All these posts are good as far as they go. Marcus was just giving you a guide. The basic teachings of the Catholic Church are contained in the CCC but certainly not all. You must remember that the Scriptures emerged from the oral Traditions of Jewish history as it pertains to the Revealation of God pertaining to salvation, and the oral Traditions of the early Christians. Some of these oral Traditions were compilied into the O.T and the N.T. but not all. Guiding this Tradition and later the formation of the Scriptures was the Magisterial Teaching of the Church. This of course was in a kind of " organizational " phase for the first hundred years or so, not full blown and defined as it is now.
So to be completely accurate, you would have to read the history of all the Councils of the Church as well as " Letters, " Encyclicals, etc. as well as the CCC. Keep all this in mind as you read the Scriptures. But certainly the CCC would be the immediate guide, just not the final guide. On difficult questions you would have to research the Magisterial teachings, etc. or even seek out specialists for an answer if it is really important.
However, so far no definite authoritative teaching is available on ever passage or even every book of the Scriptures. On many things you are allowed to believe what ever does not oppose the obvious literal meaning of scriptures. For example, the exact meanting of the two stories of Creation in Genisis is not defined. You can believe either one, both are true if interpreted in such a way as not to totally exclude the other.
:tiphat:
