Does the Catholic Church recognize the story of Noah and the flood as being literally true?

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Leela said:
You may have said this, but you haven’t argued this point in a way that is convincing to me in the least. You sound frustrated that your original statement on the matter was not merely accepted as gospel without needing to argue your case (do you have some authority that we all should recognize?), but you’ll need to explain how certain toddlers and unborn babies could be corrupted by sins that they did not commit and how animals and plants could possibly become corrupt. And if the animals and plants were in fact corrupt, how did the animals and plants that Noah took aboard the boat avoid being corrupted? And if a cleansing was necessary, why drown babies and animals to do it? Why not just instantly and painlessly end their lives and remove their beings from the earth rather than flood the earth leaving their rotting carcasses behind?
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Hi, Leela,

My authority for submitting that sin corrupts others, including plants land and animals, you do not recognize. In 2 Chronicles, 36, 15 - 21 (and my authority for my claim rests on verse 21, but I present the others to keep it in context) we see where God accepts rejection and non-verbally says, to the effect, ‘this is what it’s like without my love, which you reject’. He removes His grace, and the Babylonians come against Jerusalem.
Since you don’t recognize my authority, there is little sense in discussing this.

My goodness, but you have so many questions about God. Maybe you should ask Him in prayer, instead of me. How can you so question something in which you do not believe? If God is there, and He is, then it makes sense to ask questions about Him. If he’s not there, as atheists insist, then it makes no sense to ask questions about a non-existant person. You’ve been around here for a long time, now; and probably longer than me. You have questioned people more intelligent and more educated than me. All I can answer is with my faith. Which I have. I hope you don’t mock me, as that will come back on you.

Don
 
CWBetts said:
Then why reject Inerreancy, which is clear in Dei Verbum?
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As we’ve both quoted before, Dei Verbum does not use “inerrancy.”

Simply saying the word “inerrancy” is nowhere near as clear as what Dei Verbum actually teaches (which, again, you’ve cited before).

Why are you dissatisfied with what Dei Verbum teaches, i.e.
the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.
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Why bother abbreviating the fullness of Church teaching by reducing that to a single word (a word Dei Verbum and the Catechism do not use regarding Scripture)?
 
diggerdomer said:
As we’ve both quoted before, Dei Verbum does not use “inerrancy.”

Simply saying the word “inerrancy” is nowhere near as clear as what Dei Verbum actually teaches (which, again, you’ve cited before).

Why are you dissatisfied with what Dei Verbum teaches, i.e.

Why bother abbreviating the fullness of Church teaching by reducing that to a single word (a word Dei Verbum and the Catechism do not use regarding Scripture)?
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You are the one who refuses to acknowledge the true teachings of Holy Mother Church
 
diggerdomer said:
As we’ve both quoted before, Dei Verbum does not use “inerrancy.”

Simply saying the word “inerrancy” is nowhere near as clear as what Dei Verbum actually teaches (which, again, you’ve cited before).

Why are you dissatisfied with what Dei Verbum teaches, i.e.

Why bother abbreviating the fullness of Church teaching by reducing that to a single word (a word Dei Verbum and the Catechism do not use regarding Scripture)?
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Digger,

This is an honest question. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of it; where is the difference between what you say and what CWBetts is saying? What’s the difference, really, between “without error” and “inerrant”?

Can you give me an example where “without error” can bring one to a different conclusion when it is replaced by the word “inerrant”?

MonFrere
 
edwest2 said:
The Bible is the Word of God. It shows how God works. He cleansed the lepers, raised the dead and gave sight to the blind instantly.

Peace,
Ed
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That’s very nice- but what does that have to do with anything I wrote.?
 
Revelation in the Old Testament was progressive, taking place over many centuries. For example, the primitive Jews knew nothing of an afterlife until it was revealed much later in their history. This is easily demonstrated from the OT.

Even the moral code was revealed progressively. Lex talionis was not superseded until NT times. Yet lex talionis, as harsh as it may seem to us, was a moral advance over existing laws of retribution in the Near East because it put strict limits on retribution.

By way of another example, the primitive Hebrews who accepted Yahweh or Adonai as their God, did not initially know that the other gods were false gods, only that Yahweh was their tribal God. Evidence of this is seen in the Ten Commandments which states that, “You shall no other gods before Me.” It was not until some time later, as we know, that it was revealed to the Jews that the “other gods” did not actually exist.

We see the same progression in understanding taking place in the Deluge account. This story teaches that the God of the Hebrews does not punish man arbitrarily and vindictively with the forces of nature as do the gods of the Babylonians, so exemplified in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The Deluge story counters the Babylonian epics by teaching that God is just and He only punishes wickedness. There is no escaping God’s justice, and this is symbolized by a deluge that covered the entire known world of human habitation. God subsequently shows that he will forever be merciful toward man because his man’s heart is inclined toward evil.

Now such a deluge may seem exceedingly harsh, and so it was interpreted by many rabbis. However, the concept of God in the Deluge account is an advance over the false concepts of divinity commonly found in Babylonian folklore of which Abraham and the early Hebrews were well aware of.

It’s amazing that this thread title “Does the Catholic Church recognize the story of Noah and the flood as being literally true?” finds people arguing for a literal global flood when it is clear that the mind of the Church says otherwise. The state of Catholic biblical scholarship regarding the Deluge is reflected in the 1913 CE. Section III states,
(I) The geographical universality of the Deluge may be safely abandoned. Neither Sacred Scripture nor universal ecclesiastical tradition, nor again scientific considerations, render it advisable to adhere to the opinion that the Flood covered the whole surface of the earth.

The global deluge is symbolic, as previously stated. Likewise are many other features of the Deluge account. One can insist on a literal and historical reading of the Deluge account, but they shouldn’t pretend they are in sync with the Church today and the Catholic Biblical Commission.
 
itinerant1 said:
. The state of Catholic biblical scholarship regarding the Deluge is reflected in the 1913 CE. Section III states,
(I) The geographical universality of the Deluge may be safely abandoned. Neither Sacred Scripture nor universal ecclesiastical tradition, nor again scientific considerations, render it advisable to adhere to the opinion that the Flood covered the whole surface of the earth.

The global deluge is symbolic, as previously stated. Likewise are many other features of the Deluge account. One can insist on a literal and historical reading of the Deluge account, but they shouldn’t pretend they are in sync with the Church today and the Catholic Biblical Commission.
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The quoted section in red says that the geographical universality (global) may be safely abandoned. The Deluge (flood) remains. When one reads the Genesis text in the context of the Hebrew conception of the world, the flood can be seen as a local one covering the known area of that time.

Continued reading of the provided link offers this comment: “As to the view of Christian tradition, it suffices to appeal here to the words of Father Zorell who maintains that the Bible story concerning the Flood has never been explained or understood in any but a truly historical sense by any Catholic writer (cf. Hagen, Lexicon Biblicum).” …

Removing the descriptive word global (geographical universality) makes sense in keeping with paragraph 116 (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 109-119*)* The flood is a literal event.

Blessings
granny

Eternal life with God is the goal of human life.
 
grannymh said:
The quoted section in red says that the geographical universality (global) may be safely abandoned. The Deluge (flood) remains. When one reads the Genesis text in the context of the Hebrew conception of the world, the flood can be seen as a local one covering the known area of that time.

Continued reading of the provided link offers this comment: “As to the view of Christian tradition, it suffices to appeal here to the words of Father Zorell who maintains that the Bible story concerning the Flood has never been explained or understood in any but a truly historical sense by any Catholic writer (cf. Hagen, Lexicon Biblicum).” …

Removing the descriptive word global (geographical universality) makes sense in keeping with paragraph 116 (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 109-119*)* The flood is a literal event.

Blessings
granny

Eternal life with God is the goal of human life.
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Exegesis of the Deluge does not end in 1913. Father Zorell is speaking for interpretations up until the late 19th and somewhat the early 20th century.

Jewish biblical scholars along with Christian exegetes became increasingly aware of the background for the Deluge account. The 1901-06 Jewish Encyclopedia says:

"Source of the Hebrew Tradition
In the Babylonian, and especially in the Hebrew, tradition there is the blending of two still earlier legends, the one of the destruction of mankind, wholly or in part, by the punitive judgment of the divine powers, owing to man’s wickedness—a legend of a character similar to that of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the story of Philemon and Baucis in classic lore; the other, that of a flood as such, either local or universal. The Flood was not in the tradition’s view universal, as “universal” would be understood at present, simply because the world of the early writers was a totally different world from that of to-day. This latter legend again undoubtedly goes back ultimately to a nature-myth representing the phenomena of winter, which in Babylonia especially is a time of rain. The hero rescued in the ship must originally have been the sun-god. Thus the Deluge and the deliverance of Pêr-napishtim are ultimately but a variant of the Babylonian Creation-myth."

Ultimately the parallels between the Deluge account and the earlier Babylonian folklore could not be ignored or explained away, especially in regard to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the longest surviving Babylonian flood story.

This raised questions regarding the *genus literarium *of the biblical story. Catholic (and Protestant) scholarship focused on correctly identifying the genre of the Noah story, as encouraged by the Church generally in regard to hermeneutics:

"12. However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.

"To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms.”

“For truth is set forth and expressed differently in text which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation)
Accordingly, in 1963 we see that the Catholic Encyclopedia says...(continued next post)
 
Continued from previous post:

The 1963 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia states as follows:

Historical and Scientific Issues

"The composite character of the Biblical account and the variations in details within the Mesopotamian accounts suggests that no one of these is an account of a particular historical flood. Floods were common in ancient Mesopotamia, and occasionally devastated whole cities; but no scientific, geological, or historical evidence even suggests that at one time a single flood totally wiped out all of civilization in ancient Mesopotamia, let alone the whole world. That marine fossils are commonly found in the mountainous areas throughout the world is the result of geological uplifts. Periodically, news accounts appear about wood that is claimed to be from the ark, recovered on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Carbon 14 tests consistently show that the wood is from the current era, about 1600 years old. The wood is thought to come from the ruins of an ancient monastery that served the pilgrims’ hostel.

"The various flood accounts from Mesopotamia suggests that experiences with devastating local floods helped human imagination to construct accounts of an even worse flood in the distant past that did almost destroy humanity. The accounts reflect the helplessness that humans experience in the face of raging flood waters capable of devastating entire cities. The accounts similarly reflect belief that such natural phenomena were expressions of divine power and will, brought on out of spite or irritation or capriciousness. Because some humans survived each local flood, in each account some humans survive, sometimes due to chance, and other times to the intervention of a sympathetic divine power.

“The ancient authors of the Genesis flood wove their Israelite traditions around one such devastating flood to create a compelling story about their God and His relationship with humanity. The scientific or historical accuracy of the biblical narrative, measured by modern standards, is irrelevant to the accounts’ abiding theological significance.”

Furthermore, concerning the idea that a flood literally covered the entire earth, Fr. Jaki says,

"For such a Flood should have left sediments all over the globe, geological evidence of which are, however, sorely missing. Should one then assume that God had obliterated the traces of a global Flood? Possibly, but what are the biblical proofs of this?

"One may be tempted to appeal to the fact that in some deeper layers of the Mesopotamian soil it is possible to find sediments characteristic of flooding. For such sediments to exist, vast amounts of water of floodwaters had to be on hand. Natural rainfall would have had to be enhanced enormously, and far beyond a mere forty days’ worth, if the sea level was to be raised by the three miles necessary to carry Noah’s Ark to the top slopes of Ararat. In that case, the Flood would have expanded far beyond the general region known as Ararat, or a part of the northwestern Mesopotamia. It would have been a global event that would have spared only the upper portions of the Himalayas.

"But if heights much lower than the three-mile high peaks of Ararat were meant by the phrase, “the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat,” the Flood would not have been so extensive as to destroy all mankind with the exception of a couple dozen men and women (Noah and “his sons, his wife and his sons’ wives”). Now would all animals on earth have been destroyed save those which Noah entered in the Ark. At any rate, an ark about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall…,could not accommodate samples of the bestiary of the Middle East, nor even a significant portion of it. There was also the logistics of providing all those animals with food for at least forty days, assuming that this number was not a symbol of a very long period. The argument that those animals became comatose while in the Ark works only if one lets one’s intellect fall asleep. Reports about traces of Noah’s ark still lying on the highest slopes of Ararat are best ignored.

"One should therefore settle with a fairly localized flood, a flood limited to the Mesopotamian basin, the memory of which survived in Sumerian and Babylonian lore (the Gilgamesh and Athrasis Epics), as well as among Iranians and Hindus, a consensus that must not be taken lightly. (Yet, curiously missing is a clear tradition of a deluge in ancient Egyptian lore.) Physically, the biblical Flood implies the enhancement of natural forces for a purpose which puts Noah’s story in a class apart from other Flood legends. The narrator of Noah’s story stresses God’s mercy together with the assurance that God’s plan of salvation would prevail, physical and moral catastrophes notwithstanding.

"This spiritual side to the story is also subtly intimated by the symbolism of the dimensions of the ark given in close multiples (or fractions) of 60, the Babylonian base of counting. Such an ark successfully rides out the Flood, whose devastating power is symbolized by its duration of forty days. As to the rainbow, it is not stated that it had not been seen prior to the Flood. Rather, the rainbow, which in other cultures often was taken, because of its resemblance to a huge bow, for a sign of divine punishment, is now presented as a token of the permanence of God’s mercy.”

(Bible and Science by Stanley L. Jaki; Christendom Press,155-7)

From this we can see that the Deluge account is replete with symbolism. I think the most accurate characterization of the genus literarium is that of a “theological polemic.”
 
Fortunately, for our soul’s sake, encyclopedias and scholars are not the Magesterium. A conscientious reading of the Biblical flood account, in light of paragraph 116 of our Catechism of the Catholic Church reveals:
There was God.
A world of sin.
A man named Noah and his family.
Noah built an Ark.
God brought animals onto the Ark.
A flood came.
The Ark floated.
The waters covered the land.
The waters receded.
The Ark settled in the mountains of Ararat.
Noah, his family and the animals got off the Ark.

Everybody quibbling about the details does not change neither the historical, moral, theological nor spiritual truth of the story.

“Everybody” includes the scholars, whose influence does not over come the revelation of the Holy Spirit nor the authority of the Magisterium. The Church, the faithful and the Holy Bible were put here to change the world, not to be changed by it.

As I’m said before, I’m entitled to my opinion and you’re entitled to yours. You have stated sources for your opinion and I submit a common sense and prayerful reading of the scripture as a base for mine.

I just wish all of us would accept that we each can have an opinion without another Catholic trying to change it.

Sincerely,
Don
 
CWBetts said:
You are the one who refuses to acknowledge the true teachings of Holy Mother Church
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Wow. That’s a serious accusation. What’s your basis for that? What have I said in this Thread that refuses the teachings of the Catholic Church?
 
MonFrere said:
Digger,

This is an honest question. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of it; where is the difference between what you say and what CWBetts is saying? What’s the difference, really, between “without error” and “inerrant”?

Can you give me an example where “without error” can bring one to a different conclusion when it is replaced by the word “inerrant”?

MonFrere
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The difference is this:
  1. Scripture is inerrant.
  2. (as the Church teaches): The inspired books teach the truth. “Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.” (see CCC 107)
Only saying “Scripture is inerrant” is open to many more (and potentially incorrect, from a Catholic perspective) interpretations than what the Catholic Church teaches.

Hope this helps.
 
from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The senses of Scripture

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85

3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

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There is nothing in the Catechism that teaches that the *genus litterarium *of the Noah story is that of literal-historical narrative. By interpreting it as such, fundamentalists are under the illusion that they are taking the Bible more literally than others. And non-fundamentalists will accordingly characterize fundamentalists as “literalists.” I use the term “literal” in this sense as well. But this is not rigorously accurate.

More strictly speaking, fundamentalists are not taking biblical accounts “literally”. To read an account in a truly literal way is to properly recognize the genus litterarium, its category and character, and how it functions to express the author’s meaning. For example, if an account in Genesis 2 is recognized as historical aetiology expressed in a popular and poetic form, then this constitutes the basis for a literal reading. If the account is read in some other way, then it is not being taken more literally and seriously, as the reader might falsely imagine.

It is common for fundamentalists and creationists to assert that the accounts in Genesis were read more literally in previous centuries. This is a false assertion which has created a confusion that is difficult to unravel.

A text in Scripture is more literally understood, more fully and precisely grasped, the more clearly and explicitly the literary type is recognized. If modern exegetes can do this better today in regard to the Deluge account, then it is us, and not the exegetes of previous centuries, who understand the account more literally.

The upshot of this is that those who assert such things as a direct creation in six days, or an actual deluge, a sea-worthy ark, and so on, are not reading the accounts more literally. They are reading it wrongly by failing to correctly recognize and fully appreciate the genus litterarium chosen by the Sacred Writers.
 
diggerdomer said:
Wow. That’s a serious accusation. What’s your basis for that? What have I said in this Thread that refuses the teachings of the Catholic Church?
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That’s just CWBett’s personal “logic”: i.e. if anyone disagrees with him, then they are, by that fact, refusing to accept the teachings of the Church. LOL 😛
 
from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The senses of Scripture

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”

If I may point out the obvious regarding the literal meaning.

No matter how many floods there are in the history of the world, Sacred Scripture is describing only one particular flood in an area in which it rains.

So far, no one has demonstrated that it never rained in the Hebrew area.

So what is the real reason some people want to deny the event? Is it because some people wish to avoid the concept of a transcendent spiritual being? Is it because some people wish to avoid the concept of sin and consequences?

Does the idea of a real obedience to a real God displease some people?

Blessings,
granny

Eternal life with God is the goal of human life.
 
grannymh said:
No matter how many floods there are in the history of the world, Sacred Scripture is describing only one particular flood in an area in which it rains. So far, no one has demonstrated that it never rained in the Hebrew area. So what is the real reason some people want to deny the event?
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Granny, perhaps I missed it in this discussion: who is denying that there was a flood in the Ancient Near East, the magnified story of which eventually became incorporated into the Genesis narrative?

StAnastasia
 
buffalo said:
God is pro-eternal life. Your argument is a false dichotomy.
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No, it isn’t. By definition, the terminating of an unborn life is abortion, no matter who causes it. The question is whether in the case of a literally interpreted Noah’s Flood, God’s causing the abortion of the drowned fetuses was morally justifiable. Is abortion sometimes morally justifiable? Perhaps it cane be argued that in this case it was.

StAnastasia
 
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