Who does the church believe wrote the bible?

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davetheravew

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so im a recent convert to catholicism after being an anglican, and the bible suggested by my local church was the cts catholic bible. I got one for christmas and noted that before some parts of the bible there was a bit of informatuion form the publisher, i was suprised to see three epistles of paul in a different section, called the “pastoral epistles”, and to suprise me even more was the read up before! It stated that these letters werent from paul and were instead written by someone pretending to be paul, it said that they wer only attributed to paul. It said this was a practise done in other letters, and was simply the authors opinion of what[paul would have wrote. I find that idea to be very offensive and not convincing, i mean paul asks for a bed in one of these epistles, if you are writing what you thought were his opinions why would you ask for a bed? I was suprised even more when i reached the second read up, this time for the universal epistles ( James.1 Peter2 Peter.1 John.2 John. 3 John.Jude) and found the same idea, it said these epistles also werent written by the apostles. This seems unacceptable, and is disssapointing because the cts catho;lic bible affikrmed the gospels and the other epistles of paul were legit, do does the catholic church really think the pastoral and universal epistles are fake, if so im leaving.
 
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Well, all reputable Catholics scripture scholars attribute all of the Pauline letters directly to Paul . I don’t know anything about the CTS Bible, but saying that is like when some scriptures scholars will tell you that Jesus did not know he was God or that the real miracle of the loaves and fishes was just that the people shared their food together. It’s all a bunch of … a bunch of… well, you can fill in the blank.

Paul wrote the Pauline epistles.
 
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The prevailing opinion today of most biblical scholars (both Catholic and non-Catholic) are that some of Paul’s letters were not written by Paul himself but rather by a disciple of Paul. That does not mean that those letters are “fake”. It was not uncommon in the ancient world for people to do this. If Paul’s disciple was writing things “in the mind of Paul”, then there is a real sense in which Paul could be considered the author even if he didn’t directly write the words himself.

That said, this is not a matter of official Catholic teaching. Some Catholic and Protestant scholars still maintain that Paul wrote all the letters that are attributed to him.

I wouldn’t be overly concerned about it, and I certainly wouldn’t leave the Church over it. It’s a debate among academics. It’s not super relevant to the average Catholic.

I do think it’s regrettable that certain Catholic Bibles (like the NABRE) include such things in the front matter. Your reaction to it is evidence of how stating such hypotheses as fact can be harmful to some people’s faith. I much prefer a commentary like the Ignatius Study Bible that may take a clear position but will also tell you what other opinions are out there.
 
My Douay-Rheims, a classic and solid Catholic bible translation, does not say that the Epistles were not written by the Apostles. I’ve never heard of the CTS Bible, but I suggest you get a new one. The Ignatius Press RSV-2CE is good, along with the one I just mentioned. You may also like the Didache Bible.
 
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Thanks, Joe! 🙂 I’m glad to see that CAF has been able to aganst all odds survive during my sabbatical / pilgrimage back to the home planet of my my ancient fore fatherss, once known as the Osprarrians, just in case some of you want to look them up.

Anyways, pardon, the short digression, everyone. Back to the world of exigetes gone rogue.
 
The Navarre Commentaries are also good sources of background information on the individual books of the New and Old Testament.
 
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The CTS Bible is published and sold by the Catholic Truth Society in the UK. It contains Jerusalem Bible and Grail translations approved for liturgical use in England and Wales.

I find all this puzzling, since everything I’ve gotten from CTS is so spot on. :confused: That said, I don’t own this particular Bible so I can’t comment other than to recommend getting another Catholic Bible if this one angers you so much. Unless there’s something else going on that you haven’t mentioned, you’re not bound to use a particular Bible translation. Leaving the Church because someone in one parish suggested this version—not even “recommended” but simply “suggested”—seems disproportionate in the extreme.

Hi @JamalChristophr :wave:t3:
 
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UpUpAndAway said:
I find all this puzzling, since everything I’ve gotten from CTS is so spot on. :confused:
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Right. I’ve never seen anything remotely questionable from CTS before. But I don’t have this particular Bible. I wonder if they use the same introductions as the NAB(RE) which says similar things.
 
I understand your concern with regard to the authorship of the apostles. Generally, these theories of authorship are pushed by non-believing scholars. They are unsupported theories, assuming that variations and wording are attributed to different authors. I don’t buy that personally. It assumes that people don’t vary their message to the intended audience or that the authors have a very limited vocabulary. I can tell you that when I write, I try to tailor my message to convey my message to the purpose and audience to whom I am writing. Lastly, while it was common to use a scribe to write epistolary literature, it wasn’t quite what these people make it out to be (someone pretending to be Paul). This is a false characterization. While it is possible that Paul may have used a scribe, he would have been responsible for the content and would have approved the content. Additionally, the nature of the delivery of epistolary literature seems to preclude the categorization that this thesis implies. Normally the epistles were hand-carried by a faithful representative chosen by the apostle to deliver the message to the intended audience. If you read through Paul’s epistles, I think you will see this was normally the case. Lastly, when you see the very personal nature of 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, for example, I think you will agree with me, it is unlikely to be someone “pretending” to be Paul. I think you will find that normally those who assume that a specific epistle could not have been written by Paul do so on the basis of the content that they disagree with, rather than on a legitimate scholarly basis. So someone who maybe believes the clergy should be open to all sexes might posit that 1 Timothy and Titus were probably not written by Paul because of course Paul could not possibly have written a letter affirming male clerical offices.
 
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I don’t disagree. I tend to subscribe to the more traditional views when it comes to questions of authorship. But it doesn’t scandalize me that other Catholics (even Catholic biblical scholars) think differently.
 
As @Joe_5859 already pointed out, the usual view these days among New Testament specialists, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is that the fourteen books traditionally ascribed to Paul are divided into seven “authentically Pauline” epistles and seven “deutero-Pauline” epistles.

“Authentic”— Romans, 1 & 2 Cor., Gal., Phil., 1 Thess., Philemon
“Deutero”— Eph., Col., 2 Thess., 1 & 2 Tim., Titus, Hebrews.

Ben Witherington, I think, favors Luke as the author of the Pastoral epistles (visiting Paul in prison in Rome and acting as his secretary), and someone else has mentioned Apollos of Alexandria as the likely author of Hebrews.

https://www.amazon.com/History-Lite...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1546540317&sr=1-1
 
i only stated that if it was the offical veiw i would leave, the reason i thought it might be the offical veiw was before the book there was a declaration or approval from some bishops that it was free from error, nihil obstat i think. this made me think it might be the offical veiw. I was so angered because when i looked these theories up all i found were unbelievers calling these books forgeries, and i wouldnt join a church that offically agreed with some half-baked theories from atheist bible students. But now i know its not the offical veiw, i will invest in a new biblke, the reason i bought it was because it apparently was the bible used in the mass, but i guess i could get a new jerusalem bible without the commentary found in the cts
 
Joe_5859 said:
The prevailing opinion today of most biblical scholars (both Catholic and non-Catholic) are that some of Paul’s letters were not written by Paul himself but rather by a disciple of Paul. That does not mean that those letters are “fake”. It was not uncommon in the ancient world for people to do this. If Paul’s disciple was writing things “in the mind of Paul”, then there is a real sense in which Paul could be considered the author even if he didn’t directly write the words himself.
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Additionally, it is possible that some of the letters might have been dictated by Paul but written by different scribs / disciples.

@davetheravew the reason why some scholars believe Paul did not physically write all of them is because the greek differs. Same with the Gospel of John compared to the John’s letters and the Book of Revelation. Different mastory of the Greek language was used.

HOWEVER, this does NOT mean that the content was not Paul. It’s just a matter of who wrote it down.

God Bless.
 
sadly thats not what these notes said, they said it was just some people writing what they thought paul might say, but its a joy to know these notes dont represent the offical views of the church
 
If it is a faithful translation (meaning it accurately translates the content of the Bible) then I don’t think you need to do that. Ignore the notes and keep it. I don’t see a reason to go out and spend money on a new Bible if you are happy with the translation. But that’s up to you.
 
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davetheravew said:
i only stated that if it was the offical veiw i would leave, the reason i thought it might be the offical veiw was before the book there was a declaration or approval from some bishops that it was free from error, nihil obstat i think. this made me think it might be the offical veiw. I was so angered because when i looked these theories up all i found were unbelievers calling these books forgeries, and i wouldnt join a church that offically agreed with some half-baked theories from atheist bible students. But now i know its not the offical veiw, i will invest in a new biblke, the reason i bought it was because it apparently was the bible used in the mass, but i guess i could get a new jerusalem bible without the commentary found in the cts
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yeah, it’s not the official view. The problem right now is that too many academics are putting notes in Bibles and while they are Catholics writing them, they tend to write it in a VERY generic and academic only way.

For example: The New American Bible (which is the Catholic Bible the US bishops sort of commissioned) was named “New American Bible” because their goal was that it wouldn’t just be a Catholic Bible, but one for all Americans. But so far, only Catholics use it (though I have hear one evangelical tell me that the New American Bible Revised Edition is a good translation).

I hope this helps.

Finally, I don’t think there is really a single English translation that is official English translation of the Church. Though the New American Bible Revised Edition comes close and that same translation was used for the New African Bible.
 
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