Maria3m:
Now, I’m going to wonder what else really didn’t happen.
Fortunately, the church recognizes that the historicity of many events is open to question. We are only required to believe the absolute historical truth of
extremely few things in the bible.
If you are going to start down this path, you need to listen and study on both sides. There are fundmental extremists who can come up with some form of logic to explain every non-historical argument and there are those on the other side who may go so far as to deny Jesus even existed.
This is huge area of debate and it is not just between religions - it is a vast ongoing and unsettled question within the catholic church, regardless of what some will try to say about the absolute inerrancy and historical truth of the bible.
It is difficult for many to even discuss that most of the events related in the infancy narratives are probably fiction but that is exactly what one of the members of the pontifical biblical commission frequently wrote about (and he was appointed by two different popes). Books written under the *imprimatur *explore the same ideas.
The example you mention (the slaughter of the innocents) comes from Matthew who, on further analysis, is obviously weaving a portrait of Jesus as the new Moses to influence his Jewish audience with the importance of Jesus. You can see this throughout his story - the flight into Egypt, the killing of the children, etc. Now on one hand we have a story which not only has no historical support *but also has absolutely no support from the other gospels. *On the other hand, we have an author creating a powerful story to support his theme (and the truth) that Jesus is the “New Moses”. Why bother forcing our concept of history somewhere it doesn’t fit when there is a perfectly formed literary work staring us in the face?
These are the types of things taught by the church and believed by many (if not most). Please do some reading on this side also - you will be pleasantly surprised. I especially recommend *“And God Said What?: An Introduction to Biblical Literary Forms”, *published by the Paulist Press. This is used in many catholic adult religious education classes.
How can I learn the truth when all that I’m reading in the Bible isn’t true?
The problem with this statement is that the “truth” can be taught quite well using total fiction. If a writer is doing that, it is very wrong for us to decide that they cannot. The church teaches that the writers were teaching “…solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.” Most fundamentalists will leave off those five words and that is a grave mistake which, as in your experience, causes unwarranted confusion and anxiety.
Here is what the church says: "
To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms.” For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another."
