Somehow I doubt that you’ve seen Catholics lose their faith over bible interpretations.
Somehow I think I’m better placed to know what I’ve seen.
I have seen young students absolutely gobsmacked by what has been presented in a Catholic university regarding Theology. Students who state that what they have been told there conflicts with what they have been taught their whole lives. That university was one with a high proportion (80%) of teachers who then go out and teach Catholic students in Catholic schools, Many young teachers go out and actively destroy the faith because of bad teaching of Theology which they have received. Teaching which is backed up by ‘authoritative’ interpretations. The professor forbade certain bibles from being brought into class because she considered the footnotes and translations to be ‘pious’ unsophisticated accounts.
I’ve seen atheists enrol in Theology classes in order to actively confront the faith. After pumping themselves up for an intellectual confrontation, these atheists have sat down after 30 minutes in stunned bewilderment as the professor did a much better job at demolishing the Catholic faith than they could.
Make no mistake, there are Theology courses in even Catholic universities specifically designed to get young students to lose their faith and they point to so-called authoritative sources from scholars to help them achieve this.
In front of the whole class the following has been asserted by my theology teacher :
The Trinity was an invention.
The gospels come from a Roman culture of many gods, they are not Jewish in origin.
None of the NT writers knew Jesus.
There was no structural church until Constantine. He changed the face of Christianity and invented many beliefs.
The church was only one strand of Christianity. They brutally repressed other strands and the NT is no more authoritative than rejected texts such as The Gospel of Thomas.
The Catholic Church ‘always wants to be different’ that is why they have different books in their bible as compared to protestants.
There are no miracles. Neither in biblical times nor today. They are believed by unsophisticated ‘pious’ folk.
There was no prophecy in the Bible pointing to Jesus. This was all read in afterwards by ‘pious’ folk.
The gospels evolved over time with each community changing them to suit their current needs and prejudices.
Luke’s gospel was largely written by women. If the Church had known this they wouldn’t have included it in the cannon of scripture.
The story of Adam and Eve was originally a story of how snakes came to be and the snake was originally a good character who wanted the best for mankind before the story was changed.
The movie ‘Life of Brian’ is a better resource for understanding religion than the bible. She told us how she had spoke with her husband the night before about screening the movie during Theology class.
John Cornwell’s book Hitler’s Pope is a fair and important critique of the Catholic Church.
The movie The Da Vinci code does a good job at uncovering a lot of errors in the Catholic church.
Mary was not a virgin. The virgin birth makes no sense, there was no prophecy about a virgin giving birth, Mary bore other children, not just Jesus. James was the full brother of Jesus.
The patriarchal Church made up the virgin story to control and repress women.
Jesus also had 12 women apostles but they were ‘written-out’ of the gospels by a women hating male Church.
Priests are not allowed to marry so that they will be easier to control.
The gospel genealogies through Joseph makes no sense unless Jesus was the biological son of Joseph.
The idea that Jesus was not the biological son of Joseph was probably written in later to ‘give’ Jesus more authority and fit incorrect interpretations of ‘pious’ ideas of prophecy.
It was Peter’s faith that Jesus sad the Church will be built on. This was not Jesus instituting the Papacy.
The Catholic Church started the wars of the Crusades against a peaceful Islamic civilisation and this is a big part of the current problems with terrorism.
Other world religions should be taught during Catholic religion class so as to give students a more rounded understanding of religion.
and at another time … it might be better to remove Jesus from the religion class and assert a more universal teaching of secular ethics so that students do not grow up different from their secular peers.
Her university students have a much more educated view of Christianity than the average priest.
The Bishop (Cardinal Pell) tries very hard to suppress academic freedom in the Theology class but professors are clever enough to get around his meddling.
The above were specifically asserted as fact, not introduced as possible interpretations. The professor always had an assortment of books and magazines at the front of the class that she would bring in each day and entice the students to read. None of the material was Catholic orthodoxy. All were attacking the Church in some way including issues of the magazine ‘Women Church’.
I am sure much more garbage was taught that I can’t remember simply because I tuned out while I saw younger students around me take all of this garbage to heart and believe they now knew what Christianity was. The theology teacher continuously pointed to scholarly interpretations to support her case and never gave the Catholic scholarly position even when asked by students who began to see the Church’s teaching as an unfounded con job.
Please do not tell me that ‘somehow’ you don’t think I have seen this.
If you read the beginning of my quote you will see that Jerome may have had access to scrolls far older than the DSS.
