Replies

I am using the table. It says that Catholics who attend on Sundays and Holy Days hear 40.8% of the New Testament and 3.7% of the Old Testament.

Correct. However, you're doing the math wrong, if you're simply adding the two percentages together to get your "nearly 50%" number. The OT isn't the same size as the NT. The percentage of the OT not read drags the "overall" statistic way down.

Using the table, find the actual verse counts read under each Testament (i.e. for weekly reading, that's 3247 for the NT and 932 for the OT). Add the verse counts together (a total of 4179 verses). Now look at the total verses for each Testament (7957 for the NT, and 25044 for the OT) and add those together (33001 verses total). Divide 4179 by 33001 and you get 12.7%.

I am not saying throw the other parts of the Bible out. I’m saying that the numbers would obviously change if we computed them without the chapters/books in the Old Testament about Jewish lineage, battles, and intricate Jewish ritual.

That's not what you said. You advocated throwing them out of the statistics because you claim no one reads them. If you're not reading them, and you're not hearing them because they're never read at Mass, then practically speaking Catholics are throwing them out. Every "read through the Bible" guide that I've ever seen in Protestant/Evangelical churches includes them. FWIW I've read all of Leviticus and Numbers several times myself.

My point is that a nominal Catholic, who does nothing but attend Mass weekly, is hearing almost half of the New Testament.

True, and IMO that's an admirable number, but that's not what you posted before. You posted (and I quote) "a Catholic who does nothing to practice his faith except attend weekly Mass (and the few Holy Days) will hear almost half the Bible", not "almost half of the New Testament."

We read along in the missals. We study what was said in the homily at Mass. We are encouraged to read the Bible on our own. And, if we attend daily Mass and do nothing else, we hear two thirds.

Incorrect. Using the correct math, you're hearing less than half of that - 27.5 percent.

I stand by my statement that the old saw “Catholics don’t read the Bible” is untrue and anyone who has told you that is pushing their own, questionable agenda.

Ouch. This is probably going to hurt.

Get Cracking, Catholics![article at the National Catholic Register]
A formative, family-friendly factoid from a recent study or survey in the news.
November 19-25, 2006 Issue
Posted 11/16/06 at 8:00 AM
According to a study released in September by Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, evangelical Protestants are a whopping eight times more likely than Catholics to read the Bible on a weekly basis. Of course, the survey only looked at private Bible reading; it did not take into account the Scripture passages Catholics take in at every Mass. Still, we tip our hats to our separated brothers and sisters in Christ for their zeal for the Word of God.
Related threads:
Synod: Christianity not a 'Religion of the Book' [article from National Catholic Reporter]
Yesterday saw...a forceful plea from a key papal advisor [Bishop Salvatore Fisichella, the rector of the Lateran University and President of the Pontifical Academy for Life] to reject the idea of Christianity as a “Religion of the Book.”
Synod to Focus on Proper Use of Scripture [article from Catholic World News]
The Church should combat widespread "Biblical illiteracy" among the Catholic faithful, Archbishop Eterovic said
A Literate Church: The state of Catholic Bible study today [article from America: The National Catholic Weekly]
...while fewer believers know much about the Bible, one-third of Americans continue to believe that it is literally true, something organizers of the Synod on the Word of God called a dangerous form of fundamentalism that is “winning more and more adherents…even among Catholics.” Such literalism, the synod’s preparatory document said, “demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research”....
....The flip side of this embarrassment is the presumption among many Catholics that they “get” the Bible at Mass, along with everything else they need for their spiritual lives. The postconciliar revolution in liturgy greatly expanded the readings, with a three-year cycle in the vernacular that for the first time included Old Testament passages. Given that exposure, many think they do not need anything else. As Mr. McMahon put it, “The majority still say you go to Mass, you get your ticket punched, and that’s it for the week.”

No, dear Alex, it doesn’t hurt. It further refutes the “Catholics don’t read the Bible” because it shows that our Church leaders are encouraging us to read it. Not just encouraging us, but exhorting us. Another myth about Catholics blown: people claim our Church doesn’t want us to know the Bible.
That is another falsehood.

Our Church has studied the Bible more deeply and longer than any other Church. The wealth of that study and knowledge (thousands of years worth!) is ours for the asking. That’s pretty thrilling.

I too, a Catholic, have read all of Leviticus and Numbers several times also. I doubt many Christians read them more than once or twice. Once you’ve read them, you’ve learned what’s important about them in terms of God’s relationship with His Chosen People. There’s no need to read them over and over like other parts of the Bible. Catholic Bibles include them, of course. I said throw them out of the statistics since many Christians rarely read them, Catholic or not.

Catholics have not thrown ANY of the Bible away, unlike some other denominations. Our Bible is complete. This was my point: Catholics probably are studying as much of the Bible as many other Christians. Most Christians focus quite a bit of the their study on the New Testament, and a nominal Catholic will hear 40.8% of the New Testament and 3.7% of the Old Testament just by attending weekly Mass.

My statement stands: Catholics read the Bible and anyone who says otherwise is promoting a falsehood.

I assert that Catholics not only read the Bible, but we have two thousand years of scholarly and saintly study of the Bible at our disposal. We are The beneficiaries of Aquinas, Augustine, and all the Doctors of the Church. All that knowledge of the Bible is available to us— and many of us make use of it daily!

Of course, I understand that some people would rather have the Bible explained to them by Billy Bob who got religion a couple of years ago and is full of zeal. More power to Billy Bob and the people who want to study the Bible using his methods.

But Billy Bob and his followers have no right to criticize Catholics. We love the Bible, Christ, and the Church as much as they do.