mass for non-Catholics. Rowe wrote an eloquent and substantively void negative review. I'm offensive, and you have yet to convincingly support the negative claim you made about Pitre writing a "bad book".

Hi David, my previous message to you was deleted by the system because the system treated it as spam :(

I am re-pasting the interview at the end of this message.

Regarding what you said about a negative attitude of some Roman Catholics towards Prostestants and Protestantism, it is good that this seems to have become a minority phenomenon these days. On the reverse direction: Many Protestants used to have a very negative attitude against Roman Catholicism but these days it is less so too.

I get the feeling that the more one is immersed in the field of biblical studies, reading the works of the top biblical scholars [eg John Meier, James Dunn, N T Wright, Raymond Brown, Richard Bauckham, Larry Hurtado (died late last year)], the less one would be having such an attitude.

Here is the relevant section of the interview:

Trent Horn:
Do you have any other advice for when people are reading the gospels and come across things that they’re not as sure about, especially when it comes to alleged contradictions, the attitude they should have towards that?

Mike Licona:

Yeah, three. Let me give three principles. The first we already talked about a little earlier, and I think this is the main one we should all keep in mind and if they miss everything else, just take this with them. If Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true, period. And it would be true even if the gospels had errors and contradictions in them. So it all comes back to the resurrection of Jesus. Remember that Jesus rose from the dead. He did so before any of the New Testament literature was written. So there’d be no reason to think that if there ended up being some errors or contradictions in the gospels when they were written somewhere between 20 to 65 years later that that would negate the truth of Christianity when it was true before they were even written.

So with that in mind, here are two other principles that I give my students. Number one, our view of scripture should be consistent with what we observe in scripture. So some people might say, “Well, that doesn’t make me feel comfortable. That divinely inspired scripture would be that way.” Well, if that’s what scripture is, then our view of scripture should be consistent with scripture.

And it brings us to the second principle, which I tell my students when they feel uncomfortable with this kind of stuff, and that is if we truly have a high view of scripture, then we must accept it as God has given it to us rather than insisting that it conform to a model that’s shaped by how we think he should have. And if we fail to do this, we may claim to have a high view of scripture when we actually have a high view of our view of scripture.

Trent Horn:
It’s kind of like, not to interrupt Mike, but it’s kind of like atheists who reject the Bible and say, “If God inspired a biblical text, it should look like this. Since it doesn’t, I’m not going to believe in it.” It’s almost like the inversion of that attitude.

Mike Licona:
That’s exactly right. It’s like, “Well, maybe your view is incorrect. Maybe your view is modernist. It’s an anachronistic and needs to be updated.”

Trent Horn:
And the third principle?

Mike Licona:
Well that was it. Resurrection is primary. If Jesus rose Christianity’s true, period. The second is our view of scripture should be consistent with what we observe in scripture. And number three, if we want to have a high view of scripture and an authentic one, we got to accept it as God has given it to us.

Cheers!
johannes y k hui