Need Help: Inerrancy of Scripture

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Stumped by Muslim Apologist…re: errors found in our Catholic Bibles:

Does our Catholic Church Teaching on the Inerrancy of Scripture mean something different than how I understand it - I understood it to mean that there is ZERO Errors in the Bible.

I know language when understood properly can mean something different than it initially sounds, so does our Catholic Church mean that there isn’t ANY errors at all in the Bible?

I need clarification: if there is even 1 error is discovered in a Catholic version of the Bible than like a house of cards, our Church falls?

Or

Are errors permitted in a Catholic Bible even though our Church teaches the Inerrancy of Scripture?

How am I to understand this correctly? I want to make sure I’m completely clear so that I can explain it better.

Here’s some points I would make about a RC understanding of inerrancy.

Inerrancy
= The Bible is free from error. How is this to be understood?
“Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.” [Vatican II, *Dei verbum, #11]

The basic problem
We maintain that the Bible is inerrant, yet it contains statements that at face value in any other teaching text would be regarded as erroneous. Why, then, should the Bible considered inerrant?

Examples of statements in the Bible that often cause difficulty with regard to inerrancy.
•Gn 7:17 flood–40 days; Gn 7:24 flood–150 days
•Mk 2:26 - Abiathar is said to be high priest; 1 Sm 21:2 - Ahimelech is high priest
•Mt 23:35 - Zechariah, son of Barachiah; 2 Chr 24:20-22 - son of Jehoida
•Fig tree withers immediately Mt 21:18-22; withers next day Mk 11:12-14, 20-25.
•Inscriptions on the Cross differ - Mt 27:37; Mk 15:26; Lk 23:38; Jn 19:19
•Death of Judas and origin of Field of Blood differ - Mt 27:5-8; AA 1:18-19
•Going from or coming to Jericho? - Mt 20:29-34; Mk 10:46-53; Lk 18:35-43
•Jn 7:38 - no such exact quote in the OT
•The universe wrapped in water held back by a solid dome called the firmament
•Joshua 10:13 - the sun stood still . . . . the sun moves, not the earth???

Toward a solution

1. Note literary forms - history, legend, creation epic, poetry, law, parable, etc. Along with that, note literal use of language vs. figurative use of language.
2. The Bible is inerrant in its original text. Certain copying inaccuracies may account for some discrepancies.
3. Inerrancy applies to the God-given purpose of the Bible to teach salvific truth. Scripture does not set out to teach the full rigors of natural science or convey historical detail for their own sakes as only a modern scholarly treatise on these subjects would. This is not its purpose. So one cannot make inerrancy hinge upon the technical perfection of modern academic research and scholarship.
   “We do not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: ‘I send you the Paraclete, that he may instruct you concerning the course of the sun and moon.’ For it was Christians he wished to make, not mathematicians.” [St. Augustine, *De Actis cum Felice Manicheo I, 10]
4. Inerrancy applies to what the biblical author intends to teach–“assert” as Dei verbum puts it–not what he materially uses in the process. So Ps 19:5-7 (“the sun runs from one end of the sky to the other”) is a hymn of praise to God for His creation as perceived, not a lesson in modern astrophysics. The biblical author is not asserting—intending to teach–that the sun goes around the earth.
   The Biblical authors describe phenomena and things as they appear to the senses and are not intending to teach a scientific theory. In Joshua 10:13 it is mentioned that the sun stood still. The description of the event is they way Joshua perceived it, not a scientific statement of fact that the sun revolves around the earth.
5. Inerrancy applies to all of the Bible taken as a whole and in the light of the whole, not isolated passages out of context. For example, a complete reading of the whole Bible leads to the inescapable conclusion that killing innocent civilians in a war is wrong. But at an early stage of the unfolding of revelation the abhorrent ancient practice of killing the whole population was permitted or written about as if normal and willed by God (Dt 20:16-18; Josh 6:21; 1 Sam 15:3). Ditto for killing homosexuals (Lev 20:13).
6. A Catholic understanding of inspiration (unlike the Muslim view of the Koran) has always rejected the notion that the Bible is verbally dictated by God in a human language.
   “In composing the sacred books, God chose human beings and while employed by him they made use of their powers and abilities, so with Him acting in them and through them, they as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.” Dei verbum, #11]

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

1. In one of the Gospels it states that during His Passion, Jesus was made to wear a SCARLET robe, but in another of the Gospels it states that during His Passion, Jesus was made to wear a PURPLE robe. Red and Purple are two completely different colors and they don’t even match so it can’t even be explained away by saying the robe was multi-colored robe.

Tyrian Purple, which was used for kings. See:

 

[jschutzm]

As MOST are replying… I’ll also re-iterate.

My understanding is that the bible is inerrant when it comes to faith and morals… not science, history, or other such things.
ONLY when it comes to the faith and how to believe, how to follow God’s teachings and what is right and just.

Secondly… The bible is but ONE of the pillars of faith. It COULD (though it won’t) fold… and the Church would NOT fall apart. That line of reasoning ONLY holds true to a “sola scriptura” Christian… that is a “bible alone” Christian. The Catholic church is like a 3 legged stool. Knock out one leg… and you can still balance on the other 2. Most Protestantism is a 2 legged stool, Islam… a 1 or 2 legged stool as well. Knock out their holy book and their faith collapses in on itself.

Catholicism is based on Christ, Holy Scripture, and Holy Tradition. Holy Tradition and Holy Scripture agree and reinforce each other…but each one can stand on its own.
So prove the bible wrong… and you still must contend with Holy Tradition and Christ himself. – Anyone want to take those odds?

This is one of the reasons why I remain Catholic… Catholicism recognizes that the Bible is not the end all be all or the “only source of faith” – that is to say… it recognizes that Christ TAUGHT the Apostles MANY things which are NOT written down. John even admits this in his gospel.
Catholicism also recognizes that the Apostles themselves lingered places for many months… teaching the local Christians and setting up Churches. (Holy Tradition)

Therefore, what is MOST important is for Christianity to remain FAITHFUL to the original teachings of Christ… and NOT the literal sense of scripture alone (sola scriptura)

WHY this is IMPORTANT is that the Church interprets scripture NOT based on literal meaning alone… but by the ‘deposit of faith’ given to it by the Apostles and held to FIRMLY throughout history.

So a Muslim can not argue with a Catholic about WHAT the bible means… because the Catholic has 2,000 years of consistent teaching to guide us and to show us that the color of a robe or the # of days of the flood, etc. are NOT the focus and relevant point of Scripture.

Even in Islam… HOW a person interprets the Koran varies from 1 person to the next. Even between Immans (high priests) there is NO central authority keeping the Immans all teaching the same thing. Islam lacks an authority to say that 1 passage means PRECISELY this and ONLY this and can never be re-interpreted.

Catholicism DOES have this sort of authority and it is rooted in the Apostles… those who were taught by God, NOT men thousands of years later.

So they can claim that “your bible says THIS, which is wrong” – As a Catholic you have EVERY right to refuse that interpretation and say “NO, the author was NOT saying that” They only have their OWN interpretation to counter you… but you have the understanding and teachings of the Apostles to refute them.

BAM! Checkmate

 

[Katholish]

jschutzm,

My understanding is that the bible is inerrant when it comes to faith and morals… not science, history, or other such things.
ONLY when it comes to the faith and how to believe, how to follow God’s teachings and what is right and just.

That is incorrect. Inerrancy extends to all factual statements, not just faith and morals. This is a de fide teaching of the Church. As stated by Pope Leo XIII:

But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it-this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican. (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, n. 20).

Secondly… The bible is but ONE of the pillars of faith. It COULD (though it won’t) fold… and the Church would NOT fall apart. That line of reasoning ONLY holds true to a “sola scriptura” Christian… that is a “bible alone” Christian. The Catholic church is like a 3 legged stool. Knock out one leg… and you can still balance on the other 2. Most Protestantism is a 2 legged stool, Islam… a 1 or 2 legged stool as well. Knock out their holy book and their faith collapses in on itself.

The Church has staked her reputation, as it were, on the inerrancy of Scripture. If errors were indeed found in Scripture, it would indeed invalidate the authority of the Magisterium itself. You wouldn’t be losing just one leg, but all three at once. (The third leg mentioned in Vatican 2 is the Magisterium, not Christ Himself–we are talking about the transmission of doctrine).

 

[ComeHome2Rome]

jschutzm,

That is incorrect. Inerrancy extends to all factual statements, not just faith and morals. This is a de fide teaching of the Church. As stated by Pope Leo XIII:

The Church has staked her reputation, as it were, on the inerrancy of Scripture. If errors were indeed found in Scripture, it would indeed invalidate the authority of the Magisterium itself. You wouldn’t be losing just one leg, but all three at once. (The third leg mentioned in Vatican 2 is the Magisterium, not Christ Himself–we are talking about the transmission of doctrine).

I agree with the Church documents you quoted & what you said.

I also can’t help but to relate the importance of the accuracy of even the smallest details to Chapter 13 of the Old Testament book of Daniel.

I hope I can find a resolution to the errors pointed out to me by the Muslim Apologist plus the additional errors pointed out above in someone’s post.

 

[Contarini]

Stumped by Muslim Apologist…re: errors found in our Catholic Bibles:

Does our Catholic Church Teaching on the Inerrancy of Scripture mean something different than how I understand it - I understood it to mean that there is ZERO Errors in the Bible.

I know language when understood properly can mean something different than it initially sounds, so does our Catholic Church mean that there isn’t ANY errors at all in the Bible?

I need clarification: if there is even 1 error is discovered in a Catholic version of the Bible than like a house of cards, our Church falls?

Or

Are errors permitted in a Catholic Bible even though our Church teaches the Inerrancy of Scripture?

How am I to understand this correctly? I want to make sure I’m completely clear so that I can explain it better.

The most common Catholic interpretation of Vatican II’s language on this point is that it refers to the salvific meaning of the Bible.

Some conservative Catholics, particularly those like Scott Hahn who converted from a conservative Reformed background that stressed inerrancy, argue that it means more than this–that Vatican II is saying that everything said by the inspired authors is said for our salvation and thus everything said by them must be correct in the sense they intended it.

I am not convinced by this argument, and as I said it’s certainly not the view of “inerrancy” held by the majority of Catholic theologians.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

jschutzm,

That is incorrect. Inerrancy extends to all factual statements, not just faith and morals. This is a de fide teaching of the Church. As stated by Pope Leo XIII:

This is not regarded by most Catholic interpreters as an infallible statement. It appears to have been modified by Vatican II, although I recognize that the interpretation of the relevant passage (Dei Verbum 11) is debated. It seems to me (and as far as I can tell this is the majority opinion among Catholics) that Dei Verbum is making the kind of distinction Leo XIII condemned, although in a more precise way that avoids a simplistic dichotomy between faith and history. (In other words, Leo was rightly condemning the idea that only “matters of faith and morals” are covered by inerrancy in such a way that any historical claim, such as that Jesus’ body really rose from the tomb, is not covered.)

The “truth put into the sacred writings for our salvation” may include historical and/or scientific matters. But contra Leo, the divine intention does have to be considered. Simply defining inerrancy in terms of the “original authors’” supposed intentions is a completely untenable position.

Edwin

 

[Jehannette]

The most common Catholic interpretation of Vatican II’s language on this point is that it refers to the salvific meaning of the Bible.

Some conservative Catholics, particularly those like Scott Hahn who converted from a conservative Reformed background that stressed inerrancy, argue that it means more than this–that Vatican II is saying that everything said by the inspired authors is said for our salvation and thus everything said by them must be correct in the sense they intended it.

I am not convinced by this argument, and as I said it’s certainly not the view of “inerrancy” held by the majority of Catholic theologians.

Edwin

This is complex, but interested readers can reference the following:

rtforum.org/lt/lt59.html

 

[Katholish]

This is not regarded by most Catholic interpreters as an infallible statement. It appears to have been modified by Vatican II, although I recognize that the interpretation of the relevant passage (Dei Verbum 11) is debated. It seems to me (and as far as I can tell this is the majority opinion among Catholics) that Dei Verbum is making the kind of distinction Leo XIII condemned, although in a more precise way that avoids a simplistic dichotomy between faith and history. (In other words, Leo was rightly condemning the idea that only “matters of faith and morals” are covered by inerrancy in such a way that any historical claim, such as that Jesus’ body really rose from the tomb, is not covered.)

The “truth put into the sacred writings for our salvation” may include historical and/or scientific matters. But contra Leo, the divine intention does have to be considered. Simply defining inerrancy in terms of the “original authors’” supposed intentions is a completely untenable position.

Edwin

I am not aware of orthodox Catholic theologians who knowing disagree with with Providentissimus Deus. It doesn’t meet all of the criteria to be considered an ex cathedra statement (it is addressed to the bishops and not universally to the faithful), but it is indeed protected. I am quite familiar with the Dei Verbum passages as well, (most of my undergrad theology thesis centered on it. The section in DV II is quoting Leo XIII for goodness sake, not departing from his rather authoritative and landmark encyclical.

Leo never says that divine intention doesn’t come into play. Certainly people like Moses or really any of the OT authors didn’t even fully understand what they were writing (in all senses), or the events they were witnessing.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

This is complex, but interested readers can reference the following:

rtforum.org/lt/lt59.html

I’ve read this before. It is a rigorous and excellent essay on the subject.

 

[Contarini]

I am not aware of orthodox Catholic theologians who knowing disagree with with Providentissimus Deus. It doesn’t meet all of the criteria to be considered an ex cathedra statement (it is addressed to the bishops and not universally to the faithful), but it is indeed protected. I am quite familiar with the Dei Verbum passages as well, (most of my undergrad theology thesis centered on it. The section in DV II is quoting Leo XIII for goodness sake, not departing from his rather authoritative and landmark encyclical.

Fair enough. Certainly the orthodox Catholic approach is to reinterpret earlier statements rather than rejecting them. I’m sometimes impatient with this, as a historian (for much the same reasons that I’m uncomfortable with Biblical inerrancy itself). But I understand and respect the concern for continuity–it’s one of the major things that draws me to Catholicism.

Leo never says that divine intention doesn’t come into play.

He seems to me to be saying that you can’t use this as an end-run around the issue.

Here’s the problem I have with inerrancy in its standard Protestant form. If you can show me that Pope Leo was saying something different, then I would be delighted.

The classical “Old Princeton” Protestant view of inerrancy is that the original meaning intended by the human author is inerrant. So you determine by historical means what the original author intended to say, making full allowance for genre, figures of speech, literary conventions, etc., and you accept that meaning as the divinely inspired, inerrant meaning.

I think this is completely untenable and distorts both history and theology. The most honest, reasonable interpretations of what the original authors meant clearly contradict each other as well as contradicting things everyone believes today. Just to give one example: it seems clear that the word “raqi’a” in Genesis 1 (“firmament”) refers to a metal dome arching over a flat earth. The most reasonable, historically informed interpretation of Genesis 1 is that this is what the author meant to convey–that God created a metal dome arching over the earth, with windows in it (Gen. 6) through which the “waters above the firmament” could pour.

One can of course interpret the passage otherwise, but one would only do this because one’s theological presuppositions compelled one. That’s what I mean by the idea corrupting history. You have a well-supported interpretation of the passage based on our knowledge of the ANE historical context, and then you have conservatives who don’t want it to mean that because it would mess with their theology.

I understand that a very good case can be made that this is an incidental detail and that the main point of the story is something else. (John Walton’s *The Lost World of Genesis One, *for instance, argues that Genesis 1 reflects a “functional ontology” and describes the creation of the functions needed for human life rather than the creation of the material world. That raises its own theological issues, but I think as far as it goes it’s a solid and helpful argument.) But if you are seriously saying that there is no error of any kind in the sacred writings as intended by the human author, then I think this would count, even if it’s only an “incidental” error. I don’t think it’s just a “figure of speech” as when we say “the sun rose.”

This kind of inerrancy distorts theology in the Protestant context for sure, because it forces theologians to take the historically determined sense of the passage (itself often uncertain and subject to change with the fluctuations of scholarly opinion) as the basis for theology. This has a seriously cramping effect on theology (so, for instance, in Genesis 1 the best historical scholarship indicates that the human author almost certainly did not believe in creation ex nihilo), which again creates pressure on the historian to come up with interpretations that will better fit theology, and so on.

This part of the objection doesn’t apply to Catholics as much, I grant.

What is your interpretation of the “for the sake of our salvation” passage in Dei Verbum?

To my mind it appears to be ambiguous and to leave room for the “liberal” interpretation. But I recognize that this is an unpopular reading on this forum!

Edwin