But of what worth is that if they do not believe the the whole story? You can believe that A+E were two real people, and even that sin followed Adam's sin, but then you can deny that the story of how that happened was real, and that the Tower fo Babel, the Flood, and other historical miracles were real. So why not doubt the story of Adam and Eve?
Even the USSCB and the NAB commentary do not call it myth, but they can and have relegated it to being a fable, even if it had some core reality. Like as the NAB commentary on events of Exodus, that the,
story was a result of writers who took traditions and "constructed from them a dramatic and persuasive written narrative, " and even "the actual events no longer resembled the traditions and cannot be reconstructed from them." (The Catholic Study Bible: The New American Bible, p. 36)
I can say with confidence that she does not, the NAB commentary and the CCC notwithstanding....I hope I have demonstrated to your satisfaction is the "official" teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the historical reality of Adam and Eve (see post 84 above).
That restricted aspect hardly goes far enough, and is also makes the RC error of presuming what one teaches consists of what is merely said, versus what she does and effectually conveys, which for decades now has been that of uncensored liberal revisionism. It also presumes that all that is in an encyclical is infallible, and cannot be further defined even if it seems to contradict previous teaching, as EENS does, and that your interpretation of what a pope wrote settles the matter instead.
Thus you have RCs contending for gencentrism as being church teaching based upon historical documents.
Another pope said,
"It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors." - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906.
And your own bishops say- without any censor from Rome - the same thing as the NAB commentary given before :
The plot of Gn 2–11 (creation, the flood, renewed creation) has been borrowed from creation-flood stories attested in Mesopotamian literature of the second and early first millennia.
How should modern readers interpret the creation-flood story in Gn 2–11? The stories are neither history nor myth. “Myth” is an unsuitable term, for it has several different meanings and connotes untruth in popular English. “History” is equally misleading, for it suggests that the events actually took place. - http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/0
Likewise Cardinal George Pell said,
the existence of Adam and Eve was not a matter of science but rather a mythological account. “It’s a very sophisticated mythology to try to explain the evil and the suffering in the world,” he said. “It’s a religious story told for religious purposes.” - http://consciouslifenews.com/catholic-cardinal-adam-eve-didnt-exist/
Fr. Joe answers "Must Catholics believe as an article of faith that all human beings have descended from two real human beings, Adam and Eve?" by saying,
In short,there is no necessary contradiction between scientific theories of evolution Catholic belief. Moreover, Catholics are not obligated to believe that the story of “first parents” named Adam and
Eve as told in the book of Genesis is historical fact. They are, however, called to believe the religious truths which the Genesis story proclaims, namely:
1. That God played the ultimate role in all creation.
2. That God played the ultimate role in the creation of the human being.
3. That God created the soul which gives the human person an inherent dignity and the capacity for a relationship of love with God. - http://bustedhalo.com/questionbox/must-catholics-believe-as-an-article-of-faith-that-all-human-beings-have-descended-from-two-real-human-beings-adam-and-eve>
Then we have The New Jerome Bible Handbook, page 16:
Mesopotamian culture, the model for most of the stories in Genesis 1-11, scribes explored beginnings through stories, not through abstract reasoning. . . The biblical writers have produced a version of a common Mesopotamian story of the origins of the populated world.
Some readers even end up concentrating on defending a “literal interpretation” of chapters 1-3, in particular, against modern evolutionary theory, something that the ancient authors of Genesis, with their tolerance of different versions, would never have done.
Yet if Rome does not concur with them, then it leaves you with a church which claims to be led into all Truth yet which effectually teaches contradictory major things for decades to multitudes, right in its own Bible commentary, and by the American Bishops. And which does not discipline its publicly known errant (and liberal) teachers - a lax church which RCs have the audacity to insist conservative evangelicals who left liberal Prot churches (which are usually those closest to Rome) need to join this unholy amalgam.
In reality what Rome really believes is manifest by what she does and effectually conveys.
It also presumes that all that is in an encyclical is infallible, and cannot be further defined even if it seems to contradict previous teaching, as EENS does, and that your interpretation of what a pope wrote settles the matter instead.What is EENS?