Scripture: What's myth and what's history?

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SoulRebel777 said:
Pat the Bible is fully and totally the inspired Word of God. If I wanted to I could research and provide you numerous qoutes from previous Popes that make this declaration.

You have bought into Modernism , which is a complete undermining of Our Faith.

Which Pope was it that said The Smoke of Satan has Entered?? I have no doubt he was including these Post Modernistic Teachings.
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Smoke of Satan? what about the smoke and influence of the Fundamentalists on the way Catholics read the Bible. Catholics are not literalist- never were.Now all of a sudden we are reading it like good Fundamentalists. I was never taught that Genesis was to be taken literally neither was my mother- she’s ninety. What I’m hearing is the “Left behindinization” of Catholic America. Sad to see and then they fool themselves into thinking that they are truer Catholics:p
 
juliamajor said:
Smoke of Satan? what about the smoke and influence of the Fundamentalists on the way Catholics read the Bible. Catholics are not literalist- never were.Now all of a sudden we are reading it like good Fundamentalists. I was never taught that Genesis was to be taken literally neither was my mother- she’s ninety. What I’m hearing is the “Left behindinization” of Catholic America. Sad to see and then they fool themselves into thinking that they are truer Catholics:p
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Protestant Fundamentalists-turned-Catholics are beginning to infest the Church, bringing their biblical literalism with them. Catholics have historically never bought into this exclusively literalist interpretation of scripture. In fact, medieval exegetes taught a carefully nuanced four-fold interpretation of scripture, understanding that the Bible has literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical meanings.

StAnastasia
 
St Antanasia ,

I understand the four ways of interpeting scripture . But these modernists are casting doubt on some of the most fundamental dogmas of the faith. Much like a Bedrock that has a crack in it soon crumbles and all the water comes out to cause destruction , so it is with these modernist theory’s upon are sacred truths. They start by calling one thing figurative and then come to question almost the entire Holy Bible. This is what I am against.
 
SoulRebel777 said:
St Antanasia ,

I understand the four ways of interpeting scripture . But these modernists are casting doubt on some of the most fundamental dogmas of the faith. Much like a Bedrock that has a crack in it soon crumbles and all the water comes out to cause destruction , so it is with these modernist theory’s upon are sacred truths. They start by calling one thing figurative and then come to question almost the entire Holy Bible. This is what I am against.
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A literal Noah’s Flood and a literal six-day creation are not fundamental dogmas of the faith. Recognizing them as being couched in symbolic language does not lead to a slippery slope down toward the denial of the historicity of Jesus.
 
How can you say Noah’s flood is not literal? Whats impossiable for man is possiable with God. And who’s to say that the Animals during that Earth age weren’t smaller in number or perhaps only a Certain Animal was needed to Carry out the life of that specific species and those closely related to it.

How can you Say adam wasn’t a real man when it lists how long he lived for ?

Obviously there is some symbolic lingo in the story of the garden of eden etc, The snake, the Tree etc etc but that doesnt mean there wasnt a Fall of our First Parents to the tempting of Satan…

Do you catch my drift ?

With that Said …God bless you with all the richest blessings in Christ !
 
SoulRebel777 said:
How can you say Noah’s flood is not literal? Whats impossiable for man is possiable with God. And who’s to say that the Animals during that Earth age weren’t smaller in number or perhaps only a Certain Animal was needed to Carry out the life of that specific species and those closely related to it.

How can you Say adam wasn’t a real man when it lists how long he lived for ?

Obviously there is some symbolic lingo in the story of the garden of eden etc, The snake, the Tree etc etc but that doesnt mean there wasnt a Fall of our First Parents to the tempting of Satan…

Do you catch my drift ?

With that Said …God bless you with all the richest blessings in Christ !
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Literal- Noah’s flood? Literal in what way. the chances of a flood of an insane size is well in the realm of possibility…Black sea Flood would fill that criteria- to those living there it would have been the their whole world. such a story and disaster of such magnitude would influence stories throughout that whole area.The oldest version of tale comes from Sumer- predates Noah by quite a bit- Eridu Genesis. Then you have the Atrahasis, then epic of Gilgamesh then the Biblical tale.So who is the real Noah? utnapishtin or Atrahasis?The whole thing is if you really look into these tales and then the biblical story you become aware of the differences- the similarities are there in spades- but the differences are what is important.Why do the gods send the flood and why does YHWH?- Sorry gotta go Teach Bible study!
 
I think the flood stories of the ancient world are all talking about the same person. It doesnt matter when the story of Noah is stated as written, all these stories were passed down orally years before .

The fact the ancients from around the world spanning different people’s is a testament to the fact there was a World Wide flood.
 
SoulRebel777 said:
I think the flood stories of the ancient world are all talking about the same person. It doesnt matter when the story of Noah is stated as written, all these stories were passed down orally years before .

The fact the ancients from around the world spanning different people’s is a testament to the fact there was a World Wide flood.
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it’s testimony to the Archetype of a flood…Prehistory to the cultures of the area was a no man’s land that people filled in. with limited knowledge of what science was and how the earth worked, why day ,was day and night was night, why people are born why they die, why their are different peoples and different tongues. These are all etiological tales- really trying to make sense out of a world they couldn’t possibly know.these tales are full of archetypes and images that are fairly universal.Again though what is the point of the biblical story-is it to relate the ‘history’ of a flood? Or is it a spiritual or moral tale?Which do you think God would be more worried about? Historicity or salvation? If their was definite physical evidence that noah or his ark didn’t exist- would that be shattering to you? I know it wouldn’t be for me. The importance lies not with facts- get a Almanac for that ,.but with the lesson taught , the message received , God’s relationship with humanity…The Creation stories are a very tiny portion of Genesis.the important crux of the book is the Patriarchs and God’s love and care for His Chosen people.
Adam name is symbolic not literal. Name means “dirt, earth, mud” In genesis it is only used a couple of times as a proper name-all the other times in the Bible it’s used as a thing- not person.Just like Eve is symbolic"mother of all living things" titles- not really names. As far as stating his age that was just a literary device used inthe ancient Near east- you’ll find extraordinary lifespans in the the distant prehistoric times. In India there is a similar concept. It is to show that the distant past were the “Good old Days” that life was better and happier. It’s also to show that this man was so wonderful that God let him live a long time… Sumerian king’s list has their pre history kings living 28,000 years- should we take that literally? This literalism does not help -if anything it weakens faith and not strengthen it.I’ve had maybe a dozen refugees from a neighboring Bible study that takes a literalist bent. This is at a Catholic Church but they use a Evangelical Study!Sounds like some Catholics are taking a page from Fundamentalist playbook!.I suggest you read B16’s book on Genesis, if you want a authentic Catholic point of view…If you want to know what real harm that literalist kind of view, you don’t have to look any further then the "Jesus Seminar"vast majority come from Evangelical mindset- Erhman & Deaver also come to mind. Their faith fell apart when their hard nosed literalist view didn’t pan out. They became disallusioned and then atheists.! If every jot and tittle are not literally true then their whole world falls apart. It is a trap- . Catholics have been brainwashed by the proliferation of Evangelicals and their dominance of media- to the point that many Catholics believe in the ol’ Rapture Trap. Sad… I refuse to be part of it- By people thinking they are being “loyal” and “tradition” minded Catholics the actually being more like good Fundamentalists.!
 
SoulRebel777 said:
How can you say Noah’s flood is not literal? Whats impossiable for man is possiable with God. And who’s to say that the Animals during that Earth age weren’t smaller in number or perhaps only a Certain Animal was needed to Carry out the life of that specific species and those closely related to it.
How can you Say adam wasn’t a real man when it lists how long he lived for ?
Obviously there is some symbolic lingo in the story of the garden of eden etc, The snake, the Tree etc etc but that doesnt mean there wasnt a Fall of our First Parents to the tempting of Satan…
!
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So you pick and choose what you interpret literally? Talking snakes are out, but arks carrying 30 million species are in? Trees of the knowledge of good and evil are out but a single human pair being able genetically to produce an entire species ise in? Where’s your consistency?
 
I go by the Tradition of the Church and how shes viewed these things through out the centuries.
 
juliamajor said:
Smoke of Satan? what about the smoke and influence of the Fundamentalists on the way Catholics read the Bible. Catholics are not literalist- never were.Now all of a sudden we are reading it like good Fundamentalists. I was never taught that Genesis was to be taken literally neither was my mother- she’s ninety. What I’m hearing is the “Left behindinization” of Catholic America. Sad to see and then they fool themselves into thinking that they are truer Catholics:p
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I agree. In America, (at least, and maybe everywhere) it seems like there is a general feeling that the more fundamental your beliefs, the more devout you are. But Catholics have never been fundamentalists. Ironic that some Catholics are throwing out 2000 years of Catholic study and scholarship in the name of returning to a tradition that never existed.
 
TMC said:
Ironic that some Catholics are throwing out 2000 years of Catholic study and scholarship in the name of returning to a tradition that never existed.
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The “Catholics” who do this seem to be recent converts from Fundamentalist Protestantism, who bring their biblical literalism with them and attempt to impose it on a Catholic Church that has never been literalistically inclined.

StAnastasia
 
juliamajor said:
Scripture is scripture and history is history. One has nothing to do with the other. History and salvation history are clearly not the same.History as we know it is relatively new. If you want history with factiods coming out of your nose- then don’t choose the bible.What is more important to God our relationship to Him or how big the Ark was?Is it our journey in faith with Him or Nimrod true or false?This questions really border on the absurd. Where is the importance in the first 11 books of Genesis? What is it trying to say.History comes and goes and so does science. But our God is eternal, as His truth. The Ancient Hebrews would not have understood all the fuss and bother about “historic” truth in the Western, modern way. such thinking did not exist.Their concern, their most important and consuming concern was with Salvation history.Israel’s relationship with God, God’s relationship to His people and the world. That’s the history that counts. faith and morals-stand and will stand forever.To judge one’s catholicity by his interpretation of the first 11 books of genesis is just plain wrong.History was and never is the point of scripture- nor is it true of encyclicals or catechism…2/3 of the Book of Genesis dwell on the relationship of God to His people via the Patriarchs.The creation stories are part of prehistory- before writing.when we get to Abraham,we were on surer path of history-even though it is not as important as the story of the Patriarchs and their Faith in YHWH
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You do realize you don’t have anything to back this up. Your claims about the ancient Hebrews is non-historical and to say that salvationhistory has nothing to do with real history is simply false and absurd. But such logic we should question whether Jesus even existed.

Baseless assertions with no historical or patristic support whatsoever. I do not mean this sarcasitcally but you really have no business teaching bible classes if you do not have the most basic grasp of Biblical interpretation down.
 
StAnastasia said:
Protestant Fundamentalists-turned-Catholics are beginning to infest the Church, bringing their biblical literalism with them. Catholics have historically never bought into this exclusively literalist interpretation of scripture. In fact, medieval exegetes taught a carefully nuanced four-fold interpretation of scripture, understanding that the Bible has literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical meanings.

StAnastasia
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The problem is not fundamentalists. That is a silly strawman. If you had any concept of the traditional and patristic understanding of scripture you would know this. That protestants of this stripe have more in common with the Fathers that many modernist catholics (who ironically are merely spouting liberal prostentant “scholarship”) is to the modern church’s shame.

It is also ironic that when references genres it is your side that has the most novel approach where it turns no allegorical and poetics sections of scripture into allegorical and poetic sections of scripture - being fully ignorant of ancient Hebrew literary genres. Of course the first five books are not history texts but they are accurate, if non-comprehenisve historical narratives. To arbitrarily make the first 11 chapters of Genesis, with all it’s specifics and reference to actual people allegory is to do literary violence to the text. It make absolutely no sense whatsoever. It does not mean that the story of creation is comprehesive and does not use ancient literary devices, of course it does. But it does so in the same manner that you or I would say we saw a beautiful sunrise. When it get’s to actual people and events there is not reason to doubt they existed. If you do you must be consistent and do it with the rest of scripture as well. Really you should just throw it out because it is useless to you choose the liberal protestant skeptics version of biblical study. There is a happy and accurate medium between fundamentalists and modernists. It is called patristic and traditional. Both are more scholarly that this modernist drivel.

Of course the church requires you to believe Adam and Eve were real as it requires you to believe nearly every biblical human character was an actual person save Tobit perhaps.
 
Melchior said:
Of course the church requires you to believe Adam and Eve were real.
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  1. Are you acquainted with biblical scholarship?
  2. Are you acquainted with Catholic theology?
  3. What do you mean by “real”?
 
StAnastasia said:
Protestant Fundamentalists-turned-Catholics are beginning to infest the Church, bringing their biblical literalism with them. Catholics have historically never bought into this exclusively literalist interpretation of scripture. In fact, medieval exegetes taught a carefully nuanced four-fold interpretation of scripture, understanding that the Bible has literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical meanings.

StAnastasia
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huh??? Could you dummy that down for me???
 
tobinatorstark said:
huh??? Could you dummy that down for me???
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Catholics have always believed that scripture carries at least four levels of meaning, and the literal is not always the most important. Medieval exegetes recognized four levels of meaning:
  1. Literal
  2. Allegorical
  3. Moral or tropological
  4. Mystical or anagogical
For example, there was a rich tradition of interpreting Noah’s Flood allegorically, which applies today when we recognize that science does not support the possibility of Noah saving 30 million species from a worldwide flood.

StAnastasia
 
StAnastasia said:
Catholics have always believed that scripture carries at least four levels of meaning, and the literal is not always the most important. Medieval exegetes recognized four levels of meaning:
  1. Literal
  2. Allegorical
  3. Moral or tropological
  4. Mystical or anagogical
For example, there was a rich tradition of interpreting Noah’s Flood allegorically, which applies today when we recognize that science does not support the possibility of Noah saving 30 million species from a worldwide flood.

StAnastasia
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True about science not supporting the possiblity, but science is more wrong than right. Those that had more faith in God led their lives according to his precepts and therefore what seems impossible is possible because of their faith in God. God provides in mysterious ways. I view Noah to be completely literal and I also believe in the creation in Genesis is literal too and not some doctored scientific reasoning like evolution. I do however see some of the other 3 levels of meaning with other passages though
 
Melchior said:
You do realize you don’t have anything to back this up. Your claims about the ancient Hebrews is non-historical and to say that salvationhistory has nothing to do with real history is simply false and absurd. But such logic we should question whether Jesus even existed.

Baseless assertions with no historical or patristic support whatsoever. I do not mean this sarcasitcally but you really have no business teaching bible classes if you do not have the most basic grasp of Biblical interpretation down.
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Apparently what you know about biblical scholarship could fit on the head of a flea. I have a firm grasp of biblical scholarship- have been certified by my Archdiocese , my bishop my pastor. The Archdiocese of NY(EGAN) is not a crazy liberal diocese. I have been taught by my diocese in my local seminary.I learned what the priests learn (I guess everyone is inadequate in biblical scholarship except you-how profoundly arrogant, smug and self serving- one of the “loyal remnant”) .If you need some insight I refer you tho “Divino Spiritu Afflante”, “Dei Verbum” and the BenedictXVI book on Genesis-should be an eye opener for ya. Oh by the way , any biblical scholarship worth it’s salt refers to and acknowledges ECF. Modern scholarship doesn’t always throw the baby out with the bath water not matter what you believe.The outrageous is what makes headlines- but they are far from the majority.
Apparently you’ve read but not understood-the aim of Genesis was not to relate historical facts as we know them(polybius was the first true historian, unlike Herodotus ) History as we know it is a more modern invention. Writers of histories of the past did not go investigating all claims and stories that came their way.Much was plain old gossip( Suetonius, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, to name a few were of that ilk.Jewish History is primarily concerned with YHWH’s relationship to hHis people and God’s interaction with humanity. I direct you to Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna’s book on Genesis- for the Jewish view.
You make a totally absurd leap from Genesis to The Gospels.Gospels were written 60-100 ad. under Roman rule in a Hellenistic writing style. Much different-not quite modern history but we know that Josephus writes of many personal experiences that he was eyewitness to- he writes about Christ and there are other extrabiblical documents that cement the fact that Jesus did exist.Comparing Genesis and reading it like you would the Gospels is as silly as you can get.Each book in the Bible has a different style, point of view, uses different images, and has it’s own moral and lesson to be taught.So comparing OT to NT is like comparing apples and zebras.
 
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