Would you take your children to visit the Ark in Kentucky?

[TMC]

That’s fair enough, but a historically factual view of the Noah flood isn’t alien to the Catholic teaching either.

I think it is more accurate to say that it is not prohibited by Catholic teaching. I would say it is a bit of a fringe view within Catholicism, however.

 

[campeador]

I never saw a unicorn on the Ark but there was dinisaurs. Why not? The Bible does mention Unicorns but we don’t know what that was.I found no problem with the display and their ‘bible only’ views didn’t bother me.

Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition:

Ver. 9. Rhinoceros.

 

[campeador]

I think it is more accurate to say that it is not prohibited by Catholic teaching. I would say it is a bit of a fringe view within Catholicism, however.

Pope Benedict agrees:

According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the ‘Big Bang’ and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5–4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution.

 

[benhur]

Augustine (and many others) have asked “why the particular creations of each day?” For example, why were the sun and moon created on the fourth day?

For centuries - probably preceding even the New Testament - people studying the Old Testament noted that the first three days of creation report God creating habitations, and the second three days of creation report God creating inhabitants. The inhabitants (sun, moon, and stars) created on the fourth day were placed in homes created on the first day (day and night). The inhabitants created on the fifth day (birds and fish) were placed in homes created on the second day (sky and seas). Finally, the inhabitants created on the sixth day (land animals, and humans) were placed on land, which was created on the third day.

By the way, the answers given by the early church fathers seem, to me, much more astute than the answers you would find from contemporary proponents of reading Genesis 1 as historical science.

Creation and Genesis (Catholic Answers) quotes from many Church Fathers, including St. Augustine.

Hi cf

Thank you.

of course genesis is much more than historical /scientific, yet it is not ''unhistoric/unscientific".

Blessings

 

[cfauster]

I recommend “My Trip to the Ark Encounter.”

God’s blessings,

cfauster

 

[benhur]

I recommend “My Trip to the Ark Encounter.”

God’s blessings,

cfauster

Hi cf,

Read it thanks.

Yes, do not want to be wrong, yet the status quo scientists have been wrong before, from a flat world , to geocentrism , to steady state.

Does the author doubt the actual building of the ark? He also seems to doubt any literal view of patriarchs ages . Perhaps one could fault Hamm on a few things, but perhaps the author has a few errors of his own.

I would agree that at times one should state what is “opinion”, even postulation.

Blessings

 

[cfauster]

At the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website, there is an on-line bible, and accompanying that are introductions to each book of the bible.

Here is the introduction to Genesis.

Like the Catechism of the Catholic church, the introduction to Genesis states that figurative language is used, yet the genre is not “myth” in the common sense of myth because historical (as well as religious) truth is conveyed. But, the genre is not history either because the truth is conveyed in figurative rather than factual language.

Here’s a portion of that intro:

“How should modern readers interpret the creation-flood story in Gn 2–11? The stories are neither history nor myth. “Myth” is an unsuitable term, for it has several different meanings and connotes untruth in popular English. “History” is equally misleading, for it suggests that the events actually took place. The best term is creation-flood story. Ancient Near Eastern thinkers did not have our methods of exploring serious questions. Instead, they used narratives for issues that we would call philosophical and theological. They added and subtracted narrative details and varied the plot as they sought meaning in the ancient stories. Their stories reveal a privileged time, when divine decisions were made that determined the future of the human race. The origin of something was thought to explain its present meaning, e.g., how God acts with justice and generosity, why human beings are rebellious, the nature of sexual attraction and marriage, why there are many peoples and languages. Though the stories may initially strike us as primitive and naive, they are in fact told with skill, compression, and subtlety. They provide profound answers to perennial questions about God and human beings.”

Though I’m not Catholic, in this and many other matters I think the Catholic view has a lot to offer. The Catechism has more detail about truth from the early chapters of Genesis, especially an emphasis on original sin.

 

[Seamus_L]

I remember back a few yrs ago when I was at Adoration, and a friend of mine had a reprint of a Catholic Bible commentary that was written around 1892. I looked through it and when I read about the Flood of Noah, I just pictured a bunch of angry 21st century Catholics saying something like “Who wrote this, some extreme Evangelical Protestant Bible thumper”.

 

[cfauster]

I remember back a few yrs ago when I was at Adoration, and a friend of mine had a reprint of a Catholic Bible commentary that was written around 1892. I looked through it and when I read about the Flood of Noah, I just pictured a bunch of angry 21st century Catholics saying something like “Who wrote this, some extreme Evangelical Protestant Bible thumper”.

And of course, the late 19th century views, at least in the English-language Catholic commentaries, could have been influenced by Reformation (Protestant) views. But repeatedly I’m impressed with the wisdom of the very early leaders of the (Catholic) church, and I find that their wisdom helps us today in ways they could not have imagined. Even among them there was diversity. For example, with Gen. 1, there were two dominant views: literal creation week, and instantaneous creation.

Here is some information on that, from which I’ve selected a portion to quote:

“The option Calvin defended, the literal creation week, was strongly favored by the early reformers and rooted in the earliest Christian commentaries. The option he rejected, in which all things were created instantaneously (sometimes based on Ecclesiasticus 18:1, as Calvin indicated with evident disagreement), fell out of favor in early modern times, but it, too, was rooted in the earliest Christian commentaries—to say nothing of the great Jewish scholar, Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Jesus. For example, around 200 AD Clement of Alexandria asked, “And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist?” For Clement, everything was “created together in thought,” and since “all things [were] originated together from one essence by one power,” the six days could not be taken literally. (Stromata, Book 6, Chapter 16). The instantaneous view was advanced especially by the most important Western theologian of the first millennium, Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who wrote a work (in multiple versions) called On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (ca. 391). Influenced by Ecclesiasticus 18:1, he taught that in the beginning God made matter and all material things simultaneously. “Those who cannot understand the meaning of the text, He created all things together, cannot arrive at the meaning of Scripture unless the narrative proceeds slowly step by step.” Some things were created to unfold in time, growing from “seeds” placed in the creation by God, but they were all part of the original conception that was brought into material existence in a single creative event. However, to aid our poor understanding, God told us about it in the pattern of six days. Augustine called the creation days “dies ineffables” (unknowable days), so majestic and profound that we cannot think of them in merely human terms as ordinary days. They indicate logical order, not temporal order, and must be interpreted subtly.”

 

[benhur]

At the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website, there is an on-line bible, and accompanying that are introductions to each book of the bible.

Here is the introduction to Genesis.

Like the Catechism of the Catholic church, the introduction to Genesis states that figurative language is used, yet the genre is not “myth” in the common sense of myth because historical (as well as religious) truth is conveyed. But, the genre is not history either because the truth is conveyed in figurative rather than factual language.

Here’s a portion of that intro:

“How should modern readers interpret the creation-flood story in Gn 2–11? The stories are neither history nor myth. “Myth” is an unsuitable term, for it has several different meanings and connotes untruth in popular English. “History” is equally misleading, for it suggests that the events actually took place. The best term is creation-flood story. Ancient Near Eastern thinkers did not have our methods of exploring serious questions. Instead, they used narratives for issues that we would call philosophical and theological. They added and subtracted narrative details and varied the plot as they sought meaning in the ancient stories. Their stories reveal a privileged time, when divine decisions were made that determined the future of the human race. The origin of something was thought to explain its present meaning, e.g., how God acts with justice and generosity, why human beings are rebellious, the nature of sexual attraction and marriage, why there are many peoples and languages. Though the stories may initially strike us as primitive and naive, they are in fact told with skill, compression, and subtlety. They provide profound answers to perennial questions about God and human beings.”

Though I’m not Catholic, in this and many other matters I think the Catholic view has a lot to offer. The Catechism has more detail about truth from the early chapters of Genesis, especially an emphasis on original sin.

Hi cf,

Not sure about article. Dislike the underlined . Do not like the idea that the East could not tell “history”, or were not sophisticated enough to balance all things like we think we can today. Very prideful. I do not see Genesis stories as “primitive” nor naive’’. At the very least, same old same old ( as if we can not be unwise, naïve, primitive in* some *way.

To me the flood happened, and is HIs story. Too many details given for simply a philosophical, theological “narrative”.

Blessings

 

[cfauster]

Not sure about article. Dislike the underlined

Some things did take place, and the essential truths about what took place are described. However, the descriptions in Gen 2-11 often use figurative language.

For example, here’s how the Catechism puts it regarding Gen. 3.

“The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.” CCC 390

I don’t recall how the Catechism refers to Noah’s flood.

 

[cfauster]

I recommend A Catholic Perspective on a New Attraction.

 

[johnnyc176]

I recommend A Catholic Perspective on a New Attraction.

Another way to approach a visit is to focus on the the Truth of the Catholic Church as the the Church that Jesus founded by showing the Ark as a prefigurement of the Catholic Church.

catholicexchange.com/ten-ways-noahs-ark-prefigured-church

 

[cfauster]

Another way to approach a visit is to focus on the the Truth of the Catholic Church as the the Church that Jesus founded by showing the Ark as a prefigurement of the Catholic Church.

That article is a good reminder that to early Church leaders, prefigurement is often one of the multiple meanings of divinely-inspired narrative details in Scripture, especially narrative that uses figurative language.

I searched the Catechism for Noah and the Flood; everything I found involved prefigurement