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angel12
Guest
There is also a Didache Bible in the NABRE version.
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Dovekin
Guest
updates the notes wonderfully with 19th century discoveries in biblical languages, culture, and new found manuscripts.
Dovekin:
At last, something I can do perfectly! Misunderstand!
What is wonderful about using 19th century discoveries, and not 20th century ones?
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AmbroseSJ
Guest
The point I was making was that the revised Haydock Bible of 1878-1910 updated the notes with modern discoveries. It remains absolutely Orthodox however. IOW, it is like seeing the history of the Automobile. One can appreciate modern cars much more when you see how painstakingly (and early) advancements and developments were made. You can’t understand much about modern discoveries if you are unfamiliar with the foundation they are built upon. I am not waiving off modern discoveries, just that they need to be put into context.
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Dovekin
Guest
This is not obvious at all. Jesus uses the flood as a story of people who were taken by surprise. It was a time like any other time, people eating and drinking, but then the flood happened and only a few were saved! Whether the flood really happened or not, the people who heard Jesus understood sudden events taking them by surprise, like a tower collapsing and killing people.
Conversely, the prodigal son may refer to real history. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Adam had two sons, Cain and Abel. So when Jesus says “A certain man had two sons” he may be referring to an actual certain man. And he could be referring to every man who ever had two sons.
The point is that Catholics have different ways of reading the Bible, just like Protestants do. No authority says “read verse x as meaning y.” There are broader indications for scripture interpretation that are Catholic, such as “read verse x as part of book z which is part of the Bible believed by people in every place.” “Read verse x as a part of a prayerful relationship with Christ and the Church.” In that sense there is a real authority, the Church that hears the Word of God and treasures it.
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Elf01
Guest
Both Abraham and Adam had more than two sons.
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Dovekin
Guest
Stick with me. I am very good at missing the point, apparently, and I am sure I can teach you how to do it too.
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BartholomewB
Guest
Well, there are some cases where the Church insists on a particular meaning of a verse, while other churches allow a wider range of meanings. In particular, the two verses sometimes referred to as “Matthew’s exception clause”:
Matt 5:32
But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity (porneia), makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matt 19:9
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.
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Erikaspirit16
Guest
And I never said you did!
I’m sure that when you write a reply, it’s not just to one person, it’s for whoever reads the thread. Unless I specifically say “You said X but…” I am writing a reply in general. Here I said “The authors [of the book you cited] then write…” I think a lot of people (you can see by this thread, but there are many more!) think it is somehow atheistic or impious, or whatever word you choose, to question the literal, historical accuracy of stories in the Bible, and of course we know (back to the Catechism) that there is a vast range of interpretation possible within the Church.
To shift the subject a bit for the sake of illustration, take miracles. Some Catholics see miracles all around them, and of course in a sense this is true: the universe IS a miracle. But if you [a general ‘you’ not you personally!] say “Mary’s appearance in Yugoslavia is a miracle! All Catholics must believe in that!” You are simply wrong. The Church’s ruling on modern miracles is that SOME are “worthy of belief.” Whether you believe or not is up to you. Your Catholicism is not somehow better or worse depending on your belief. And I’m sure it would come as a surprise to many Catholics to know that there are only two miracles a Catholic MUST believe in: the incarnation and the resurrection. Belief in all the other miracles in the Bible is optional. It doesn’t make you a better Catholic because you believe them all, and it doesn’t make you a worse Catholic if you don’t believe any of them. And of course (my favorite topic) there is no necessity for God to work directly (“Poof! Let there be light”). There’s no reason God can’t work indirectly (evolution, for example). And those who insist on God working exclusively through direct action are, in fact, placing their own limits on God’s power. In other words, in their attempt to exalt God, they are doing the opposite.
So, in summary, if you choose–as a Catholic–to believe that the flood was a real, historical event, good for you. And if I–as a Catholic–choose to believe that it was not a real, historical event, I have that right. It doesn’t make me “less Catholic” or an atheist, or anything of the sort.
As for pre-modern authorities on the Bible, they didn’t have the advantages we do. They weren’t aware of all the editions of the Bible that we know of. They didn’t have computers to analyze style and word choice to identify authors. They didn’t have the wide knowledge of multiple religions we do. They didn’t have the archaeological and geological evidence we do. And so on. They certainly were smart guys, and their opinions are certainly worth reading and considering, but in certain areas they just didn’t have the tools we do today.
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