The inerrancy of scripture

[irenaeus1]

This may take a little bit, I was brought up in a fundamentalist Protestant church where I was taught to beleive that the Bible was written by, dictated by God to human robots who were like automatic writting machines, God according to the fundie teachers protected his WORD from a single error in all matters, not only theological, but also historic, and scientific.

I was taught that God created by the process of zapping, that God zapped everything into existence instantly from nothing, all within 6 twenty-four hour periods of literal time.

In the over thirty years that have passed since I have abandoned this approach, I no longer belive that God literally wrote the Bible through human robots. I no longer beleive that inspired means the same thing as dictated. Everything I am reading here makes it sound like Catholics are as literal as Southern Baptists or members of the so called “church of Christ”. If this is true then perhaps I am in the wrong church, maybe I should have become Episcopal instead, becuase I sure don’t worship the Bible as God like the fundies who raised me do.

Am I wrong, are we as Catholics supposed to be fundie bible worshippers as well?

No. Catholics are to take the Scriptures literally, not literalistically. Now before you get all bent out of shape, you have to understand what we mean by literally. If the scriptures had used the phrase “it was raining cats and dogs”, fundamentalists would claim that obviously felines and canines were falling out of the sky. But this is a literalistic approach. The literal approach means that there was a torrential down pour; i.e., raining cats and dogs is a conventional literary phrase to mean a very heavy rain fall. This is the Catholic approach - to interpret scripture in accordance with the literary genre used.

In Christ,
Irenaeus

 

[Ron_Conte]

God … protected his WORD from a single error in all matters, not only theological, but also historic, and scientific.

I think that they are basically correct on this point, although they are overly literal in their interpretation, so sometimes they think that Scripture is asserting something as true when it is not making any such assertion.

The modern claim that the Bible is only infallible in matters of faith and morals has been repeatedly condemned by past Popes.

Ron

 

[boppysbud]

Whosebob, although I am sure your links are very helpful, I have a problem with my computer, whenever I click on one the only result is to lock up my computer, forcing me to reboot.

The only way I can read your links is iff you type the actual URLs and then I type them in my adress bar, could you please do that?

Thank you B’s Bud

 

[boppysbud]

Ron, and anyone else interested, I am sorry but I absolutely cannot become a Bible worshipping fundamentalist, bible-idolator.

I spent a lot of years and a lot of trouble ESCAPING the fundamentalism of my youth, I did not become a Catholic in order to just go back to the “innerency” of the Southern Baptists.

I beleive that God inspired, but did not write or dictate the Bible to human automatic writeing robots.

I beleive that God gave the human authors the ideas, but the human authors actually did the writting, using their own intellects, and the human culture of the time also came into play.

Surely this web-site reflects ultra-conservative Catholic views? I do not want to leave the church for Episcopalianism, but I refuse to be a fundie again.

Surely not All Catholics are fundies.

 

[whosebob]

Whosebob, although I am sure your links are very helpful, I have a problem with my computer … The only way I can read your links is iff you type the actual URLs and then I type them in my adress bar, could you please do that?

JMJ + OBT​

Okay, no problem, I hope the following links “in the raw” will work better for you:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu_en.html

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.HTM

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=216

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=215

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=6

http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/authors-gospels-1.htm

http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/intro-sum/gospels-hist.htm

http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/intro-sum/why.htm

http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/intro-sum/deiverbumleaflet.htm

http://www.kenrickparish.com/gresham/cbi/

In Christ.

IC XC NIKA

 

[whosebob]

Ron, and anyone else interested, I am sorry but I absolutely cannot become a Bible worshipping fundamentalist, bible-idolator … I spent a lot of years and a lot of trouble ESCAPING the fundamentalism of my youth, I did not become a Catholic in order to just go back to the “innerency” of the Southern Baptists. … Surely this web-site reflects ultra-conservative Catholic views? I do not want to leave the church for Episcopalianism, but I refuse to be a fundie again. Surely not All Catholics are fundies.

JMJ + OBT​

I do not consider myself a “fundie,” far from it, and yet I do believe, in a manner I understand to be consistent with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, that the Holy Bible is free from all error.

In fact, what you described about the human authors bringing in aspects of their own culture is exactly the view that the Catholic Church promotes when it comes to properly appreciating and understanding the different genres of the various books of the Bible. Start with that encyclical letter of Pope Pius XII, as I think it will help to clear up some of the shadows and concerns flitting about your mind in this regard.

In Christ.

IC XC NIKA

 

[ferdie]

Whosbob I think the link you gave describes the approach that one of
the atheist I am having a dialogue is using. He is using the Markan Priority theory in trying to deny the authorship and content of the 4 Gospels. He said that christian history can not be trusted in validating the athenticity of the bible.

 

[ferdie]

I am just wondering, does anyone here know the percentage of scholars who believes in Clementine Tradition as opposed to Markan Priority?

 

[CharlesT]

I think Q is one big lie!

Most of the Q people really don’t believe that the RESURRECTION really happened.

Don’t listen to them!

Jerry-Jet,

With respect, I’m not sure what you mean by “Q people.”

I think that Q is a viable theory worth thinking about. It is theory, not necessarily fact or truth. But it is a compelling and coherent theory about the human development of the gospels.

If that makes me a “Q person” then you should know that I also firmly believe in the resurrection. I don’t see how the Q theory is in any way inconsistent with the teaching of the church about scripture or the resurrection or any other issue.

Best wishes.

 

[Ron_Conte]

I beleive that God inspired, but did not write or dictate the Bible to human automatic writeing robots.

I beleive that God gave the human authors the ideas, but the human authors actually did the writting, using their own intellects, and the human culture of the time also came into play.

The Council of Trent taught that the Holy Spirit dictated (metaphorically, not literally) the Bible to the sacred writers.

You are correct that the Bible contains both the human and the Divine, just as Christ himself, the Word, is both human and Divine. But just as Christ is inerrant, so also is Scripture inerrant. The Catholic idea of inerrancy is different than that of fundamentalists, but still it is inerrancy.

Everything asserted by the sacred writers as true is also asserted by the Holy Spirit as true. There are cultural and human aspects to Scripture which are not assertions. For example, we can tell from reading Paul’s letters that he probably thought that Christ would return within a generation or so. But he never asserts this. We can tell that the ancients had some incorrect or primitive ideas about science, but the sacred writers do not assert these ideas, they simply come into play in the way that assertions on other matters are worded.

Ron

 

[George_Everson]

I find myself presently surprised. Many of the fundamentalist churches I have been claim that Catholics do not consider the Bible inerrant but say the Pope is. This entire message thread totally demolishes that argument.

One of the struggles in Protestantism these days is Biblical inerrancy. Even among evangelical Protestants there is a constant struggle to deal with this issue. I am glad to see that our Catholic brethern still take the doctrine of inerrancy seriously.

Blessings in Christ,

George Everson