Priest says OT is all "just stories"

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bethanysamuel

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I hope this post works as my last 1 disappeared. Basically, yesterday at Mass our new priest said “And thank God it’s just a story” referring to Job. I approached him after Mass to ask him whether Job ever really existed and he said no, and neither did Jonah. He said all the Old Testament books are “just stories”. I’m really worried about this as it appears to be a heresy and I am considering contacting the Bishop. Please give me advice on this.
 
It’s not heresy. The church doesn’t teach that it ‘has to be a story’ or ‘has to be truth.’ Most hold that Jonah and Job are stories. They could have been literal people and literal events. That may not have been. They could have been stories to highlight important truths. The thing is, whether they were real or not, the stories hold great spiritual truths for us to learn. That’s the important part.

My priest has said the same thing in the recent past. That they are most likely stories and that we aren’t supposed to read them for ‘historical accuracy’ but for spiritual truth. The bible is a book of faith, not a history textbook.
 
bethanysamuel said:
I hope this post works as my last 1 disappeared. Basically, yesterday at Mass our new priest said “And thank God it’s just a story” referring to Job. I approached him after Mass to ask him whether Job ever really existed and he said no, and neither did Jonah. He said all the Old Testament books are “just stories”. I’m really worried about this as it appears to be a heresy and I am considering contacting the Bishop. Please give me advice on this.
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I’m with bmullins… the church does not teach that the bible is a 100% historical literal record. In fact, many of the old testament chapters at one time may have been considered to be parables themselves… such as the story of Job.

The important part to understand is that even though they are stories, they are true in the sense that what they convey is God’s revealed word, nonetheless.
 
So does that mean that Genesis is just a story and Adam+Eve were just 2 characters? What about The Law? Did Moses exist and therefore, were there 10 Commandments?
 
bethanysamuel said:
and neither did Jonah.
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Jesus says otherwise.

Matthew 12:41 - “The men of Ninive shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas. And behold a greater than Jonas here.”

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html
  1. The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed was to prepare for the coming of Christ, the redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prophecy (see Luke 24:44; John 5:39; 1 Peter 1:10), and to indicate its meaning through various types (see 1 Cor. 10:12). Now the books of the Old Testament, in accordance with the state of mankind before the time of salvation established by Christ, reveal to all men the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men. These books, though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy. (1) These same books, then, give expression to a lively sense of God, contain a store of sublime teachings about God, sound wisdom about human life, and a wonderful treasury of prayers, and in them the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way. Christians should receive them with reverence.
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bethanysamuel said:
I hope this post works as my last 1 disappeared. Basically, yesterday at Mass our new priest said “And thank God it’s just a story” referring to Job. I approached him after Mass to ask him whether Job ever really existed and he said no, and neither did Jonah. He said all the Old Testament books are “just stories”. I’m really worried about this as it appears to be a heresy and I am considering contacting the Bishop. Please give me advice on this.
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Well, the whole OT isn’t a bunch of made-up stuff, there is a lot of history and a record of the lives of the people. I think Ruth is a true story for the most part. Job and Jonah were essentially plays. It’s like having a mission speaker, only they would do Job or Jonah, which if you read Jonah, you’ll see they’ve lost the ending.

They were a nomadic tribe and these were ways of orally passing on their faith - finally during Solomon or David’s reign, when they were settled, the stories were written down along with the Law and the history. Other things were added over the hundreds of years. These stories are Faith Tradition.

That being said, I think like many stories, Job is probably based on a real l person of great faith who went through some terrible tragedy. I also think it’s’s one of the most Truthful, if not factual, books of Scripture. Very much inspired and through which we so s clearly hear God’s voice.

You may love it very much without it having to be a bunch of facts.

Sometimes facts mislead, but Truth never does.
 
My Priest also said that Job was written by an unknown author and it’s poetry. I learnt last year in my studies that the Catholic teaching about the Bible is not to take everything as factual.
 
bethanysamuel said:
I hope this post works as my last 1 disappeared. Basically, yesterday at Mass our new priest said “And thank God it’s just a story” referring to Job. I approached him after Mass to ask him whether Job ever really existed and he said no, and neither did Jonah. He said all the Old Testament books are “just stories”. I’m really worried about this as it appears to be a heresy and I am considering contacting the Bishop. Please give me advice on this.
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Contact your Bishop and just relay the conversation, politely.

Peace,
Ed
 
Catholic90 said:
The literalness does not matter. They may have been true; they may not have been true. It is the MESSAGE that matters.
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I disagree. Jesus makes reference to the Old Testament as containing things God did in a literal way. Jesus being literal does matter. Moses appears before a few disciples with Jesus and Elijah. Matthew 17:3

Jesus literally did many things, including raising the dead.

Peace,
Ed
 
It’s very irresponsible to dogmatically state that all OT books are “just stories”. How does *he *know? Why would he care? I’d actually prefer that Job is a real story because it makes the truths taught somehow even more believable, more real, in a way, as they’re based on fact, actually lived out. In any case, Gods relationship with and revelations to His chosen people were certainly authentic or a big part of our faith’s history is bogus. And why stop with the OT-why not continue doubting the NT as well? Not all the OT stories are necessarily true-I just don’t see why they’d be presented as necessarily untrue.
 
Well, now, that’s silly. Some books in the Bible are absolutely historical. They may not be historical the way we think of histories, but they’re a hundred percent more historical than a lot of stuff on the History Channel. They include many historical facts, and many interpretations of historical facts, and many stories about history. This is standard for histories written in the ancient world; and the Bible has been discovered to be historically trustworthy for many purposes.

Now, if you only think of histories as being modern histories, no doubt you will also think that Thucydides is nothing but stories, and that you can’t rely on Xenophon to tell you the truth, and that Julius Caesar wrote pure fiction about the Gallic War. In which case, I’d like to know how you propose to find out anything about Greek and Roman history except archeological sites. You don’t even know the names of towns if you don’t accept “stories”. (Or travelogues and guidebooks from the ancient world, which also are full of “stories”.)

Now, the Bible does have other kinds of books besides historical chronicles. Many many kinds of books, primarily prophecy, wisdom/proverbs, and poetry.

Job is a great piece of poetry. The chances are that it was written about some famous story, which was probably based on historical stuff that happened to some guy. However, since we also believe that Job is inspired prophetic poetry, and since it is part of the Bible, we can suspect that it’s extremely, extremely true.

Look - in every country in the ancient world, everybody knew that poets dealt with legends and fictionalization. But it was also widely accepted that poets were prophets, and great poets were great prophets. Poets could understand truth and people at deep levels, see the past and predict the future. God spoke through poets. God told people the truth through poets. Poets wielding their office were a fearful thing, upholding the order of the world.

So I have very little patience for “it’s just poetry,” because in the ancient world there’s no such thing.

Now, in the Hebrew world, it was even more true. God created language. His every Word had power, and so poetry about Him had power, and wordplay had power. Job is inspired Biblical poetry, so it’s not just words on a page that sit there. The story of Job does things in the world, because the Word of God is active and not empty.

However… don’t be too hard on priests who say silly things about the Bible. Oftentimes, they don’t really mean it the way it comes out. If they downplay the Bible a lot, they may have gotten bad information in their seminary classes back in the day.
 
If anyone can quote Catechism opinion on this matter it would be helpful, thanks.
 
Each book in the old testiment is best studied alone and not lumped together with other
books to try to understand a particular book. For instance, as someone mentioned,
if Jonas is fiction, then the story of Adam and Eve can be fiction. All stories again should
not be lumped into the same judgement even tho they may sound alike in some respects.

Adam and Eve are really true because original sin is passed down from them to us. If
these were just fictional people, then original sin is fictional. So Adam and Eve are really
true. Jonas on the other hand may have been true, but the consensus is that it was not.

But there is another part of scripture that is most important to understand. All stories,
whether fictional, true, historial, poems, historical novels, or mixtures of these, all are expressing a spiritual truth for our instruction. Even fiction expresses truth tho the story may be based on pseudo history. Every thing in the Bible does teach us the truth. So when Jesus mentions Jonas, which is probably fictional, althought you may take it literally, He is referring to the truth that the story of Jonas is teaching. He is not saying it is historically true or that it is not history. That isn’t the point. It is the truth that Jonas is expressing that Jesus is talking about.

So it is better to take one book, one story, or part of a book, at a time. The truth that
God is teaching is not based on whether the book is made up or real.

We also need to know what the church teaches about these books in the Bible as well.
Some books are difficult to understand and it helps to know what the scholars are also
saying.

Just a few thoughts.
 
They probably were real people, but the story about them could be allegorical. Just as Genesis is allegorical but Adam and Eve were real people. Poetry has a way of conveying knowledge that is palatable, especially for early people. Today in our scientific and technological culture, thinkers rather have truth be told in a direct manner rather than in allegories and parables even though the stories don’t teach misconception.

Personal opinion though.
 
bethanysamuel said:
So does that mean that Genesis is just a story and Adam+Eve were just 2 characters? What about The Law? Did Moses exist and therefore, were there 10 Commandments?
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The first three chapters of Genesis are rich in Divine Revelation regarding the two, real founders of our human species, an explanation of our human nature. original sin, and the need for a Divine Redeemer.
 
Trevor_Stamm said:
They probably were real people, but the story about them could be allegorical. Just as Genesis is allegorical but Adam and Eve were real people. Poetry has a way of conveying knowledge that is palatable, especially for early people. Today in our scientific and technological culture, thinkers rather have truth be told in a direct manner rather than in allegories and parables even though the stories don’t teach misconception.

Personal opinion though.
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Can you provide a Church document that states Genesis is allegorical?

Thanks,
Ed
 
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