, which is outstanding in its explanations and its desire to help you see how the Church understands even the smallest details of the Bible.) Posted on 08/20/2008 11:08:01 AM PDT by Salvation
Too many Catholics aren't comfortable reading and understanding the Bible.
Let's look at the most essential principles taught by the Catholic Church for reading and interpreting Scripture.
For a strong faith, it's important to know this!
The Holy Bible is unmatched in importance for learning about God, his plans for us, and how he has worked through human history for our salvation.
Pope John Paul II wrote:
It is true that the intensity and depth of the revelation varies [within the Bible], but there is not the least shadow of contradiction [between different parts of Scripture].
(Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Patres Ecclesiae,
January 2, 1980)
Since God inspired & confirmed the Bible, we had better know how to read it correctly!
These three points are essential to a basic understanding of the bible:
We need to look at each of these points in detail...
If there is only one thing you remember about understanding the Bible, let it be this point!
To get it just right, I'll quote from the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
(Compendium of the Catechism, #18)
(The Compendium of the Catechism has a wonderful section on understanding the Bible within the part about Divine Revelation. You should read all of #6-24 to get a full understanding, but #18-24 are specifically about Scripture.)
God chose to reveal to us certain truths for the sake of our salvation. This message of salvation is the set of revealed truths which we call the "deposit of faith," or Divine Revelation. The Bible is primarily concerned with telling us these truths, which are without error. God himself made sure of that.
The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) said it well: "everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit" (Dei Verbum, #11).
Got it?
Good. That's the most essential point for reading & understanding the Bible. Now, remember that point as we look at some other details...
This is important: God did not "dictate" the Bible, word for word, to people who just wrote down his words. Instead, he did something...
...more amazing!
He made use of specific people to write the various sacred books of the Bible. And although God gave each author special grace to aid him in this work, each author wrote in a way that was natural to him.
This is also really important for a true Catholic understanding of the Bible. We have to understand this point completely, or we risk a serious misunderstanding!
The Second Vatican Council put it this way:
(Vatican II, Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation), 11)
These writers used the language of their time, and they used words and wrote in a style that reflected their own personalities and educations.
Some people get nervous when they start reading about this point—don't be! This is important for a solid understanding of the Bible.
Let's summarize it this way:
John Paul II made this point when he addressed the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1979:
(Pope John Paul II, Address, April 26, 1979)
This is really quite astonishing—God was willing to work through people to tell us his saving truth. He revealed his divine truths via historical acts, using events and people of his choosing.
And he did so using...
God also used human language and knowledge—with all of its limitations—to tell us his eternal truths.
He conveyed things to people through words and actions that made use of the ways of speaking and thinking that were common at the time. God worked this way so it would be possible for humans to write down or pass on these eternal truths.
The people who experienced these events and received God's divine messages either wrote them down later, or would pass them on in a reliable oral tradition that was later written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Of course, sometimes we have to work carefully to get past the imperfections of human language and knowledge in order to see what God wanted to tell us. This is an important step for understanding the Bible!
We can easily put these principles to practical use when reading Scripture.
First, learn to understand exactly what the inspired authors meant when they wrote their words. A good Catholic commentary will help explain any relevant language, concepts and cultural references. (I recommend the Navarre Bible commentary
That's an essential first step—if you don't understand what the sacred author was saying to people in his own cultural context, in terms as they were used at the time, you won't be able to clearly see what God is saying through him.
But don't worry! It's really not hard to get this right for many passages. And once again, a good commentary will do the heavy lifting for you.
And once you understand the sacred author's actual message...
The whole point of reading and understanding the Bible is to encounter God, understand the revelation he has given us, and grow in faith.
So now that you've read a passage of Scripture and understand what the author is saying...
...take that next step—listen to God!
Scripture is a living thing, meant for people in all times & places. God speaks through it now just as much as he did when it was written.
To help our faith grow as we read Scripture, the Church gives us three important points for interpreting and understanding the Bible:
Some people feel intimidated when they start to read Scripture.
But not you!
Now you have a solid foundation for understanding the Bible. The basic principles contained in this article will help you overcome many uncertainties people have with Scripture.
So start reading!
(St Jerome)
I don’t think annalex is saying non-theological facts could be in error.
The text is inerrant throughout. Where the error might come in is our mistakenly interpreting a completely incidental figure of speech for a statement of fact. For example, there is no grounds for interpreting Christ’s statement about mustard seeds as absolutely disqualifying the possibility of a smaller seed somewhere in the world.
Interesting statement by the Catholic church...The authors of the scripture wrote everything they heard(?) or were told to write...And the authors wrote ONLY what Jesus wanted them to write...
Now that creates a dilema for the Catholic Traditions...Apparently Jesus wanted to keep 'those' traditions a secret...
And of course I don't believe that for a minute...Apparently someone at your church doesn't either:
The people who experienced these events and received God's divine messages either wrote them down later, or would pass them on in a reliable oral tradition that was later written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
As we can see, there is no such thing as 'oral Tradition' that did not make it into scripture...
Yes he is.
There isn't really any need of us all doing this dance again for the nteenth time. We all know where we stand.
I'll just say that with the Church's hostility to "Biblical literalism" it's no wonder that most Catholics are uncomfortable reading the Bible. After all, they might interpret something "literally" and fall into heresy!
It's most interesting that the beliefs of the church fathers are invoked to "prove" the Catholic position on several issues but are dismissed anytime they are too "literal" on the grounds that "they didn't know then what we know now."
What a delightful slander!
Riiiiight. Suuuure he does.
Yes, one I took right from the Catholic author of the article at the head of this thread.
"16. St. Jerome's teaching on this point serves to confirm and illustrate what our predecessor of happy memory, Leo Xlll, declared to be the ancient and traditional belief of the Church touching the absolute immunity of Scripture from error:
"So far is it from being the case that error can be compatible with inspiration, that, on the contrary, it not only of its very nature precludes the presence of error, but as necessarily excludes it and forbids it as God, the Supreme Truth, necessarily cannot be the Author of error.
"17. Then, after giving the definitions of the Councils of Florence and Trent, confirmed by the Council of the Vatican, Pope Leo continues:
"'Consequently it is not to the point to suggest that the Holy Spirit used men as His instruments for writing, and that therefore, while no error is referable to the primary Author, it may well be due to the inspired authors themselves. For by supernatural power the Holy Spirit so stirred them and moved them to write, so assisted them as they wrote, that their minds could rightly conceive only those and all those things which He himself bade them conceive; only such things could they faithfully commit to writing and aptly express with unerring truth; else God would not be the Author of the entirety of Sacred Scripture.'[42]
"18. But although these words of our predecessor leave no room for doubt or dispute, it grieves us to find that not only men outside, but even children of the Catholic Church -- nay, what is a peculiar sorrow to us, even clerics and professors of sacred learning -- who in their own conceit either openly repudiate or at least attack in secret the Church's teaching on this point.
"We warmly commend, of course, those who, with the assistance of critical methods, seek to discover new ways of explaining the difficulties in Holy Scripture, whether for their own guidance or to help others. But we remind them that they will only come to miserable grief if they neglect our predecessor's injunctions and overstep the limits set by the Fathers.
"19. Yet no one can pretend that certain recent writers really adhere to these limitations. For while conceding that inspiration extends to every phrase -- and, indeed, to every single word of Scripture -- yet, by endeavoring to distinguish between what they style the primary or religious and the secondary or profane element in the Bible, they claim that the effect of inspiration -- namely, absolute truth and immunity from error -- are to be restricted to that primary or religious element. Their notion is that only what concerns religion is intended and taught by God in Scripture, and that all the rest -- things concerning "profane knowledge," the garments in which Divine truth is presented -- God merely permits, and even leaves to the individual author's greater or less knowledge. Small wonder, then, that in their view a considerable number of things occur in the Bible touching physical science, history and the like, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress in science!
"20. Some even maintain that these views do not conflict with what our predecessor laid down since -- so they claim -- he said that the sacred writers spoke in accordance with the external -- and thus deceptive -- appearance of things in nature. But the Pontiff's own words show that this is a rash and false deduction. For sound philosophy teaches that the senses can never be deceived as regards their own proper and immediate object. Therefore, from the merely external appearance of things -- of which, of course, we have always to take account as Leo Xlll, following in the footsteps of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, most wisely remarks -- we can never conclude that there is any error in Sacred Scripture.
"21. Moreover, our predecessor, sweeping aside all such distinctions between what these critics are pleased to call primary and secondary elements, says in no ambiguous fashion that "those who fancy that when it is a question of the truth of certain expressions we have not got to consider so much what God said as why He said it," are very far indeed from the truth. He also teaches that Divine inspiration extends to every part of the Bible without the slightest exception, and that no error can occur in the inspired text: 'It would be wholly impious to limit inspiration to certain portions only of Scripture or to concede that the sacred authors themselves could have erred.'[43]
"22. Those, too, who hold that the historical portions of Scripture do not rest on the absolute truth of the facts but merely upon what they are pleased to term their relative truth, namely, what people then commonly thought, are -- no less than are the aforementioned critics -- out of harmony with the Church's teaching, which is endorsed by the testimony of Jerome and other Fathers. Yet they are not afraid to deduce such views from the words of Leo Xlll on the ground that he allowed that the principles he had laid down touching the things of nature could be applied to historical things as well. Hence they maintain that precisely as the sacred writers spoke of physical things according to appearance, so, too, while ignorant of the facts, they narrated them in accordance with general opinion or even on baseless evidence; neither do they tell us the sources whence they derived their knowledge, nor do they make other peoples' narrative their own. Such views are clearly false, and constitute a calumny on our predecessor. After all, what analogy is there between physics and history? For whereas physics is concerned with "sensible appearances" and must consequently square with phenomena, history on the contrary, must square with the facts, since history is the written account of events as they actually occurred. If we were to accept such views, how could we maintain the truth insisted on throughout Leo Xlll's Encyclical -- viz. that the sacred narrative is absolutely free from error?
"23. And if Leo XIII does say that we can apply to history and cognate subjects the same principles which hold good for science, he yet does not lay this down as a universal law, but simply says that we can apply a like line of argument when refuting the fallacies of adversaries and defending the historical truth of Scripture from their assaults.
"24. Nor do modern innovators stop here: they even try to claim St. Jerome as a patron of their views on the ground that he maintained that historic truth and sequence were not observed in the Bible, "precisely as things actually took place, but in accordance with what men thought at that time," and that he even held that this was the true norm for history.[44] A strange distortion of St. Jerome's words! He does not say that when giving us an account of events the writer was ignorant of the truth and simply adopted the false views then current; he merely says that in giving names to persons or things he followed general custom. Thus the Evangelist calls St. Joseph the father of Jesus, but what he meant by the title "father" here is abundantly clear from the whole context. For St. Jerome "the true norm of history" is this: when it is question of such appellatives (as "father," etc), and when there is no danger or error, then a writer must adopt the ordinary forms of speech simply because such forms of speech are in ordinary use. More than this: Jerome maintains that belief in the Biblical narrative is as necessary to salvation as is belief in the doctrines of the faith; thus in his Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon he says:
"'What I mean is this: Does any man believe in God the Creator? He cannot do so unless he first believe that the things written of God's Saints are true.' He then gives examples from the Old Testament, and adds: 'Now unless a man believes all these and other things too which are written of the Saints he cannot believe in the God of the Saints.'[45]
"25. Thus St. Jerome is in complete agreement with St. Augustine, who sums up the general belief of Christian antiquity when he says:
"'Holy Scripture is invested with supreme authority by reason of its sure and momentous teachings regarding the faith. Whatever, then, it tells us of Enoch, Elias and Moses -- that we believe. We do not, for instance, believe that God's Son was born of the Virgin Mary simply because He could not otherwise have appeared in the flesh and 'walked amongst men' -- as Faustus would have it -- but we believe it simply because it is written in Scripture; and unless we believe in Scripture we can neither be Christians nor be saved.'[46]
"26. Then there are other assailants of Holy Scripture who misuse principles -- which are only sound, if kept within due bounds -- in order to overturn the fundamental truth of the Bible and thus destroy Catholic teaching handed down by the Fathers. If Jerome were living now he would sharpen his keenest controversial weapons against people who set aside what is the mind and judgment of the Church, and take too ready a refuge in such notions as "implicit quotations" or "pseudo-historical narratives," or in "kinds of literature" in the Bible such as cannot be reconciled with the entire and perfect truth of God's word, or who suggest such origins of the Bible as must inevitably weaken -- if not destroy -- its authority."
--Spiritus Paraclitus, Pope Benedict XV, 9/15/1920
"When, subsequently, some Catholic writers, in spite of this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, by which such divine authority is claimed for the 'entire books with all their parts' as to secure freedom from any error whatsoever, ventured to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture solely to matters of faith and morals, and to regard other matters, whether in the domain of physical science or history, as 'obiter dicta' and - as they contended - in no wise connected with faith, Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Leo XIII in the Encyclical Letter Providentissimus Deus, published on November 18 in the year 1893, justly and rightly condemned these errors and safe-guarded the studies of the Divine Books by most wise precepts and rules."
--Pope Pius XII, Divine Afflante Spiritu, 1943
Then of course there are the decrees of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the early years of the twentieth century (when the PBC was a magisterial body), which so many Catholics are embarrassed by today (the condemnation of the errancy of obiter dicta, affirmation of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch).
I'm sorry I got into this again on this thread. I've learned long ago that there's no need trying to reason with the vast majority of Catholics on this subject, since "Biblical literalism" is considered by them a mark of Protestantism and therefore "un-Catholic." But as these encyclicals make clear, you are at least consistent enough to reject the literal interpretation of them as well.
The stubbornness with which most of you defend evolution and higher criticism is such that one can only conclude that they have achieved a quasi dogmatic status in contemporary Catholicism.
Yes, exactly. Note that in #19 Zionist Conspirator begins by inserting a false interpretation of my post in parenthesis, then proceeds to say that the parenthetical part (his) is condemned by the popes.
On the other hand, I was unclear, because I gave an impression that the Bible is divided in inerrant theological part and fallible non-theological part. What I was trying to say was that the apparent error comes from our reading with the mind different from the mind of the inspired author, and is not the revealed divine truth to begin with.
Thank you very much; I will read the entire Spiritus Paraclitus and if I discover that my views were not in accord with it, I will amend my views. At first glance though, I do not find anything where my understanding differed from the papal superb exegesis.
Because two wrongs make a right.
To illustrate: There are 1.1 BILLION Catholics in the world, so if say 1% of Catholics were uncomfortable reading the Bible, that would be 11 million (approximately the TOTAL number of Methodists in the world) and it could easily be said that 11 million is "too many;" however, the reality is that this would be 1% not "most" Catholics.
In what way did I misinterpret you? You plainly stated that non-theological matter in the Bible is "not part of revelation."
But pay no attention to me. I'm going to Hell as a punishment for my rebellious "literalism."
Are we really going to rehash our well-known arguments for the blue-millionth time? I've already apologized for getting involved in this thread.
::Sigh::
If I admitted that Charles Darwin was right, that the Book of Jonah is a fairy tale, that the Book of Daniel is a pseudepigraph, and that the Israelites were never in Egypt (as our "inerrant" atheist scholars insist) would you then be happy?
No, you didn't. The author said Too many Catholics aren't comfortable reading and understanding the Bible.
In this case, the two wrongs that "make a right" are (a) your slander as noted above and (b) your effort to blame the author by misrepresenting what he said.
Just pitiful.
No, I would say that it has NOTHING to do with what you wrote.
I missed that completely. I just assumed that the claim “one I took right from the Catholic author of the article at the head of this thread” was honest.
Anti-Catholics have a long history of restating things to make them comform to what they WANT them to say.
We're really going to argue all day, aren't we?
Please provide a SINGLE source from an official Catholic teaching that states that the events you are talking about are not as the Bible states.
Please provide an explanation of why so many "conservative" Catholics, including FREEPERS, feel compelled to at least be open to dismissing them as actual historical events.
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