You have to remember that unlike Muslims or many evangelical Protestants, Catholics recognize that Divine Revelation comes to us in three forms:
- Sacred Scripture (IE. the 73 books that comprise the Bible)
- Sacred Tradition (the teaching of the apostles entrusted to their successors the bishops and passed down from generation to generation)
- Magisterium (the living teaching authority of the Pope and the bishops in union with him as the successors of St. Peter and the Apostles)
Nothing in the Bible can be read in isolation - it must be read within the context of Sacred Tradition as articulated by the living Magisterium. We utterly reject as false the Protestant doctrine of
sola scriptura or Scripture Alone. The Sacred Books that comprise the Bible were carefully selected by the bishops of the Catholic Church and it was by their authority that the canon of Scripture was defined…the Church came first - she by her authority gave us the BIble. The Bible is the Church’s book and thus only the Church is competent to discern its true meaning.
You have to keep in mind that unlike Islam, the Incarnational principle is central to Christianity. God assumed our human nature in order to elevate humanity to share in the divine life of the Trinity. The Church is the body of Christ - the mystical extension of the Incarnation in this world - and thus everything that the Church does must be understood in light of this Incarnational principle. The Sacred Writers who composed the 73 books of the Bible were
inspired by God, but they remained human writers…like the Church, and like Christ Himself, there is an incarnational or dual-nature to the composition of the Scriptures…the Divine element AND the human element. God does not wish to eradicate our humanity, but rather to raise it to share in His life. When reading Sacred Scripture, the Church does not ignore this human element which God chose to employ to convey His Wisdom. For this reason, we must take into account the
intention of the writer, the *genre *in which he wrote - including his cultural context. Did the Holy Spirit, through the Sacred Writer, intend to teach us that the earth was flat? No, the Holy Spirit allowed the Sacred Writer to employ a very human metaphor to convey the point of the passage…the image the Writer gives us conveys the idea that God will rid the world of wickedness in the
same way that a carpet, to use your analogy, is shaken to be rid of dust.
Keep in mind that the Church did
not canonize Scripture with personal devotional reading in mind; after all, the vast majority of Christians could not read for most of Church history. The Scriptures were canonized to be proclaimed in the context of the Church’s divine worship - the liturgy. After the Scriptures are proclaimed at holy mass, the priest or deacon provides authoritative commentary on the Scriptures, drawing from Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium to shed light on the passages we have heard.
I hope that helps.
