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

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adriancombe said:
This is not what I would describe as an ‘obvious intentional inaccuracy to let us know it is supposed to be fiction’. If I had to come up with 100 possible explanations, that would not even have a chance of making the list. The most obvious is in someone’s vernacular the Babylonians were call Assyrians. This is really no more complicated than Europeans who assume Canadians are from the U. S., or Americans who assume Austrians are German because they speak German, or (my favorite) the Pennsylvania ‘Dutch’ who are called that because someone heard the language was ‘Deutsch’ and got it mixed up!
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Well I don’t want to suggest that the ‘intentional error’ reading is necessarily the only possibility, but I find yours a little far-fetched. Do you have any support for the argument, e.g. other documents in which Babylonians were referred to as Assyrians?
 
twinc said:
here we may well ask which is the greater impossibility, Jonah and the whale or a dead man coming to life again,or for the blind from birth to see or the lame to walk etc - twinc
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the fllaw in your theory is that the books listed are fiction and were known by their contemporaries to be a pious fiction.The Gospels were not written as fiction .Gospels were written and letters were written mostly by contemporaries with John being the most distant from Jesus’s death -around 50-60 difference.Judith would have been written around 200bc which makes it at least 300 year difference between the alleged incident and writing of the tale. The Bible consists o f all kinds of genres-not just one. The books in the Bible are not all narratives .So therefore you can not read them all the exact way. There is as much variety of genres as there are authors.Each has it’s peculiar points.Because some of the books in the Bible are non-narrative does not lessen it’s importance or it’s power.It neither takes away from it’s inspiration nor from it’s source of origin or worth.
 
Hi, juliamajor and grace_singh -

First, juliamajor, when you said the Vatican had an intro to Judith, Jonah and another book that they were novels…who in the Vatican was that? A Pope’s encyclical? Or some Cardinal’s or ArcBishop’s notation?
I read all three of those books as literal, with spiritual insights, and benefit.
And, as another poster mentioned, there are ‘historical novels’; which is a genre I dearly love to read.

Now, grace_signh -

I wholly agree with your post of Nov 25th at 8:54PM.
 
donsnow said:
Hi, juliamajor and grace_singh -

First, juliamajor, when you said the Vatican had an intro to Judith, Jonah and another book that they were novels…who in the Vatican was that? A Pope’s encyclical? Or some Cardinal’s or ArcBishop’s notation?
I read all three of those books as literal, with spiritual insights, and benefit.
And, as another poster mentioned, there are ‘historical novels’; which is a genre I dearly love to read.

Now, grace_signh -

I wholly agree with your post of Nov 25th at 8:54PM.
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Book of Judith

…Catholics with very few exceptions accept the book of Judith as a narrative of facts, not as an allegory. Even Jahn considers that the genealogy of Judith is inexplicable on the hypothesis that the story is a mere fiction (“Introductio”, Vienna, 1814, p. 461). Why carry out the genealogy of a fictitious person through fifteen generations? The Fathers have ever looked upon the book as historical. St. Jerome, who excluded Judith from the Canon, nonetheless accepted the person of the valiant woman as historical (Ep. lxv, 1).
 
Book of Jonah

Catholics have always looked upon the Book of Jonah as a fact-narrative. In the works of some recent Catholic writers there is a leaning to regard the book as fiction. Only Simon and Jahn, among prominent Catholic scholars, have clearly denied the historicity of Jonah; and the orthodoxy of these two critics may no longer be defended: “Providentissimus Deus” implicitly condemned the ideas of both in the matter of inspiration, and the Congregation of the Index expressly condemned the “Introduction” of the latter.
Reasons for the traditional acceptance of the historicity of Jonah:
 
adriancombe said:
  1. Thanks. Sorry I missed it earlier.
  2. Being on the Vatican website doesn’t make it a magisterial teaching. More interestingly and to the point,
  3. The NAB? Are you kidding? Please see separate thread here at CAF on problems with the NAB.
  4. Hope you are all having a blessed Thanksgiving holiday!
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If the NAB is that problematic, don’t tell me, tell the Vatican so they can put a version you prefer on their website.
 
twinc said:
here we may well ask which is the greater impossibility, Jonah and the whale or a dead man coming to life again,or for the blind from birth to see or the lame to walk etc - twinc
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Hi, twinc -

O, I think the flood was global and the heavens (interplanetary space) and the depths of the earth added water to the rain that fell for forty days and forty nights. Then, when the flood began to recede, I think the earth opened up and swallowed a lot of water again, and the wind evaporated a lot of water into the sky.
I think Jonah could be a true story and wonder all the time, being an amateur astronomer, how God stopped the sun in the sky, but don’t doubt that He did it. I’ve been a science fiction fan…but the Holy Bible and Genesis have more wonderous stories than I ever read in scifi.
I believe Jesus’ miracles are real, too. The Holy Trinity’s done a few for me.
 
Thank you, Buffalo,

For your posts with documentation on Judith and Jonah as factual.
 
adriancombe said:
I doubt it, but have you taken a look at the other thread I mentioned?
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Yes. I still tend to trust the Vatican and those officials who approved the Catholic NAB more. Whatever, there are many acceptable translations of Scripture for Catholics, whether one prefers the NAB or not is not that important to me.
 
diggerdomer said:
Yes. I still tend to trust the Vatican and those officials who approved the Catholic NAB more. Whatever, there are many acceptable translations of Scripture for Catholics, whether one prefers the NAB or not is not that important to me.
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It is of course not the translation that most starkly betrays the modernistic tendencies but the footnotes and other comments.
 
adriancombe said:
It is of course not the translation that most starkly betrays the modernistic tendencies but the footnotes and other comments.
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The Vatican doesn’t seem to have a significant problem with them, otherwise I assume they would post a different version or post nothing on their web site.
 
adriancombe said:
It is of course not the translation that most starkly betrays the modernistic tendencies but the footnotes and other comments.
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It is such a blessing to have one among us who has the holiness to correct the Vatican. Give me a break.
 
One has to ask, if the flood did not happen why did God promise not bring another? One cannot repeat what has not happened.
 
I hope this isn’t too random or out-of-the-blue, but does anyone know of the status of the ark found on Mt Aarot (spelling?)??
 
CWBetts said:
It is such a blessing to have one among us who has the holiness to correct the Vatican. Give me a break.
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That’s not the point. The Vatican is simply copying pasting what the USCCB gave them. The problems with the NAB are not subtle and you don’t need a halo to spot them. Please visit the thread here at CAF re NAB issues. It’s not just me (not even primarily me) who has noticed this.
 
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