Posted on 11/24/2014 1:07:14 PM PST by NYer
They are stories, just stories made up out of whole clothe. The only power they have is the power we give them over us.
Were it not for the washing, the cleansing effect of the Holy Bible and learning how to begin to have the mind of Christ, I'd been institutionalized or dead long before now.
Then my very best sincere advice is don't read them, stay as far away as possible.
I remember my 9th grade Social Studies teacher telling us that the Bible had some of the most violent raunchy stories of any literature out there. He cited the incest of Lot, the adultery of David, etc...Some people think those are the moral equivalent of fairy tales or fables.<>P>I personally enjoy reading a wide variety of genres, but I don't let them become all consuming.
Just my never humble opinion.
You're right; there are several different literary styles in the Bible.
Genesis is not written symbolically, nor as parable, nor poetry, etc. Again, Jesus referred to it as historical fact, as did the OT prophets and the disciples.
You still didn't tell us where you got the idea the fruit of the tree was an apple.
The countless hours I spent at the seminary debating these very issues... sigh... I really miss that. Positing theories, the intellectual bantering, the give and take of individuals just as passionate as you or I. All the time knowing that the very best we could hope for was a very small glimmer of the grand plan.
Well, as I stated, that was some years ago and does not describe my life in the Palmetto State now.
Your advice comes too late to help me. Deeds were done.
Yes I have, and you won’t like my answer, but It was when I re-entered the Catholic Church.
The term, “Papist,” you say I should not use?
My goodness, man, are you blind? Look at who most of the treads are about on the RF. We who are not Papists have been calling attention to the absolute mass of threads posted here by Papists about their alleged successor to Peter. Pope this, and Pope that. Francis said this, and Francis said that. And you are not a Papist? Give me a break.
I will pray for you, I am a Catholic Roman rite. The First Christians.
Thank you, and God Bless.
I agree with you, and frankly I’m surprised at the Catholic response here.
That the Papacy assuredly is not.
Well, the word says that he made him on the 6th day.
There is nothing written to refute it either.
There it is: The grand plan.
Most that question the word do so because they’ve no idea of the plan.
.
>>Trying to read through this made my head hurt. The author seems to be arguing that, according to Catholic doctrine, two distinct individual homo sapiens (”Adam and Eve”) can be identified within the broader population of evolving former-primates, and that it was these two individuals within the broader population of evolving former-primates who sinned and cursed the other evolving former-primates and thus the entire emerging human race.<<
The very definition of theological gymnastics.
>>This nonsense should not be confused as Catholic doctrine. No legitimate Catholic theologian, rational Catholic, or Church dogma accepts a literal interpretation of the Genesis stories. Fundamentalists are on their own.<<
At what point in Holy Scriptures do you see the transition from fable to literal truth?
Was Abraham a literal historical person?
Did God part the Red Sea?
You introduced new data. God was not teaching science in Genesis 1-2. God was stating all that we observe in this world He created. God is the potter and we are the clay. Who shall contend with Him?
And no, Genesis chapter one does not state the earth is flat.
Some disagree: http://www.kolbecenter.org/the-traditional-catholic-doctrine-of-creation/
No legitimate Catholic theologian, rational Catholic, or Church dogma accepts a literal interpretation of the Genesis stories. Fundamentalists are on their own.
Indeed, like Luke which traces the genealogy of the Son of God (thru Mary it seems) back to Adam, and the Lord who invoked Gn. 2:24. And RC scholarship also relegates many historical accounts to being fables or folk tales, such as has been seen the RC NAB Bible commentary and foot notes for decades. The latter even on that of the Vatican today!
I myself first became aware of the basic liberal bent in the NAB when reading the notes in the NAB, St. Joseph’s medium size, Catholic publishing co., copyright 1970, which has the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur stamps of sanction. The NAB has gone through revisions, but I have found the same O. T. footnotes in “The Catholic Study Bible,” Oxford University Press, 1990, which also has the proper stamps, and uses the 1970 O.T. text and the 1986 revised N.T. And a Roman Catholic apologist using the 1992 version also lists some of the same errors described below, and is likewise critical of the liberal scholarship behind it (though he elsewhere denigrated Israel as illegally occupying Palestine), while a Roman Catholic cardinal is also crtical of the NAB on additional grounds.
The study aids therein teaches that, "The Bible is God’s word and man’s word. One must understand man’s word first in order to understand the word of God." ("A Library of Books," p. 19) and warns,
“You may hear interpreters of the Bible who are literalists or fundamentalists. They explain the Bible according to the letter: Eve really ate from the apple and Jonah was miraculously kept alive in the belly of the whale. Then there are ultra-liberal scholars who qualify the whole Bible as another book of fairly tales. Catholic Bible scholars follow the sound middle of the road.” (15. “How do you know”)
However, they are clearly driving on the left.
It “explains”, under “Literary Genres” (p. 19) that Genesis 2 (Adam and Eve and creation details) and Gn. 3 (the story of the Fall), Gn. 4:1-16 (Cain and Abel), Gn. 6-8 (Noah and the Flood), and Gn. 11:1-9 (Tower of Babel: the footnotes on which state, in part, “an imaginative origin of the diversity of the languages among the various peoples inhabiting the earth”) are “folktales,” using allegory to teach a religious lesson.
It next states that the story of Balaam and the donkey and the angel (Num. 22:1-21; 22:36-38) was a fable, while the records of Gn. (chapters) 37-50 (Joseph), 12-36 (Abraham, Issaac, Jacob), Exodus, Judges 13-16 (Samson) 1Sam. 17 (David and Goliath) and that of the Exodus are stories which are "historical at their core," but overall the author simply used mere "traditions" to teach a religious lesson. After all, its understanding that “Inspiration is guidance” means that Scripture is “God’s word and man’s word.” What this means is that the NAB rejects such things as that the Bible's attribution of Divine sanction to wars of conquest, “cannot be qualified as revelation from God,” and states,
Think of the ‘holy wars’ of total destruction, fought by the Hebrews when they invaded Palestine. The search for meaning in those wars centuries later was inspired, but the conclusions which attributed all those atrocities to the command of God were imperfect and provisional." (4. "Inspiration and Revelation," p. 18)
It also holds that such things as “cloud, angels (blasting trumpets), smoke, fire, earthquakes,lighting, thunder, war, calamities, lies and persecution are Biblical figures of speech.” (8. “The Bible on God.”)
The Preface to Genesis in my St. Joseph's 1970 NAB edition attributes it to many authors, rather than Moses as indicated in Dt. 31:24, and the footnote to Gn. 1:5 refers to the days of creation as a “highly artificial literal structure.”
Even in the the current online NABRE, the The footnote (http://www.usccb.org/bible/gn/1:26#01001026-1) to Gn. 1:26 states that “sometimes in the Bible, God was imagined as presiding over an assembly of heavenly beings who deliberated and decided about matters on earth,” thus negating this as literal, and God as referring to Himself in the plural (“Us” or “Our”) which He does 6 times in the OT. Likewise, the footnote to Ex. 10:19 (http://www.usccb.org/bible/ex/10:19#02010019-1) regarding the Red Sea informs readers regarding what the Israelites crossed over that it is literally the Reed Sea, which was “probably a body of shallow water somewhat to the north of the present deep Red Sea.” Thus rendered, the miracle would have been Pharaoh’s army drowning in shallow waters!
Its (NABRE) footnote (http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/6#01006001-1) in regards to Gn. 6 and the sons of heaven having relations with the daughters of men explains it as “apparently alluding to an old legend.” and explains away the flood as a story that “ultimately draws upon an ancient Mesopotamian tradition of a great flood.” Its teaching also imagines the story as being a composite account with discrepancies. The 1970 footnote on Gen. 6:1-4 states, “This is apparently a fragment of an old legend that had borrowed much from ancient mythology.” It goes on to explain the “sons of heaven” are “the celestial beings of mythology.”
In addition, even the ages of the patriarchs after the flood are deemed to be “artificial and devoid of historical value.” (Genesis 11:10-26)
All of which impugns the overall literal nature the O.T. historical accounts, and as Scripture interprets Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit refers to such stories as being literal historical events (Adam and Eve: Mt. 19:4; Abraham, Issac, Exodus and Moses: Acts 7; Rm. 4; Heb. 11; Jonah and the fish: Mt. 12:39-41; Balaam and the donkey: 2Pt. 2:15; Jude. 1:1; Rev. 2:14). Indeed “the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety” (2Cor. 11:3; Rev. 12:9), and if Jonah did not spend 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the whale then neither did the Lord, while Israel's history is always and inclusively treated as literal.
More .
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.