I know the Bible is not a Science Text But

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ProdglArchitect said:
👍

I agree, I may think they’re wrong, but at least they’re not picking and choosing which parts they want to believe.
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Exactly. This is what rationalists do: they cherry-pick the ‘historical’ (or at least, what seems plausibly ‘historical’ for them) parts out and chuck the rest. What Thomas Jefferson did is a prime example of this methinks: he literally cut-and-pasted a copy of the gospels to remove any mention of miracles or the resurrection.
 
These are actual numbers.

“Genesis does not contain purified myths.” (1909, Pontifical Biblical Commission)

And God can do things only God can do.

Ed
 
truetofaith said:
…and Abraham wasn’t over 100 ? Where does this all take us ?

Moses didn’t part the waters of the Red Sea…the Israelites walked on a sand bar…Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus from the dead…he was only sleeping… and Jesus didn’t die on the cross, He was only badly hurt and the apostles revived Him, like the “Passover Plot” suggests.

I’m sick & tired of all the controversy and Bull S—, on this Catholic Answers website…and I am just about ready to leave, before I lose my belief in God! :mad: :eek: 👋
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Take a chill pill, True, only one person on the whole thread said something like that, and he was only playing the devil’s advocate. You know what that means right?
 
truetofaith said:
One of our priests gave that explanation for the feeding of the 5000. I yelled out give me a break …and I walked out …until the homily was over!

These comments get me mad! :mad:

BTW …the gospels say…the apostles came to Jesus & said it was getting late in the day & He should send the people away so they could go into the village & buy food. Jesus said that they should give them food & they told Him there was a boy with only 5 loaves of bread & 2 fish. That’s when the Bible describes the “Miracle” of feeding 5000.

No, ‘sharing of lunch’…😛
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I’m sorry, but yelling and walking out during Mass!? How can you expect others to respect the Church and Holy Mass when you don’t?
 
agnes_therese said:
I’m sorry, but yelling and walking out during Mass!? How can you expect others to respect the Church and Holy Mass when you don’t?
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A bit much, yes, but even though the message was delivered in a less than appropriate way, I hope others heard the message and gave it some thought. There is always, “I’m sorry I yelled and walked out but I meant what I said. And here’s why.”

Ed
 
patrick457 said:
The problem with these claims even is not so much that they’re claiming the biblical miracles to be fiction, but that they are trying to discount an important element of the story while still trying to say that the story as recounted was historical. (In short, these people are trying to have their cake and eat it at the same time.) ‘Rationalists’ won’t say the stories are made up: they’ll say it happened, but all that supernatural stuff must have a naturalistic explanation, because after all, we all know the supernatural doesn’t really exist. :rolleyes: 🤷 They’re trying to say that the Bible is historically true, but first it must be stripped of anything that’s ‘unnatural’.

This is why I actually have more respect for people who simply dismiss the biblical stories as outright made-up stories: I don’t agree with them of course, but at least they’re more consistent than the rationalist crowd. They at least admit that you can’t just strip these stories of their supernatural content and come up with some naturalistic ‘explanation’ to explain the miraculous away, even if they also believe that the supernatural doesn’t really exist.
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Great post, Ive noticed this kind of thing at my parish too, scary thing, no one ever gets up and storms out, they just all sit there believing every word that is said. Ive always thought cherry picking was a big problem in our parish, I know of a few topics they just will not preach about (Nephilim being one them).

This is one of the reasons I tend to think when the very first false prophet to come along that has some kind of supernatural abilities, the entire parish will be fooled, thinking this must be the real deal, and start worshiping them.
 
mikekle said:
Great post, Ive noticed this kind of thing at my parish too, scary thing, no one ever gets up and storms out, they just all sit there believing every word that is said. Ive always thought cherry picking was a big problem in our parish, I know of a few topics they just will not preach about (Nephilim being one them).

This is one of the reasons I tend to think when the very first false prophet to come along that has some kind of supernatural abilities, the entire parish will be fooled, thinking this must be the real deal, and start worshiping them.
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Whether the flood actually happened, whether the patriarchs actually lived that long, whether the Nephilim actually existed and similar issues are not productive topics for a homily.

Whether Adam’s 900 year lifespan or the flood are literal or symbolic is a rat hole no good homilist should go down. All the talk of storming out, yelling at priests in the middle of Mass and endless arguments on CAF which resolve nothing are ample evidence that no good can come from discussing these things in a homily.

These topics completely miss the point of why the sacred texts were written anyway. How the Sacred Texts help get us to heaven is what’s important. I say it over and over - the point of the sacred texts is not historical accuracy but salvation. What is important is how the texts help get us to heaven.

We can argue all day about historical accuracy and hear one thousand homilies on it but not a bit of it will get one person to heaven.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
Whether the flood actually happened, whether the patriarchs actually lived that long, whether the Nephilim actually existed and similar issues are not productive topics for a homily.

Whether Adam’s 900 year lifespan or the flood are literal or symbolic is a rat hole no good homilist should go down. All the talk of storming out, yelling at priests in the middle of Mass and endless arguments on CAF which resolve nothing are ample evidence that no good can come from discussing these things in a homily.

These topics completely miss the point of why the sacred texts were written anyway. How the Sacred Texts help get us to heaven is what’s important. I say it over and over - the point of the sacred texts is not historical accuracy but salvation. What is important is how the texts help get us to heaven.

We can argue all day about historical accuracy and hear one thousand homilies on it but not a bit of it will get one person to heaven.

-Tim-
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Hi Tim,

Your post raises the question of why historical accuracy as it applies to the Bible is being brought up here constantly. That is beyond our control. It appears people have questions and they expect some kind of answer.

Ed
 
truetofaith said:
…and Abraham wasn’t over 100 ? Where does this all take us ?

Moses didn’t part the waters of the Red Sea…the Israelites walked on a sand bar…Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus from the dead…he was only sleeping… and Jesus didn’t die on the cross, He was only badly hurt and the apostles revived Him, like the “Passover Plot” suggests.

I’m sick & tired of all the controversy and Bull S—, on this Catholic Answers website…and I am just about ready to leave, before I lose my belief in God! :mad: :eek: 👋
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Truetofaith - I’m sorry if my post made you upset. But I was playing devil’s advocate. This is an apologetics post. People cannot properly succeed in apologetics if they don’t know the other arguments.

Furthermore, I said “it is possible that there was a translation issue,”, I did NOT say “there is a translation issue.”

This is why we have Sacred Tradition and the authority of the Church. The Church has always taught that Genesis was written with symbolism. What is literal and what is symbolism, we don’t know for sure. But there is symbolism there. Regardless of whether Sarah was 90 years old or 90 “seasons” old, isn’t the point. The point is that God preformed a miracle to allow her son to be born.

While, I personally lean towards the fact that the years in Genesis are not equal to solar years (365 days in a year), I’m not against it.

However, I do strongly feel that we Catholics have to understand the different arguments if we are to help people learn the faith and debate people who do not believe The Bible.

Finally, you should never allow someone else to persuade you from the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Church is the fullness of Truth, no matter how flawed/sinful/uneducated/mistaken her individual members are.

I pray my post makes sense.

Lord, please grant us wisdom and understanding. Amen.
 
agnes_therese said:
I’m sorry, but yelling and walking out during Mass!? How can you expect others to respect the Church and Holy Mass when you don’t?
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I respect the Mass but not the priest’s ridiculous sermon.

If by showing my rejection of what he was saying about the miracle of Jesus woke somebody up…I think it was worth the momentary interruption!
 
truetofaith said:
I respect the Mass but not the priest’s ridiculous sermon.
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One who practices inner silence and stillness can find God whispering to him in even the most ridiculous homily.

The key is unplugging the ears from the brain and plugging them into the heart instead.

-Tim-
 
pianistclare said:
In case anyone is still interested in the numbers thing:
myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Magic_and_the_Supernatural/Practices_and_Beliefs/Incantations/Names_and_Numbers/Numbers.shtml
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A very interesting link, Clare. Thanks for posting it.

I’ve always been fond of the number **7 **myself. 🙂

I think the symbolism thing seems a very good explanation, at least, in part.

Still, no one has brought in the Church Father’s readings of the text. I’ve always been shy of doing the homework myself.
 
DaddyGirl said:
But this Adam and Eve died, did they not?
So their DNA could not have been perfect, right?

And…where is the info that Adam and Eve lived 6000 years ago?
And also, where is the OP getting the information that their DNA was perfect?

This is mind boggling.

.
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I never said nothing about perfect DNA… “I known nothing!!” (Schultz ca. 1965)
 
DaddyGirl said:
LOL…🙂
I meant…the person who posted about the “perfect DNA”!

Sorry, JC!

You may know that you know nothing; but that means you know a heck of a lot.

.
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:ehh: :eek: :blushing:

Thanks, DG!
 
TimothyH said:
One who practices inner silence and stillness can find God whispering to him in even the most ridiculous homily.

The key is unplugging the ears from the brain and plugging them into the heart instead.

-Tim-
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In my opinion the priest is giving a false teaching, which will make the miracles in the Bible …false.

I cannot remain silent & have error preached to me or my fellow Catholics. :tsktsk:
 
DaddyGirl said:
That sounds very disrespectful.
Why would you treat the priest like that and assume he is telling a non-truth and get so mad about it?
Many scholars and theologians and priests believe what your priest told you about the loaves/fishes story to be true.
Can you prove your priest wrong?
If not, then why are you treating him like that?! Can you prove that story is literal and not metaphorical, as many of the bible stories are?

Does your faith hang on such a thread that a more realistic telling of that story --which may very well be true–makes it crumble?

Your priest is a Vicar of Christ. I would trust him.

.
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Where does it end, D.G. ? Did Jesus literally rise from the dead on Easter Sunday or was it just a nice dream that the apostles spread :confused:

I don’t trust an ‘off the wall’ interpretation by this priest and our pastor on another occasion! :eek:

The miracles must be accepted as true !!!
 
truetofaith said:
In my opinion the priest is giving a false teaching, which will make the miracles in the Bible …false.

I cannot remain silent & have error preached to me or my fellow Catholics. :tsktsk:
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First, you say it is your opinion that the priest is giving a false teaching. That suggests that it is not fact that the priest is giving a false teaching.

I think you need to contact your bishop. If your bishop agrees with you, I’m sure he will take corrective action. If he doesn’t agree with you, then you need to find out why and study whatever he gives you.

Whichever way it goes, you should be willing to accept the bishop’s decision in a spirit of love, charity, and obedience.
 
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