The Inspired Word of God?

[firstNicholas12]

I can but try & yes you are correct

I have often shared that the bible is always TRUE; but not always factual.

The Bible exist as expressed in 2nd. Timothy 3:16-17 "All scripture, inspired of God, [and] is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.

Matthew 4:4"Who answered and said: It is written, Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God"

There is an unwritten Infallible rule for right understanding of the Bible; it is this.[caps for emphasis; not shouting here]

**Never-ever; Can, may or DOES
One verse, passage or teaching have the authority or the Power to
Invalidate, make void or override ANOTHER
Verse, passage or teaching

Were this even the slightest possibility[its NOT], it would render the entire bible as worthless to teach or learn god’s [only one] set of Faith beliefs.**

Perhaps the easiest way to answer your great question is to understand why the Bible exist.

The OT leads to the NT; which both contains the OT; fulfills it and even perfects it. That is why I pointed out that the Bible is not a history book in the identical sense of current history books.

There are going to be historical errors; but they do not encroach on Moral truths. The OT is now some 4,000 years old; and when it was assembled from OT Jewish books it covered a period of about 2,000 years. Add to this that the Jews were a Nomadic people; and the multiple destruction of the Jerusalem & and consequent captivity of the nation; then factor in the lack of literacy; and the shortage of writing materials; and it seems inevitable that their would be inconsistencies.

The OT Bible exist to relate the STORY of God choosing out of all the earth; just one Chosen people Exodus 6:7; who were surrounded by nothing but PAGANS. God had to ween them and introduce them to unheard of things. One God? Yes; One God! In charge of everything.

In the process God had to first teach them to trust Him explicitly & implicitly. This took a very long time and the “carrot & stick” kind of instruction. BUT God never deserted them; & God insisted that they in turn NEVER desert Him…

So the OT should be viewed as the relationship story of God and His P\Chosen People [singular].

The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. The entirety of the Bible is the recounting of God’s desire to be in a Personal relationship with humanity; and the ups and downs of that endeavor. God desires this FAR more than we do

The NT then in addition to completing the OT; aims to perfect the God-man relationship and to solidify it.

One needs to seem the MESSAGE of the Bible; the LESSONS of the bible and not at all be concerned with the relative inconsistencies. Making THIS our aim; our goal will aid greatly in further establishing our personal relationship with our God.

I do hope this helps you? If not let me know and I’ll try again. I’ll leave you with to very prudent teachings:
…
2nd. Peter 3: 14-17 “Therefore, beloved, since you wait for these, be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability

2nd. Peter 1: 16-21 “You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

God Bless you,

Patrick

.

Why don’t you follow what the Church officially teaches, and stop promoting heresy.

Here is a good article that deals with Dei Verbum:

arcaneknowledge.org/catholic/councils/comment21-11.htm

 

[firstNicholas12]

It helps. Thanks.

You shouldn’t be giving him thanks, rather, you should be repudiating his heresy.

I suggest you read

newadvent.org/cathen/08045a.htm

 

[Faith1960]

What’s he talking about, when he said that about Providetissimus Deus?

Are you mistaken in your earlier post? Does Provietissimus Deus (whatever that is) contradict what you said?

Tim?

 

[Faith1960]

You shouldn’t be giving him thanks, rather, you should be repudiating his heresy.

I suggest you read

newadvent.org/cathen/08045a.htm

I suggest someone more knowledgeable than either of us address this.

 

[Latinitas]

The people that say this are called Fundamentalists. The Catholic Church doesn’t say this. The Church teaches that the Bible was written by human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit. Not possessed by the Holy Spirit or used as a dictation device by the Holy Spirit. That means the human authors wrote out of their experience and knowledge to communicate divine truths. The divine truths are without error. It doesn’t mean that every detail in the Bible is literally true.

Fundamentalists do all kinds of exigetical gymnastics trying to explain this or that detail in the Bible. Catholics read the Bible as written by human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit, and if there’s one thing Catholics know it’s that humans are not perfect, even the Popes. BUT when the Pope teaches ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals - he is teaching infallibly! In a similar way, in regard to those truths necessary for our salvation, the Bible is without error.

The Bible was not written by the Holy Spirit. The Bible was written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. There is a difference.

The Bible communicates exactly what God wanted to communicate and does so without error. Sometimes people think that the Bible communicates things such as history or science when God had no intent to communicate those things.

God gave us the Bible for the salvation of our souls. Everything in the Bible having to do with the salvation of our souls is without error.

-Tim-

This is plainly wrong. The Catholic Church most certainly teaches that the Bible is written by God:

Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. (Empahsis added)

-Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, ch. 11, 1965

As far being without error, it follows as an immediate consequence of its Divine authorship, that they cannot err. This is what the Second Vatican Council means when it continues:

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.

-Ibid.

As regards “the truth which God wanted to put into writings for the sake of our salvation”, some have asserted that this means that the Council is only restricting inerrancy to those things which pertain to dogmatic truths of the faith. But, even if this were the case, it does not follow that the previous teachings, which strongly defended the plenary inerrancy of Scripture, were contradicted. It just means that, in regards to those truths pertaining to salvation, the inerrancy of Scripture is of the faith, or proximate to faith, but in regards to the other matters, the inerrancy of Scripture is theologically certain.

But, as most faithful Catholics have pointed out, and Catholic Answers has a page on this, this is faulty interpretation. The inspired authors do not seek necessarily to give a strictly historical account or scientific account of things, so in this sense, they are said not to assert these things, but use popular idioms or literary devices to express these things. Moreover, the prior teachings of the Church, are quotes in this passage.

Pope Benedict XV, in his 1920 encyclical on Holy Scripture, explains the whole matter very well:

You will not find a page in his [St. Jerome’s] writings which does not show clearly that he, in common with the whole Catholic Church, firmly and consistently held that the Sacred Books - written as they were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - have God for their Author, and as such were delivered to the Church. Thus he asserts that the Books of the Bible were composed at the inspiration, or suggestion, or even at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; even that they were written and edited by Him. Yet he never questions but that the individual authors of these Books worked in full freedom under the Divine afflatus, each of them in accordance with his individual nature and character. Thus he [is not merely content to affirm as a general principle - what indeed pertains to all the sacred writers - that they followed the Spirit of God as they wrote, in such sort that God is the principal cause of all that Scripture means and says; but he also accurately describes what pertains to each individual writer.

-Benedict XV, *Spiritus Paraclitus

, ch. 8, 1920

The Pope continues:

Consequently it is not to the point to suggest that the Holy Spirit used men as His instruments for writing, and that therefore, while no error is referable to the primary Author, it may well be due to the inspired authors themselves. For by supernatural power the Holy Spirit so stirred them and moved them to write, so assisted them as they wrote, that their minds could rightly conceive only those and all those things which He himself bade them conceive; only such things could they faithfully commit to writing and aptly express with unerring truth; else God would not be the Author of the entirety of Sacred Scripture.

Ibid., ch. 17

The harmony between the Second Vatican Council’s teaching, and the traditional teaching is obvious.

I hope this was helpful,
Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas

 

[Latinitas]

As many say here, the Bible isn’t a history book nor a science book.

This is not true. The Bible certainly is a history book - it tells the history of our salvation. God is a true historical Personage, primarily as Jesus Christ, God the Son made man, but also in the actions of Moses and the Prophets.

The Second Vatican Council said:

To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms.” For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. (Emphasis added)

-Dei Verbum, ch. 12, 1965

The historical sense of Scripture cannot be dissented from, in many cases, without danger to the Faith.

I hope this was helpful,
Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas

 

[PJM]

=firstNicholas12;13510586]Why don’t you follow what the Church officially teaches, and stop promoting heresy.

Here is a good article that deals with Dei Verbum:

arcaneknowledge.org/catholic/councils/comment21-11.htm

My dear friend in Christ,

Wecome to CAF!

As a FYI:

I have read Dei Verbum", Inter Oecumenici, and TRENT Albeit some years ago.

Thanks for sharing the commentary.

Might I suggest however that if your going to SLANDER me and charge me with being a Heretic, that you be so kind as to be a bit more precise and specific with evidence of your positions. These are very serious charges that render judgment on.

God Bless you,
Patrick

 

[Faith1960]

My dear friend in Christ,

Wecome to CAF!

As a FYI:

I have read Dei Verbum", Inter Oecumenici, and TRENT Albeit some years ago.

Thanks for sharing the commentary.

Might I suggest however that if your going to SLANDER me and charge me with being a Heretic, that you be so kind as to be a bit more precise and specific with evidence of your positions. These are very serious charges that render judgment on.

God Bless you,
Patrick

So if the Church teaches the Bible is inerrant, then how does one explain all the inconsistencies in it?

 

[Faith1960]

So if the Church teaches the Bible is inerrant, then how does one explain all the inconsistencies in it?

Anyone?

 

[Faith1960]

May I refer you to the thread: Biblical (in) Errancy: A Red Herring

Post# 8

July 7, 2013

 

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[Abu]

Faith1960 #26
So if the Church teaches the Bible is inerrant, then how does one explain all the inconsistencies in it?

If you refer to post #3 you will see the answer to the imagined “inconsistencies”.

No real Catholic doubts the teaching of the Church concerning that “truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided.”

 

[firstNicholas12]

My dear friend in Christ,

Wecome to CAF!

As a FYI:

I have read Dei Verbum", Inter Oecumenici, and TRENT Albeit some years ago.

Thanks for sharing the commentary.

Might I suggest however that if your going to SLANDER me and charge me with being a Heretic, that you be so kind as to be a bit more precise and specific with evidence of your positions. These are very serious charges that render judgment on.

God Bless you,
Patrick

You claim there are historical errors in the Bible; that is where your heresy lies.

“Once it is accepted that everything asserted by the inspired authors in Scripture is also asserted by the Holy Spirit, it logically follows there can be no error in any of these assertions, since God can neither deceive nor be deceived. At the insistence of more progressive bishops, the phrase “for the sake of salvation” was appended to the original statement. Consequently, they and various liberal exegetes have held that this phrase limits the scope of Biblical inerrancy. In other words, a Biblical statement about history or science might admit error if it is not related to the truths about salvation. While this restricted notion of inerrancy might make exegetes’ lives easier, it is incompatible with the basic logic expounded a couple lines earlier in Dei Verbum. Everything asserted by the inspired authors is also asserted by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can neither deceive nor be deceived, as even liberal Catholics will admit. From this it inexorably follows that everything asserted by the inspired authors is free from error, and this logic holds for historical and scientific statements no less than statements about faith and morals…:”

arcaneknowledge.org/catholic/councils/comment21-11.htm

 

[firstNicholas12]

Then they should stop promoting heresy.

Extent of inspiration

The question now is not whether all the Biblical books are inspired in every part, even in the fragments called deuterocanonical: this point, which concerns the integrity of the Canon, has been solved by the Council of Trent (Denz., 784). But are we bound to admit that, in the books or parts of books which are canonical, there is absolutely nothing, either as regards the matter or the form, which does not fall under the Divine inspiration?
Inspiration of the whole subject matter

For the last three centuries there have been author-theologians, exegetes, and especially apologists — such as Holden, Rohling, Lenormant, di Bartolo, and others — who maintained, with more or less confidence, that inspiration was limited to moral and dogmatic teaching, excluding everything in the Bible relating to history and the natural sciences. They think that, in this way, a whole mass of difficulties against the inerrancy of the bible would be removed. But the Church has never ceased to protest against this attempt to restrict the inspiration of the sacred books. This is what took place when Mgr d’Hulst, Rector of the Institut Catholique of Paris, gave a sympathetic account of this opinion in “Le Correspondant” of 25 Jan., 1893. The reply was quickly forthcoming in the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus of the same year. In that Encyclical Leo XIII said:

It will never be lawful to restrict inspiration merely to certain parts of the Holy Scripture, or to grant that the sacred writer could have made a mistake. Nor may the opinion of those be tolerated, who, in order to get out of these difficulties, do not hesitate to suppose that Divine inspiration extends only to what touches faith and morals, on the false plea that the true meaning is sought for less in what God has said than in the motive for which He has said it. (Denz., 1950)

In fact, a limited inspiration contradicts Christian tradition and theological teaching.

 

[Faith1960]

Deacon, this is too hard for me to understand but are there errors in the Bible or not? If not, how do you explain the inconsistencies?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Faith1960]

What about what he said about Dei Verbum and Providentissimus Deus? Neither are within my reading ability to comprehend so I’m asking you. Do they tell us there are no errors or inconsistencies in Scripture?

 

[Latinitas]

What about what he said about Dei Verbum and Providentissimus Deus? Neither are within my reading ability to comprehend so I’m asking you. Do they tell us there are no errors or inconsistencies in Scripture?

I’m sorry such a vociferous debate has raged here.

As to your question, there’s no one way to resolve difficulties in Scripture. Sometimes departing from the plain sense is justified; other times not. Sometimes re-evaluating our knowledge of the natural world is justified (and seldom done); other times not. This is the job of faithful Catholic exegets. The inerrancy of Scripture is an axiom, not conclusion, of orthodox biblical scholarship.

I hope this is helpful,
Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas

 

[Ron_Conte]

[1 Samuel 13]

{13:1} Filius unius anni erat Saul cum regnare cœpisset, duobus autem annis regnavit super Israel.
{13:1} When he began to reign, Saul was the son of one year, and he reigned over Israel for two years.

The expression “son of …” is a common idiomatic expression in Hebrew. Examples: son of death, a dead body; son of perdition, one who is lost; sons of adulterers, these ‘sons’ are not the children of persons who have committed adultery, but rather it is the sons themselves who have committed adultery, behaving as if they are sons of adultery personified.

Saul was appointed king by the people one year after he was anointed king by Samuel, that is, one year after the Spirit of the Lord came to him, so that he became a new man with a new heart, as explained in chapter ten. That is why Sacred Scripture says figuratively that Saul was the son of one year when his reign began.

When people propose various alleged errors in Scripture, they generally argue as if each of these points must be an error, if they cannot think of a way that it could be true. Instead, we should have faith in the Word of God, and suppose that, if a verse expresses what seems to be an error, that it only seems that way to our limited understanding.

Pope Pius XII: “they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.” (Humani Generis, n. 22).

 

[Latinitas]

While largely correct, I do want to say to your first two sentences though, is that everything that is in Sacred Scripture is what the Holy Spirit wanted the human author to convey, as Dei Verbum pointed out:

In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit,…

Ch. 11

.

So, Sacred Scripture really is without error, in its entirety, in all its parts, properly understood.

Also, even though the human writers were not omniscient, by the grace of inspiration, their intellects were moved by the Holy Spirit to make them immune from error when writing Sacred Scripture. The argument from lack of omniscience therefore is not really relevant. This is why inspiration is so important when speaking of Sacred Scripture.

Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas

 

[Latinitas]

True. Maybe irrelevant wasn’t the right word. But as you point out, it’s not intending to give a scientific exposition of the world. Hence, it does not contain error in the proper understanding. Also, though, as Augustine and St. Thomas mention on this passage, we still cannot doubt that these waters exists, in whatever way we interpret them, even if metaphorically.

Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas