Is the Bible in its entirety Divine Revelation?

[Youthminister]

I know that all of Sacred Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but is the entire Bible classified as Divine Revelation? I am particularly confused because in the Catholic Encyclopedia provided on Catholic Answers under “Revelation,” section one states, “It will be seen that Revelation as thus explained differs clearly from: (I) inspiration such as is bestowed by God on the author of a sacred book; for this while involving a special illumination of the mind in virtue of which the recipient conceives such thoughts as God desires him to commit to writing, does not necessarily suppose a supernatural communication of these truths.” Does this imply that some sacred books of the Bible are not Divine Revelation? I am confused as to how a special illumination of the mind by God differs from supernatural communication.

 

[pianistclare]

A person can write something based on his experience and eyewitness account, such as the Gospels. That doesn’t necessarily mean that God literally whispered in his ear.
Much of Scripture is historical or allegorical. Inspiration is distinct from dictation.

 

[Youthminister]

Would those examples not be considered Divine Revelation then? It seems that the gospels should be classified as Divine Revelation since they literally contain God’s communication to man through the teachings of Jesus.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

"for this while involving a special illumination of the mind in virtue of which the recipient conceives such thoughts as God desires him to commit to writing, does not necessarily suppose a supernatural communication of these truths.”

I am always suspicious of questions like this: Is the poster sincerely asking a question, or is she (apparently in this case) simply baiting the rest of us? And of course it’s more of an issue if someone just joined this forum a few minutes ago. But because of my trusting and optimistic nature, I’ll assume it’s a legitimate question.

As I have done before, let’s take Aesop’s tale of the fox and the grapes. A fox saw some grapes in a vineyard. He tried to reach them but couldn’t. He went away thinking “I didn’t want those grapes anyway, they were probably sour.” Thus “sour grapes.”

What’s the point of the story? There are several possibilities, and any number of them could be correct: You should be honest with yourself. You shouldn’t waste time trying to get what’s beyond your grasp. A lot of people make up excuses about why their failures don’t matter. And so on.

Let’s assume for a minute that this story is inspired and in the Gospels. What does “inspired” mean? Simply that God wanted the story included in the Gospels, and God gave the idea to the author to write the story. Is it revelation? No. There is no divine truth in the story that could only be known by God. Everything in the story–including the point of the story–could be known by any rational person. Inspiration = how; revelation = what. Could something be both inspired and revelation? Of course–the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, etc. Could something be revelation and not inspired? I don’t think so; seems like a contradiction to me. Is inspiration the exact words of God? No. The idea originates with God. The words are the human author’s.

But let’s go further with the fox and the grapes. You could make up a very elaborate story: "It was a particularly sunny Tuesday morning when Raynard, the young male fox, wandered by Smith’s Vineyards on the big hill to the east of his den on his way to visit his lady friend Foxy… " and so on.

What’s the point of the story? Exactly what it was in the stripped down basic version. No difference. But now you have a lot of detail, which the human author added. Why? Possibly to fit a literary form he was familiar with. Possibly to make it a more interesting story. Possibly because he is writing about an incident he actually saw. All sorts of possible reasons.

Now if you were a literalist, you could expend a lot of energy trying to figure out exactly where Smith’s Vineyards were, and why it was Tuesday and not Wednesday, and the morality of the fox going to see his girlfriend Foxy, and the symbolism of the grapes, and so on and so on. A total waste of time. None of that is the point of the story. It’s all just unnecessary detail that could be changed or eliminated without affecting the point of the story at all.

A lot of people get worked up about “contradictions” or “errors” in the Bible. But these always concern the details that simply don’t matter.

 

[Mintaka]

Anybody who is telling you what God has revealed to the Church, is providing you with divine revelation. The content of the information is what is important, and the format doesn’t matter as long as the information is correct. Bob the atheist can be a transmitter of divine revelation, if he keeps to what the Church teaches.

Inspired Bible texts do not just teach us information. They teach us by their format, their connection to other Biblical books, and the way God can make them apply to their own time, as well as to every era afterward. They also apply to every reader individually, because God is just awesome like that. Inspired texts contain multiplie levels of meaning. Also, they are holy, touched by the power of God. Obviously they are full of divine revelation, too, but the information stream is so rich that it needs interpretation by a knowledgeable, sensible teacher in most places.

 

[Youthminister]

I am sorry if I asked my question in a way that sounded insincere. I am preparing a lecture for a high school education class I am teaching on Divine Revelation and I am truly confused as to whether all of scripture is referred to as “Divine Revelation.” I know that sacred scripture and sacred tradition are the deposits of faith which make up Divine Revelation but the textbook doesn’t seem to specify whether every passage in the Bible is Divine Revelation or just the parts that directly refer to God’s plan for salvation and teach about who God is. I tried researching online but got even more confused when I ran across the particular line I quoted.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

I am sorry if I asked my question in a way that sounded insincere. I am preparing a lecture for a high school education class I am teaching on Divine Revelation and I am truly confused as to whether all of scripture is referred to as “Divine Revelation.”

I’m sorry too–my skepticism has nothing to do with the way your question was asked. It’s just that, as anywhere on the internet, you never know who you’re dealing with or what their motivations are. If you are on these forums for a while, you will realize that certain people take great pleasure in baiting Catholics.

For any question, I would immediately turn to the Catechism. It’s written clearly (unlike the Catholic Encyclopedia!) and of course it has been vetted by the Vatican.

In common speech people often use “inspiration” and “revelation” interchangeably, but they are technically separate. As I said earlier, inspiration is the action of God communicating to a human writer; revelation would be the content of the communication. But revelation is not just any content, it is ONLY the content that God alone can know–as I said before, things like the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus.

Catechism, section 1, chapter 2, articles 1 + 2 --revelation http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a1.htm

Catechism, section 1, chapter 2, article 3–inspriation http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a1.htm

This goes beyond your question, and I touched on it earlier, but it is the source of virtually all problems with the Bible: is every single detail in the Bible a truth inspired by God? If you believe that, you find yourself trying to reconcile all sorts of contradictions in the details (each Gospel has completely different details concerning the Resurrection, for example). If you understand that inspiration only applies to the point of the story, the details don’t matter. For example, Garry Wills in his book “The Meaning of the Gospels” talks about the different details in the Resurrection stories and concludes by saying–as any good Catholic should–“So what?”

Pay particular attention to #107, where it quotes Dei Verburm (report of Vatican II, online): “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.” Note the words “that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation…” Going back to the fox and the grapes, the “truth” would be the point of the story, not the extraneous details. In the Resurrection stories, the “truth” would be that Jesus physically died, was buried, and physically rose from the dead. The details (who arrived at the tomb first, who was waiting at the tomb, where Jesus first appeared to the Apostles, etc.) make a nice story, but they are not the “truth” revealed by God for salvation. It doesn’t matter to your salvation who arrived at the tomb first. But it does matter that Jesus physically died.

 

[Gorgias]

“It will be seen that Revelation as thus explained differs clearly from: (I) inspiration such as is bestowed by God on the author of a sacred book; for this while involving a special illumination of the mind in virtue of which the recipient conceives such thoughts as God desires him to commit to writing, does not necessarily suppose a supernatural communication of these truths.” Does this imply that some sacred books of the Bible are not Divine Revelation? I am confused as to how a special illumination of the mind by God differs from supernatural communication.

@Youthminister,

The quote you’ve referenced here isn’t talking about the difference between revelation and inspiration – it’s clarifying what the Church means (and doesn’t mean!) by “inspiration.”

The “this” in the sentence you quote actually refers to inspiration. So, this sentence is merely saying that inspiration doesn’t mean that God magically communicates His thoughts to the inspired author. (In other words, God doesn’t dictate when He inspires.)

So, this sentence doesn’t address your question as stated. The explanation @Erikaspirit16 provided is a good one, and should answer your question (I hope)…!

 

[St.Martin_de_Porres]

I think you may have confused “inspiration” with “revelation” I would check the Catechism…

 

[Mintaka]

Yes, every passage in the Bible contains divine revelation of some sort, and the whole of the Bible is divine revelation too. I think that the better way to phrase it would be “Everything in the Bible is a part of God’s revelation to us,” so that you don’t have some smart-aleck asking you if the word “the” is a divine revelation.

 

[hazcompat]

Every word in scripture is a love word written for you and you alone. That does not alter the reality that every word is written for me and me alone. Before time began.

Peace

 

[EricF]

To the original question, yes. Now had the question been, “Is the Bible the entirety of divine revelation?” then the Catholic answer would differ from that of our Protestant brothers.

 

[Benadam]

Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit experienced a kind of knowing impossible to know humanly. The Incarnation. Mary could tell no one. But Elizabeth, without being told knew the Truth of who Mary is in God’s plan.
Again, in the light of the Transfiguration, how did the disciples know that it was Moses and Elijah talking to Jesus having never seen them? Divine Revelation is a different kind of knowing than the kind of knowing offered by our higher faculties.

Only heaven could reveal the Incarnation. Not accessible to human reason

Once delivered Divine Revelation can require explanation to unpack and understand it’s full meaning. Divine inspiration provides understanding of those truth’s that have been Divinely revealed. God can inspire our minds to connect dots that otherwise don’t seem to have a connection. That kind of knowing is different in that it is knowledge accessible to reason if reason were divinely inspired. Reason gathers from what is already known and comes to understand what was perhaps impossible before. Particulars that seem completely unrelated unite and a deeper understanding of what is already revealed emerges.

That’s how I understand how Divine Revelation and Divine Ispiration differ.