"The Hidden Exodus" - Do Catholic Churches Need More Bible?

[Contarini]

Of the seminaries, the average number of hours to complete the degree is 107.72, with a high of 135 (St. John’s, Boston) and a low of 79 (University of St. Mary and CTU–both Chicago). Of these seminaries, the average number of semester-equivalent seminary courses in Bible is slightly less than 6, With St. Meinrad with a low of 11 credits (or not quite four courses). But to zero in further on the problem, almost all of these seminaries teach the synoptic gospels in one course, and about 1/2 of the time the synoptics are combined with the book of Acts, basically allowing only a few weeks of instruction for each gospel. That, in my opinion, is insufficient when the synoptic gospels will constitute the bulk of the priest’s preaching for the rest of his career.

The true standout seminary of those listed above is St. Charles Borromeo (Philadelphia area). They require 10 semester-equivalent classes in Bible, with a separate course in each gospel, which seems much closer to a reasonable level of academic coverage. The next highest seminaries were several requiring 6 courses in Bible.

Dave, I’m not sure that Protestant seminaries are that different here. Asbury Theological Seminary, for instance, requires 8 Biblical courses, including languages, but they focus on general exegetical method rather than on in-depth study of specific books. They further have 18 elective hours–about 6 courses–which could be the study of specific books, but could also be other subjects entirely.

One of the key differences that I noted above was the lack of training in original languages. Of the seminaries listed above, only 1 (St. John Vianney, Denver) requires training in Greek, Hebrew and Latin. 6 others require various amounts of Latin as a prerequisite or as part of their program. Three others (besides St. John Vianney) require some training in Greek. St. John Vianney is the only seminary listed above that requires some training in Hebrew.

I think Protestant seminaries do generally do better in terms of Greek and Hebrew, though not all require them.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

The way it generally happened was like this: Many parts of America had been newly settled by people who didn’t establish any kind of church in their communities. So in and around these types of communities, there would be some kind of tent revival that would last days at a time. It would generally include speakers that represented three or four different major denominations, all working together and in no way in dissent with each other. In any given community, a large number of people would become Christians. Then after the revival was over, they’d build a church if that was necessary and they’d continue practicing Christianity indefinitely.

That tended to be how it worked a lot of times. These new denominations didn’t split off from other ones by virtue of doctrinal disagreement; they would typically come into existence out of a community where there was no Christianity to begin with.

I’d like to see some support for this argument. I think that this was actually pretty rare. Generally the first churches on the ground in a new community were linked with a denomination–Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist, most commonly. Certainly revival meetings did often give rise to new denominations, but usually because there was some level of dissatisfaction with existing denominations. I think you’re whitewashing the historical picture radically.

 

[Nicea325]

Not true at all. Only a fraction of the Bible is in the Missal. The insistence by Catholics that the Missal covers the whole Bible only makes the rest of us suspicious that many of you have never bothered to read the Bible all the way through, or you’d know how much is left out of the lectionary.

Really? Only a fraction? Tell us what fraction? Likewise, you are also very suspicious to try to make us believe non-Catholics read the entire Bible,word for word,cover-to-cover at their services, let alone within a year. That I much I know is not true at all.

 

[nickybr38]

Really? Only a fraction? Tell us what fraction? Likewise, you are also very suspicious to try to make us believe non-Catholics read the entire Bible,word for word,cover-to-cover at their services, let alone within a year. That I much I know is not true at all.

I can tell you one thing for sure - they only read a small fraction of the Old Testament.

 

[Nicea325]

I can tell you one thing for sure - they only read a small fraction of the Old Testament.

More important, I dare any Catholic to simply listen to a non-Catholic t.v. preacher an entire year and he or she will rarely cover the entire chapter of John 6. Geeee…I wonder why? I did it once and listened to Dr.Charles Stanley (Baptist) and he never discussed John 6.

 

[jwinch2]

Really? Only a fraction? Tell us what fraction? Likewise, you are also very suspicious to try to make us believe non-Catholics read the entire Bible,word for word,cover-to-cover at their services, let alone within a year. That I much I know is not true at all.

My understanding of the liturgical year is that through the readings at Mass, almost the entire Bible will be covered in three years time. As for the rest, in my experience they do not. My biological father is an Assembly of God pastor and I have sat through more of his and the pastor before him’s sermons than I care to remember. The pastor in those settings decided what he wanted to preach on and then cherry picked passages to match the topic. There was very little of the actual bible covered and what was covered was taken well out of context, phrase by phrase.

Now, I was originally baptized Methodist and that is still the church of my mother. I know they have more structure in their readings but they certainly do not cover any more of the bible than Catholics do.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Dave, I’m not sure that Protestant seminaries are that different here. Asbury Theological Seminary, for instance, requires 8 Biblical courses, including languages, but they focus on general exegetical method rather than on in-depth study of specific books. They further have 18 elective hours–about 6 courses–which could be the study of specific books, but could also be other subjects entirely.

I think Protestant seminaries do generally do better in terms of Greek and Hebrew, though not all require them.

Edwin

Eight courses on the Bible would be pretty good, but yes, your thoughts basically mirror what I said in an earlier post. I think the bar for biblical education is set awfully low in most seminaries, both Catholic and Protestant–but still lower in seminaries who have completely abandoned study of Greek and Hebrew. I’m mystified as to why a Catholic seminary would not require basic knowledge of Latin.

 

[Contarini]

Really? Only a fraction? Tell us what fraction? Likewise, you are also very suspicious to try to make us believe non-Catholics read the entire Bible,word for word,cover-to-cover at their services, let alone within a year. That I much I know is not true at all.

I’m not sure why you think I’m trying to make you believe that. I have never claimed anything of the sort.

Calvary Chapel claims to go through the whole Bible, though I’m sure they take much longer than a year. This website says that they take 5 years, and that not all pastors in the movement follow the practice. They’re the only group that even claim this (as a whole–obviously, as we’ve seen here, some uninformed Catholics claim this, and I’ve heard Episcopalians claim it too–it’s not true of us either).

As far as just what fraction, obviously it varies depending on whether you’re talking NT or the whole Bible, and whether you are talking Sunday or daily Missal.

This website gives the following statistics:

3.7% of the OT is covered on Sundays and major feasts; 13.5% in the daily lectionary.
40.8% of the NT on Sundays/feast days; 71.5% in the daily lectionary.
For just the Gospels the numbers are 57.8% and 89.8%.

See also Normand Bonneau, *The Sunday Lectionary: Ritual Word, Paschal Shape *(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), pp. 48-49.

So your lectionary doesn’t even cover all the Gospels in the daily lectionary, and only a small percentage of the OT is covered.

This isn’t a reproach–I couldn’t find similar statistics for the RCL that my denomination uses, but I suspect the numbers would be similar (the RCL only covers Sundays and feast days). We have a daily lectionary for Morning and Evening Prayer that I suspect covers significantly more than your daily Mass lectionary (the readings are generally longer). However, only a few Episcopal parishes offer these services daily, so I wouldn’t claim that we cover more Scripture in public usage than you do.

I would like to see lectionaries that covered more of Scripture, but I think it’s great that we (liturgical Christians generally) cover as much as we do. As Bonneau says, effectively we have a “liturgical canon” within the canon, and that may be hard to avoid. All I’m arguing against is the uninformed triumphalism that claims that all of Scripture is covered, and the Scriptural ignorance that allows Catholics to make such claims (if you actually read the Bible regularly, cover to cover, as traditional Protestants are taught to do, you would notice that a lot of things never come up at Mass).

I should also add that Protestants have gone seriously downhill in this regard. I don’t think any of us should be boasting over against anyone else.

Edwin

 

[Revert_43]

Could you please point to the place within these links where an authoritative source states that the Eucharist is not the place for in-depth Biblical teaching. Briefly glancing at the two articles, I see nothing of the kind. Perhaps I am missing something.
Edwin

The purpose of the Mass is the sacrifice

“The word Mass (missa) first established itself as the general designation for the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the West after the time of Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), the early Church having used the expression the “breaking of bread” (fractio panis) or “liturgy” (Acts 13:2, leitourgountes); the Greek Church has employed the latter name for almost sixteen centuries.”

newadvent.org/cathen/10006a.htm

If you don’t want to accept that then read the GIRM

1. The celebration of Mass, as the action of Christ and the People of God arrayed hierarchically, is the center of the whole Christian life for the Church both universal and local, as well as for each of the faithful individually.22 In it is found the high point both of the action by which God sanctifies the world in Christ and of the worship that the human race offers to the Father, adoring him through Christ, the Son of God, in the Holy Spirit.23 In it, moreover, during the course of the year, the mysteries of redemption are recalled so as in some way to be made present.24 Furthermore, the other sacred actions and all the activities of the Christian life are bound up with it, flow from it, and are ordered to it.25

“27. At Mass—that is, the Lord’s Supper—the People of God is called together, with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord, the Eucharistic Sacrifice.37 For this reason Christ’s promise applies in an outstanding way to such a local gathering of the holy Church: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst” (Mt 18:20). For in the celebration of Mass, in which the Sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated,38 Christ is really present in the very liturgical assembly gathered in his name, in the person of the minister, in his word, and indeed substantially and continuously under the eucharistic species.39”

usccb.org/liturgy/current/chapter2.shtml#sect3b

Now one section of the Mass is the Liturgy of the Word which contains the homily

From the GIRM

“65. The homily is part of the Liturgy and is strongly recommended,63 for it is necessary for the nurturing of the Christian life. It should be an exposition of some aspect of the readings from Sacred Scripture or of another text from the Ordinary or from the Proper of the Mass of the day and should take into account both the mystery being celebrated and the particular needs of the listeners.64”

And the definition of the word exposition from the Merrian-Webster dictionary.

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exposition

 

[Nicea325]

My understanding of the liturgical year is that through the readings at Mass, almost the entire Bible will be covered in three years time. As for the rest, in my experience they do not. My biological father is an Assembly of God pastor and I have sat through more of his and the pastor before him’s sermons than I care to remember. The pastor in those settings decided what he wanted to preach on and then cherry picked passages to match the topic. There was very little of the actual bible covered and what was covered was taken well out of context, phrase by phrase.

Now, I was originally baptized Methodist and that is still the church of my mother. I know they have more structure in their readings but they certainly do not cover any more of the bible than Catholics do.

Precisely why the church has a three-year liturgical cycles: A,B,C and two-year for the daily Mass. However, the belief certain things are left out I doubt are detrimental to the core of the faith. I did not know the genealogy of Christ in Matthew Ch.1 is vital to salvation?

 

[jwinch2]

Precisely why the church has a three-year liturgical cycles: A,B,C and two-year for the daily Mass. However, the belief certain things are left out I doubt are detrimental to the core of the faith. I did not know the genealogy of Christ in Matthew Ch.1 is vital to salvation?

So I was correct on the three years? Nice! I knew I remembered hearing that somewhere…

Cheers!

 

[Nicea325]

I’m not sure why you think I’m trying to make you believe that. I have never claimed anything of the sort.

Calvary Chapel claims to go through the whole Bible, though I’m sure they take much longer than a year. This website says that they take 5 years, and that not all pastors in the movement follow the practice. They’re the only group that even claim this (as a whole–obviously, as we’ve seen here, some uninformed Catholics claim this, and I’ve heard Episcopalians claim it too–it’s not true of us either).

As far as just what fraction, obviously it varies depending on whether you’re talking NT or the whole Bible, and whether you are talking Sunday or daily Missal.

This website gives the following statistics:

3.7% of the OT is covered on Sundays and major feasts; 13.5% in the daily lectionary.
40.8% of the NT on Sundays/feast days; 71.5% in the daily lectionary.
For just the Gospels the numbers are 57.8% and 89.8%.

See also Normand Bonneau, *The Sunday Lectionary: Ritual Word, Paschal Shape *(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), pp. 48-49.

So your lectionary doesn’t even cover all the Gospels in the daily lectionary, and only a small percentage of the OT is covered.

This isn’t a reproach–I couldn’t find similar statistics for the RCL that my denomination uses, but I suspect the numbers would be similar (the RCL only covers Sundays and feast days). We have a daily lectionary for Morning and Evening Prayer that I suspect covers significantly more than your daily Mass lectionary (the readings are generally longer). However, only a few Episcopal parishes offer these services daily, so I wouldn’t claim that we cover more Scripture in public usage than you do.

I would like to see lectionaries that covered more of Scripture, but I think it’s great that we (liturgical Christians generally) cover as much as we do. As Bonneau says, effectively we have a “liturgical canon” within the canon, and that may be hard to avoid. All I’m arguing against is the uninformed triumphalism that claims that all of Scripture is covered, and the Scriptural ignorance that allows Catholics to make such claims (if you actually read the Bible regularly, cover to cover, as traditional Protestants are taught to do, you would notice that a lot of things never come up at Mass).

I should also add that Protestants have gone seriously downhill in this regard. I don’t think any of us should be boasting over against anyone else.

Edwin

Okay…and all of this proves what? Are all of the core doctrines of the faith exlcuded throughtout the year? That is the main issue,not what % of the Bible is left out. Is the genealogy of Christ vital for our salvation? And who cares if you read the entire Bible cover-to-cover,how is that a guarantee for salvation? Cannot read your way to Heaven.

 

[Contarini]

The purpose of the Mass is the sacrifice

“The word Mass (missa) first established itself as the general designation for the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the West after the time of Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), the early Church having used the expression the “breaking of bread” (fractio panis) or “liturgy” (Acts 13:2, leitourgountes); the Greek Church has employed the latter name for almost sixteen centuries.”

newadvent.org/cathen/10006a.htm

If you don’t want to accept that then read the GIRM

1. The celebration of Mass, as the action of Christ and the People of God arrayed hierarchically, is the center of the whole Christian life for the Church both universal and local, as well as for each of the faithful individually.22 In it is found the high point both of the action by which God sanctifies the world in Christ and of the worship that the human race offers to the Father, adoring him through Christ, the Son of God, in the Holy Spirit.23 In it, moreover, during the course of the year, the mysteries of redemption are recalled so as in some way to be made present.24 Furthermore, the other sacred actions and all the activities of the Christian life are bound up with it, flow from it, and are ordered to it.25

“27. At Mass—that is, the Lord’s Supper—the People of God is called together, with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord, the Eucharistic Sacrifice.37 For this reason Christ’s promise applies in an outstanding way to such a local gathering of the holy Church: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst” (Mt 18:20). For in the celebration of Mass, in which the Sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated,38 Christ is really present in the very liturgical assembly gathered in his name, in the person of the minister, in his word, and indeed substantially and continuously under the eucharistic species.39”

usccb.org/liturgy/current/chapter2.shtml#sect3b

Now one section of the Mass is the Liturgy of the Word which contains the homily

From the GIRM

“65. The homily is part of the Liturgy and is strongly recommended,63 for it is necessary for the nurturing of the Christian life. It should be an exposition of some aspect of the readings from Sacred Scripture or of another text from the Ordinary or from the Proper of the Mass of the day and should take into account both the mystery being celebrated and the particular needs of the listeners.64”

And the definition of the word exposition from the Merrian-Webster dictionary.

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exposition

Nothing you have posted contradicted what I have said, or supports your claim that teh Mass is not the place for detailed exposition of Scripture. The quote from the GIRM is the only one that even addresses the question of the role of Scripture, and it tells solidly against your claim that the sole purpose of Mass is the Eucharistic sacrifice. Clearly the homily is important and should be devoted to Scriptural exposition. However, nothing here is said about how long or in-depth the homily should be, or whether the Mass should be the primary place where Biblical teaching takes place.

I certainly grant that current liturgical practice makes that difficult. But we aren’t talking about current liturgical practice. We are talking about perennial Catholic theological principles. And I’m saying that the practice of the Church Fathers–who have an honored place within the Catholic tradition–strongly indicates that longer, more detailed exegetical sermons would be a good thing if they were practicable. Such preaching should not be dismissed as somehow “un-Catholic.” That’s the point I am making. Absolutely nothing you have posted contradicts my claim in the slightest. You keep making claims that the evidence you cite does not support. You seem locked into the idea that the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are in a zero-sum relationship, so that more focus on one means less focus on the other. That isn’t true, if Catholics were willing to have longer liturgies in general. Practically speaking, it may be better just to encourage separate Bible studies. But you’ve given no evidence that this is the ideal.

Nor have you shown me where small-group Bible studies are to be found in the Catholic tradition. Small group Bible studies do appear to be a Protestant innovation (that doesn’t make them bad). Long exegetical sermons are not a Protestant innovation–the Reformers found them in the Fathers, whom they took as their models in many ways (though I wish they had done so more consistently).

Edwin

 

[Dave_Noonan]

My understanding of the liturgical year is that through the readings at Mass, almost the entire Bible will be covered in three years time.

Actually, I don’t think that’s the case. One resource for statistics on this topic is The Sunday Lectionary by Fr. Normand Bonneau, OMI (pages 48-49). (His statistics do not include the daily lectionary however.)

“Catholic recognize forty-five books as constituting the Old Testament. Thirty-two of these books are represented in the…Sunday Lectionary; thirteen do not appear at all (Judges, Ruth, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, Son of Songs, Lamentation, Obadiah, Nahum, Haggai, Tobit, Judith and 1 Maccabees.)”

“This * tallies to 5.7% of the Old Testament.”

As for the Gospels: “57.1 percent of Matthew appears in the [Sunday] Lectionary, 61.4 percent of Mark, 58.2 percent of Luke and 61 percent of John.”

I am always surprised by this John statistic.

“These statistics show that according to the Lectionary…the essential part (praestantior pars) of scripture, both Old and New Testaments tallies to about 13.7% of the whole [Bible].”

Many lectionaries have a handy chart at the back that summarize all of the readings, both daily and Sunday. If you refer to such a chart you’ll note that there are still pretty large chunks, especially of the OT, omitted with no readings from some of the books that Bonneau lists (e.g., Judith and 1 Chronicles) even when the daily lectionary is considered. And for some of the Bonneau’s list of omitted books, the daily lectionary may add only 1 or 2 pericopes.*

 

[Contarini]

Okay…and all of this proves what?

It disproves the claim made in several earlier posts that the whole Bible, or most of it, is covered in the Catholic lectionary.

Stop trying to make up some other argument that you think I’m making, and just address the point. Inaccuracy does not serve Truth, does it?

I don’t think that one can parse out certain passages of Scripture that have “essential” doctrines and others that don’t. Scripture functions as a whole, within the context of Sacred Tradition. That, I believe, is the Catholic position, and I agree with it. Thus, the more of Scripture that we can make available to people the better. And the starting point is to be honest about just how much Scripture people will get from the Mass readings alone–an impressive fraction but still just a fraction.

Scripture is very long.

Edwin

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Actually, I don’t think that’s the case. One resource for statistics on this topic is The Sunday Lectionary by Fr. Normand Bonneau, OMI (pages 48-49). (His statistics do not include the daily lectionary however.)

“Catholic recognize forty-five books as constituting the Old Testament. Thirty-two of these books are represented in the…Sunday Lectionary; thirteen do not appear at all (Judges, Ruth, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, Son of Songs, Lamentation, Obadiah, Nahum, Haggai, Tobit, Judith and 1 Maccabees.)”

“This * tallies to 5.7% of the Old Testament.”

As for the Gospels: “57.1 percent of Matthew appears in the [Sunday] Lectionary, 61.4 percent of Mark, 58.2 percent of Luke and 61 percent of John.”

I am always surprised by this John statistic.

“These statistics show that according to the Lectionary…the essential part (praestantior pars*) of scripture, both Old and New Testaments tallies to about 13.7% of the whole [Bible].”

Many lectionaries have a handy chart at the back that summarize all of the readings, both daily and Sunday. If you refer to such a chart you’ll note that there are still pretty large chunks, especially of the OT, omitted with no readings from some of the books that Bonneau lists (e.g., Judith and 1 Chronicles) even when the daily lectionary is considered. And for some of the Bonneau’s list of omitted books, the daily lectionary may add only 1 or 2 pericopes.

As I see Contarini beat me to the Bonneau quotes while I was preparing my post.

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

Not true at all. Only a fraction of the Bible is in the Missal. The insistence by Catholics that the Missal covers the whole Bible only makes the rest of us suspicious that many of you have never bothered to read the Bible all the way through, or you’d know how much is left out of the lectionary.

Edwin

Correct. a little less than 72% of the New Testament and a little over 13% of the Old testment if you go every day for 3 years. this however does not include the Psalms so that would raise the percentage abit.

I wonder how that compares to non catholic bible coverage during the same three years?

 

[jwinch2]

I found this on another thread but I thought I would post it here. This looks like a great integrated way to study the bible in light of Church teaching in the Catechism in a year’s time. Of course, since I plan on using study bible commentary along with the readings, it will probably take longer. I had been looking for something like this and was so happy to find it, I had to share!

chnetwork.org/readguide04.pdf

Peace,

 

[Contarini]

Correct. a little less than 72% of the New Testament and a little over 13% of the Old testment if you go every day for 3 years. this however does not include the Psalms so that would raise the percentage abit.

I wonder how that compares to non catholic bible coverage during the same three years?

It depends on which church you’re talking about. Calvary Chapel, as I said, claims to cover the whole Bible in 5 years. I have no personal experience of their worship.

The Revised Common Lectionary is very similar to the Catholic lectionary–the main difference is that the OT passages are more consecutive, giving people a better sense of the narrative but largely losing the theological links with the Gospel readings. The Episcopal Church used to have its own lectionary (very similar to yours) but has recently switched over to the RCL. We use all the readings of the RCL, so we cover Scripture similarly to you. I think many Lutherans do as well. Many other Protestant churches unfortunately pick one or maybe two readings from the RCL, so they don’t get anywhere near as much coverage.

Many Reformed churches practice “lectio continua” preaching, in which they go through a part of the Bible consecutively over a long period of time. This sacrifices breadth for depth–you cover certain books or parts of books intensively, but there are other parts of Scripture that you may never hear (though preachers who use this method generally relate what they are saying to the rest of Scripture).

Many Protestant churches, as other folks have noted, have little public reading of Scripture, though preachers quote Scripture extensively and private Bible reading and small-group study is assumed.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I found this on another thread but I thought I would post it here. This looks like a great integrated way to study the bible in light of Church teaching in the Catechism in a year’s time. Of course, since I plan on using study bible commentary along with the readings, it will probably take longer. I had been looking for something like this and was so happy to find it, I had to share!

chnetwork.org/readguide04.pdf

Peace,

Yes, I’ve seen this before–I think it’s wonderful.