Which is Culture and which is Dogma?

[Montie_Claunch]

When reading Scripture how does one know what is simply a displine thing and what is Dogma? For example in scripture (I can’t remeber where) it talks about the length of hair people should have (Women/long, Men/short) and in another place how women should keep quite in church. How can one tell? Thanks and God bless.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Montie,

I urge you to read Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu in which he says, among other things :

1. Whosoever considers the immense labors undertaken by Catholic exegetes during well nigh two thousand years, so that the word of God, imparted to men through the Sacred Letters, might daily be more deeply and fully understood and more intensely loved, will easily be convinced that **it is the serious duty of the faithful, and especially of priests, to make free and holy use of this treasure, accumulated throughout so many centuries by the greatest intellects. **For the Sacred Books were not given by God to men to satisfy their curiosity or to provide them with material for study and research, but, as the Apostle observes, in order that these Divine Oracles might “instruct us to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ Jesus” and “that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.”[35]

In other words, use a good Catholic tranlation and a good Catholic commentary that takes advantage of “two thousand years” of prayer and reflection.

The encyclical can be found at vatican.va/holy_father/piAfflante

Verbum

 

[mdgspencer]

I would think that these particular questions are not troublesome. I don’t know of a parish that has told people to leave the building because their hair was not the right length. So this could not be fundamental to the faith. The second example is more complicated, depending on what it means. It doesn’t refer to what happens at mass, because the congregation doesn’t speak up during the ceremony. I’m not sure what it means myself.
Perhaps though you are asking about much larger issues? This whole matter has been a great bone of contention. There are those liberal in religion who maintain for example that what the Gospels say about Christ is mainly an invention of the early Church, based in large part on the religious ideas of the times. Personally, I have dealt any possible confusion in this matter by focusing on orthodox Catholic Biblical commentaries in my reading, such as the Navarre commentary series on the New Testament.
The parable of the shepherd and the sheep in John 10 gives me some consolation in this matter. Chirst said that his followers hear his, the shepherd’s, voice and they do not hear the voice of someone else or follow them. The faithful can see when some teacher is serving to undermine their faith and lead them away from Jesus, as he says himself in this parable, and so they can be protected.