RC/EC/EO Views of the Bible

[sharpag]

I was wondering if the following statements are correct with regard to the various groups and the Bible. These statements could be off so if they are please correct me. I have defined inerrancy and infallibility below in what I believe is their general usage.

RC: Believe in biblical inerrancy (as stated in the Council of Trent and Providentissimus Deus) although there has been a move towards biblical infallibility following Vatican II (though this movement is still outside of the current position of the RCC).

EC: I am assuming the official position is that of the RCC.

EO: General belief in biblical infallibility (for lack of a better term) but it is not defined and positions may range from inerrant to fallible (if fallible with the understanding that the Bible is the work of God through man and errors in it are the result of man but do not corrupt the entire message of salvation).

*Biblical inerrancy meaning the Bible is free from any error (acknowledges the proper genre of a given text, ie creation in Genesis is not about literal days).
*Biblical infallibility meaning the Bible is free from error with respect to faith and morals but may include incidental inaccuracies (ie differing timelines for the birth of Christ).

Thanks

 

[Vico]

I was wondering if the following statements are correct with regard to the various groups and the Bible. These statements could be off so if they are please correct me. I have defined inerrancy and infallibility below in what I believe is their general usage.

RC: Believe in biblical inerrancy (as stated in the Council of Trent and Providentissimus Deus) although there has been a move towards biblical infallibility following Vatican II (though this movement is still outside of the current position of the RCC).

EC: I am assuming the official position is that of the RCC.

EO: General belief in biblical infallibility (for lack of a better term) but it is not defined and positions may range from inerrant to fallible (if fallible with the understanding that the Bible is the work of God through man and errors in it are the result of man but do not corrupt the entire message of salvation).

*Biblical inerrancy meaning the Bible is free from any error (acknowledges the proper genre of a given text, ie creation in Genesis is not about literal days).
*Biblical infallibility meaning the Bible is free from error with respect to faith and morals but may include incidental inaccuracies (ie differing timelines for the birth of Christ).

Thanks

Did you read Dei verbum?
Therefore, 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 solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore “all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind” (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text).

1. However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, (6) the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words
   vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

A good representation from ancient times is in this Letter from St. Augustine to St. Jerome: For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the MS. is faulty or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it . . . I believe, my brother, that this is your own opinion as well as mine.
Letter 82, i, 3 in Philip Schaff (ed)., Letters of St. Augustine: The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans, 1994) 348.

 

[Cavaradossi]

The idea that the Scriptures contain errors is foreign to Orthodoxy. Not a single father, to my knowledge, believed in such a thing.

 

[Vico]

From The Philocalia of Origen: CHAP. VI. ----*The whole Divine Scripture is one instrument of God, perfect and fitted for its work. From Volume II. of the Commentaries on the Gospel according to Matthew: “Blessed are the peacemakers” *171

1. To the man who is both ways a peacemaker, there is no longer anything in the Divine oracles crooked or perverse,172 for all things are plain to those who understand; and since to such an one there is nothing crooked or perverse, he sees abundance of peace173 everywhere in Scripture, even in those parts which appear not to agree and to be contradictory to one another. But there is also a third peacemaker, he, viz. who shows that what to the eyes of others seems like disagreement in the Scriptures is not really so, and who proves that harmony and concord exist, whether between the Old and the New, or the Law and the Prophets, or Gospel and Gospel, or Evangelists and |43 Apostles, or Apostles and other Apostles. For,174 according to the Preacher,175 all the Scriptures, words of the wise, are as goads, and as nails well fastened, words which were given from collections from one shepherd, and there is nothing superfluous in them. And the Word is “one shepherd” of things relating to the Word, which do indeed sound discordant to those who have not ears to hear,176 but are in truth most harmonious.
2. For as the different strings of the psaltery or the lyre, each of which gives forth a note of its own seemingly unlike that of any other, are thought by an unmusical man who does not understand the theory of harmony to be discordant, because of the difference in the notes: so they who have not ears to detect the harmony of God in the sacred Scriptures suppose that the Old Testament is not in harmony with the New, or the Prophets with the Law, or the Gospels with one another, or an Apostle with the Gospel, or with himself, or with the other Apostles. But if a reader comes who has been instructed in God’s music, a man who happens to be wise in word and deed, and on that account, it may be, called *David, *which being interpreted is “a cunning player,” he will produce a note of God’s music, for he will have learned from God’s music to keep good time, playing now upon the strings of the Law, now upon those of the Gospel in harmony with them, now upon those of the Prophets; and when the harmony of good sense is required he strikes the apostolic strings tuned to suit the foregoing, and, similarly, apostolic strings in harmony with those of Evangelists. For he knows that the whole Scripture is the one, perfect, harmonious instrument of God, blending the different notes, for those who wish to learn, into one song of salvation, which stops and hinders all the working of an evil spirit, as the music of David laid to rest the evil spirit in Saul which was |44 vexing him.177 You observe, then, that there is a third kind of peacemaker, he who keeping close to the Scripture both sees the peace which pervades it everywhere, and bestows it on those who rightly seek the truth and are really eager to learn.

tertullian.org/fathers/origen_philocalia_02_text.htm#C1

 

[sharpag]

Did you read Dei verbum?

I’ve read it and I think the RC position is relatively clear and it seems to be taken from straight from St. Augustine (like one or two other things ).

The idea that the Scriptures contain errors is foreign to Orthodoxy. Not a single father, to my knowledge, believed in such a thing.

I’m not entirely sure I agree with this. I believe there were fathers who recognized contradictions that did not distort the overall message. For example:

“Never mind if there does occur some variation in the order of the [gospel] narratives. What matters is that there is agreement in the essential doctrine of the Faith” (Against Marcion, IV:2) - Tertullian (though he is an ecclesiastical writer and not a father)

“The discord which seems to be present in little matters shields [the authors] from every suspicion and vindicates the character of the writers” (Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, I:6). - St. John Chyrsostom

Although I was wrong in my initial description of the Orthodox position, would it be correct to say that the Orthodox can allow for non-essential “errors” in the modern sense which would not necessarily have been considered errors in the ancient world? This seems to be the impression I got from reading some material on the OCA. I’m really not trying to start a debate on inerrancy, I am just trying to gain some clarity on the issue.

And with respect to Origin, I agree that he believes the Scriptures are harmonious but I thought he meant this in the Spiritual sense only and that Scripture could still contain even historical “errors.” Again, not that I am trying to start an inerrancy debate (I’m really trying to avoid that ) I just don’t think he would necessarily find himself in the inerrant camp today.

 

[fordhamstudent]

The canon of the NT was selected by the Church because the texts agreed with Church Tradition: see New Jerome Biblical Commentary under “Canon”. That is why I could never understand why the Protestant Reformers could espouse their position of Sola Scriptura since the Catholic Church selected and chose the books based on their agreement with Church teaching. Scripture thus is a part of Sacred Tradition and is not somehow independent of it or the foundation of the Church apart from Tradition.

The Church in canonizing Scripture gave to the texts their authority and thus declared them inspired, but She never taught that they did not contain problematic issues–which the main reason why the Protestant notion of private interpretation is dangerous since it is easy for individuals who do not interpret Scripture in light of Tradition to develop schismatic or even heretical positions such as what happened during the Protestant Reformation. The Bible is thus the Church’s Book and must be interpreted by the Church to ensure that souls do not rely on their inexperience in understanding the meaning of biblical texts. The actual development of a canon did not become important until heretics such as Marcion started developing canons since the Church relied solely on Sacred Tradition to transmit the Gospel and the stories about Jesus and the Apostles.

There are many historical and scribal errors in the Scriptures, but the Church assures us that there is nothing in them contrary to faith and morals and a Catholic reading them with the help of Church teaching is assured to be placed on the right path, but reading the Scriptures can be dangerous to souls without the guidance of the Tradition and Magisterium since these early writings do not reflect the later development of the Church in Christology, ecclesiology, canon law, liturgical expression, and all other departments of theology. The danger comes that in reading these narrations of the primitive Church that somehow they are a model for the Church in the modern age and thus it would seem later developments are not as pure–but this notion, espoused by the Protestant Reformers, is a rejection of the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church who has guided and inspired all the later developments in the Catholic Church.

The Eastern Catholic, Latin and Orthodox Churches all recognize the need to interpret the Scriptures in light of Tradition which includes the commentaries of the Church Fathers, etc. Problems with discrepancies, historical errors or other critical issues with Scripture do not shake the Church’s faith in Her dogmas and doctrines since all is founded on Tradition–Scripture is used by the Church to cite early writers to validate what the Church already believes.