The Catholic Bible is completely True, BUT IS IT ALSO Completely Factual?

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Dear friends in Christ,

Is this a true assement of the Catholic Bible?

Why or why not?

Can you think of any examples to support your position?

Love and prayers,
 
I understand where you’re going with this question, but you didn’t word it quite right…

Most people define a “fact” as a true observation. The sun rose in Washington DC at 6:31am local time.

If thats the case (I made up the time, by the way) then the following is “completely true”:
  1. The sun had not yet totally risen at 6:13am local time today in Washington DC
  2. The sun was up at 6:53am local time today in Washington DC
Another way of saying that the Catholic Bible is completely true, is to say “every fact in the Catholic Bible is true”.

Now if you’re trying to say that “True” with a capital-T means “not really factually true, but you know, what we wish is true” well then that’s not very interesting at all, is it?

And since I’ve gone this far, I’ll bite and ask: Who ever said the Catholic Bible is completely “True” (with or without the capital T)?
 
Dear friends in Christ,

Is this a true assement of the Catholic Bible?

Why or why not?

Can you think of any examples to support your position?

Love and prayers,

When you next have a chat with a talking tree (Judges 9), or see a seven-headed dragon (Rev.12) in a zoo, or a sea-serpent (Isaiah 27.1) in an aquarium, please take some photographs of them; better still, video them. Because I’ve never seen or heard any of them. 🙂

It’s not all true, & it’s not all factual.
 
I understand where you’re going with this question, but you didn’t word it quite right…

Most people define a “fact” as a true observation. The sun rose in Washington DC at 6:31am local time.

If thats the case (I made up the time, by the way) then the following is “completely true”:
  1. The sun had not yet totally risen at 6:13am local time today in Washington DC
  2. The sun was up at 6:53am local time today in Washington DC
Another way of saying that the Catholic Bible is completely true, is to say “every fact in the Catholic Bible is true”.

Is it a fact that Shem reached the age of 600 ? Our ancestors would have said “Yes” - for Shem was as genuinely historical to them as Charlie Chaplin or Queen Victoria are to us. Nowadays, the historical status of Shem and his advanced age are given up by everyone except Fundamentalists (not that all of them accept his historicality and his age). If the facts asserted by the Bible change, so does the meaning of inerrancy.​

Now if you’re trying to say that “True” with a capital-T means “not really factually true, but you know, what we wish is true” well then that’s not very interesting at all, is it?

And since I’ve gone this far, I’ll bite and ask: Who ever said the Catholic Bible is completely “True” (with or without the capital T)?

The Church seems to teach that it is free from all error… :eek: - that it is totally inerrant. When pressed, people for some reason fight shy of saying that its grammar is totally error-free; but if its grammar can be dodgy, how does inspiration guarantee the truth of all of it, & why must it do so ? This is surely not really a coherent position, but a self-contradictory one. Still, I don’t want to drag this thread into the debate on inerrancy - the first poster might not have had that debate in mind.​

 
Gottle of Geer, lets be respectful of other people’s beliefs here! What’s next, links to russellsteapot.com/images/comics/2007/Image043.jpg ?!? (Caution, this link points to a critical cartoon, with a few example that Gottle of Geer listed, so if you’re offended by his response please don’t view the cartoon!)
 
Gottle of Geer, lets be respectful of other people’s beliefs here! What’s next, links to russellsteapot.com/images/comics/2007/Image043.jpg ?!? (Caution, this link points to a critical cartoon, with a few example that Gottle of Geer listed, so if you’re offended by his response please don’t view the cartoon!)

There were things that could have been mentioned, but I thought three was enough 🙂

That cartoon was hysterical - and the end was very thought-provoking. Thanks.
 

The Church seems to teach that it is free from all error… :eek: - that it is totally inerrant. When pressed, people for some reason fight shy of saying that its grammar is totally error-free; but if its grammar can be dodgy, how does inspiration guarantee the truth of all of it, & why must it do so ? This is surely not really a coherent position, but a self-contradictory one. Still, I don’t want to drag this thread into the debate on inerrancy - the first poster might not have had that debate in mind.​

The Bible itself is error-free. Grammar issues are due to the interpretation and do not have anything to do with the accuracy of its content.

Sorry OP, I just had to do it!
 
Dear friends in Christ,

Is this a true assement of the Catholic Bible?

Why or why not?

Can you think of any examples to support your position?

Love and prayers,
PJM, I’m not sure I understand your question. Are you asking if the Bible is literal?
 
PJM, I’m not sure I understand your question. Are you asking if the Bible is literal?

I wish this “literalism” business could be sorted ot once and for all - it needs so much explanation :eek: :eek::eek:

 

When you next have a chat with a talking tree (Judges 9), or see a seven-headed dragon (Rev.12) in a zoo, or a sea-serpent (Isaiah 27.1) in an aquarium, please take some photographs of them; better still, video them. Because I’ve never seen or heard any of them. 🙂

It’s not all true, & it’s not all factual.
So then you can give me an example from the bible of:

Someting true BUT not factual

Something factual BUT not true

Love and prayer’s
 
=MarysGirls;5156235]PJM, I’m not sure I understand your question. Are you asking if the Bible is literal?
Hi,

Yes, but in a more specific manner.

Is all of the bible literal?

If not, now does one discern the difference?

Love and prayers,
 
=MarysGirls;5156228]The Bible itself is error-free. Grammar issues are due to the interpretation and do not have anything to do with the accuracy of its content.
Sorry OP, I just had to do it!
😃 Your forgiven:signofcross:

So let me ask the question in a slightly differnt manner.

If the entire bible is “error free” does that imply that everything in the bible is true / TRUE?

Love and prayers,
 
=PatThompson;5155971]I understand where you’re going with this question, but you didn’t word it quite right…
Most people define a “fact” as a true observation. The sun rose in Washington DC at 6:31am local time.
If thats the case (I made up the time, by the way) then the following is “completely true”:
  1. The sun had not yet totally risen at 6:13am local time today in Washington DC
  2. The sun was up at 6:53am local time today in Washington DC
Another way of saying that the Catholic Bible is completely true, is to say “every fact in the Catholic Bible is true”.
Now if you’re trying to say that “True” with a capital-T means “not really factually true, but you know, what we wish is true” well then that’s not very interesting at all, is it?
And since I’ve gone this far, I’ll bite and ask: Who ever said the Catholic Bible is completely “True” (with or without the capital T)?
Actually, on a personal note I do believe that everything in the bible is TRUE. Does my belief than commit be to also accept that everything in the bible is factual?

I understand truth in tow way’s.

My truck is red [trust me:D it is], that is true.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God is THE TRUTH

Pope JP II taught that there can only be a single TRUTH for any specific issue.

Pope Benedict XVI has said that hteir cannot be your truth and my truth or there would ne NO TRUTH!

Does this calrify my OP?

Love and prayers,
 
Dear friends in Christ,

Is this a true assement of the Catholic Bible?

Why or why not?

Can you think of any examples to support your position?

Love and prayers,
It’s doublespeak.

Gary
 
The Bible itself is error-free. Grammar issues are due to the interpretation and do not have anything to do with the accuracy of its content.

Sorry OP, I just had to do it!

Grammar is part of the content - it is very important for conveying meaning. 🙂

 
So then you can give me an example from the bible of:

Someting true BUT not factual

Something factual BUT not true

Love and prayer’s

Help - this turning into a thread about semantics (which is hugely important…) 😃

Could you say what you man by “factual” ? FWIW, Tolkien believed, rightly I think, that in some sense his stories were “true”. He did not imagine that the world of hobbits, elves, orcs & the other peoples who inhabit his books were actually existing beings.

The parable of Jotham in Judges 9 attributes to plants & trees such familiar activities as taking council, seeking a ruler, refusing the honour, & speech itself. It does not follow that Jotham had lost his wits - the truth of the parable is “located” in its lesson for the listeners, not in its description of the activities of plants & trees: activities which are impossible to them, but not at all impossible to men; such as those whom Jotham was seeking to persuade by his parable.

The parable of the Good Samaritan does not require that Jesus was speaking of a really existing traveller who was set up by really existing robbers, nor that a really existing Levite & a really existing priest passed by him on the other side; nor that a really existing Samaritan helped the traveller. The story, with its mention of Jerusalem & Jericho, is probable in every respect but one: that a Samaritan would help (or be helped by) a Jew. And that is the entire point of it - it is a story that is meant to elicit a response from the hearer; the real existence of the dramatis personae is beside the point: Jesus may have based it on real circumstances of some description, or he may have invented the whole thing: it does not matter.

What does matter, very much, is the point of the story; it matters as much as it did then, because it describes how people in every age behave. The dramatis personae might bedifferent for us: Samaritans & Jews were at enmity in that culture, not in ours - but the point would be the same, even if the parable became (say) that of the Good Democrat helping the mugged Republican. The parable challenges & upsets our biases, & an adaptation for today would need to do the same. The person whose group we hate is sometimes our neighbour when those who might seem to be our natural allies pass by us, & on the other side. It is not “just” a story, even though it is not an account of really occuring events - so if it is to “speak to our condition”, we need to get past the specific details of the parable as it was told, & identify the modern equivalents of the characters in it; otherwise, it speaks to its own age alone.
 
Dear friends in Christ,

Is this a true assement of the Catholic Bible?

Why or why not?

Can you think of any examples to support your position?

Love and prayers,
As the Church teaches, Scripture uses allegory or story sometimes in order to communicate a truth of God. So you see, what is presented does not always come in the form of some list of data like a coroner would transcribe at a crime scene. What is inerrant in Scripture is in relation to: what is God communicating via the human author? Understanding that communication will tell us something true about God.

References:The literal sense is not to be confused with the “literalist” sense to which fundamentalists are attached. It is not sufficient to translate a text word for word in order to obtain its literal sense. One must understand the text according to the literary conventions of the time. When a text is metaphorical, its literal sense is not that which flows immediately from a word-to-word translation (e.g. “Let your loins be girt”: Lk. 12:35), but that which corresponds to the metaphorical use of these terms (“Be ready for action”). When it is a question of a story, the literal sense does not necessarily imply belief that the facts recounted actually took place, for a story need not belong to the genre of history but be instead a work of imaginative fiction. (Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, II.B.1.b)

Addressing men and women, from the beginnings of the Old Testament onward, God made use of all the possibilities of human language, while at the same time accepting that his word be subject to the constraints caused by the limitations of this language. Proper respect for inspired Scripture requires undertaking all the labors necessary to gain a thorough grasp of its meaning. (Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Conclusion b)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. (Dei Verbum 12a)
 
What really gets me is the fact that so many Catholics believe in the symbolism of Genesis due to macroevolution. I don’t really care about the scientific evidence, but how does one distinguish the symbolism from the pure facts (using purely spiritual and/or theological bases) when the Church doesn’t have an official teaching on it?
:confused:
 
What really gets me is the fact that so many Catholics believe in the symbolism of Genesis due to macroevolution. I don’t really care about the scientific evidence, but how does one distinguish the symbolism from the pure facts (using purely spiritual and/or theological bases) when the Church doesn’t have an official teaching on it?
:confused:
It is entirely possible that the Spirit has not so moved the Church to understand in detail every passage of Scripture. In that regard, you can study many saints’ and ECFs take on the passages in question, and as long as your understanding doesn’t conflict with the analogy of the whole faith, then you should be safe. 🙂

For example, regarding predestination, the Church has 2 general explanations for what it is. Molinism and Thomism. I happen to favor Molinism. And that’s ok. 🙂
 
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