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To: allendale; NYer; Resettozero; Boogieman; Alex Murphy; tiki; HereInTheHeartland; plain talk; ...
This nonsense should not be confused as Catholic doctrine.

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 .

180 posted on 11/24/2014 8:23:16 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212
The trouble with writing off so much of Scripture as mere allegories, myths, legends or folk tales is that, with that kind of hermeneutic, NOTHING can be taken literally and EVERYTHING can be written off if one finds the literal not to their liking. What I have found in my forty-five plus years of Bible study is that God means what He says and says what He means. IF something is a parable, He insures it is explained to those with ears to hear. When He uses allegory, it clearly spells that out, too, and Scripture interprets Scripture.
194 posted on 11/25/2014 12:03:47 AM PST by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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