Most of the guide books that come with the great course’s lectures have summaries of each lecture, as well as suggested reading and questions to consider after each summary with the guidebook concluding with an extensive bibliography and some pages left blank except for the heading of notes, which, surprise, I assume are for taking notes while watching the DVDs or reading the course book. With most of the rest of the blogs on the great courses both the DVDs and guide book will be covered in one blog, but in this case, there were a few extras in this particular guide book which I felt it important enough to cover separately.
The biggest misunderstanding, as I understand as a traditional catholic, is the definition of “apostolic,” in this course, when referring to the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic” Church. The author of these lectures sees apostolic as meaning: “that the apostles would recognize the Roman Church as theirs . . .” For traditional Catholics, we see apostolic as meaning that the legitimacy, authority and power that is entrusted to the Roman Catholic Church derives from Jesus Christ giving that legitimacy, authority and power to his apostles and sending them out to select their successors who they in turn send with the power to fearlessly and truthfully hand on the Truth, which Jesus Christ sent the human race, and through those perpetuate a perfected Jewish priesthood (Matthew 5:17), through supernatural means (see the selection of Mathias in the first Chapter of Acts) to include the gentiles, which formally was perpetuated through natural means, the sons of Levi and Aaron. This divergence in what the meaning of apostolic means leads to protestants not easily seeing the necessity or origin of the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church. Picking up and learning the bible is enough for a person to preach and lead a congregation in the protestant mind, without the necessity of having been sent by Jesus Christ or those He personally selected to teach his message who in turn personally selected their successors (As in the case of Mathias mentioned above).
The additions to the standard stuff in most other guidebooks include:
A time line with an excerpt below:
c. 4 ……….of Jesus
c. 30 …….death and resurrection of Jesus; Pentecost
c. 65 …….Paul writes letters to several Christian communities
54-68……Reign of Emperor Nero
c.64 …….Martyrdom of Peter and Paul
c.65/70…Gospel of Mark written
. . .
1968…..Humanae vitae proclaimed by Paul VI; Latin American Episcopal Conference meets in Medellin
1970…..Hans Kung publishes Infallible? An Inquiry
1972 ….Gustavo Gutierrez publishes A Theology of Liberation
1978…..The pontificate of John Paul I (33 days)
1978-2005… Pontificate of John Paul II
1981……Attempted assassination of John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square, Rome
1986……John Paul II calls Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi
1999……John Paul II and Lutheran leaders agree to a Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification
2005- …Pontificate of Benedict XVI
A Glossary with an excerpt from the section of terms beginning with the letters C and D
. . .
Counterreformation (a.k.a. Catholic Reformation): The programs of change that the Catholic Church carried out in the 16th century, often seen as a response to Protestantism and sometimes seen as having its origin before the Protestant Reformation began.
Crusade: An armed expedition from Western Europe that attempted to conquer the Holy Land. The First Crusade was successful in conquering Jerusalem and establishing a Latin Kingdom there. Later, Crusades were conducted against other perceived enemies of the church, including Lithuania and Bohemia, as well as against heretics in France and Italy.
Cyrillic: The Alphabet created in the 9th century by Saints Cyril and Methodius to create a written form of Slavic. It is the basis of the alphabet of Russia and several other Slavic nations today.
Deacon: A rank of clergy below priest. Some deacons are permanent deacons, while transitional deacons are later ordained as priests.
Decretum: A compilation of canon law formed by Gratian in 1140, which became the basis for the canon law of the church until the 20th century.
. . .
A set of Bibliographical notes that cite important people in the Catholic Church to include at least some popes;
A bibliography broken down into the following headings:
Primary Sources – Series
Primary Sources – Individual Texts
Modern Scholarly Works
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 