[1] Leo XII, Ubi Primum (May 5, 1824), 17, in Claudia Carlen, IHM, ed., The Papal Encyclicals, Vol. I (Ann Arbor, MI: The Pierian Press, 1990) pp. 199-203.
[2] Pius VIII, Traditi Humilitati (May 24, 1829), 5, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 221-224.
[3] Gregory XVI, Inter Praecipuas (May 8, 1844), 2, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 267-271. In this encyclical, Gregory also references letters of Pope Pius VII to the archbishops of Gniezno (June 1, 1816) and Mohilev (September 4, 1816)
[4] Bl. Pius IX, Qui Pluribus (November 9, 1846), 14, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 277-284.
[5] Bl. Pius IX, Nostis et Nobiscum (December 8, 1849), 14, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 295-303.
[6] Leo XIII, Officiorum ac Munerum (January 25, 1897), III, 7-8, in The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, 1903) pp. 407-421.
[7] All quotations in this article, unless otherwise indicated, will be from the Saint Joseph Edition of the New American Bible (New York, NY: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1992), hereafter, The St. Joseph NAB.
[8] Cf. DeRev; PD, 20-21; LS, 11; SP, 13, 19, 21; Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, 3; HG, 22. St. Irenaeus beautifully sums up the faith of the Church when he states, simply, "the Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit" (Against Heresies, Book II, Ch. 28, Par. 2, in ANF, Vol. I, p. 399).
[9] St. Francis de Sales, The Catholic Controversy, trans. Henry Benedict Mackey, O.S.B. (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989) p. 88.
[10] Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. John H. Suggit [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006] p. 108.
[11] As Leo XIII warned, "[T]he young, if they lose their reverence for the Holy Scripture on one or more points, are easily led to give up believing in it altogether" (PD, 18).
[12] The NAB boasts one imprimatur for the original translation of the whole Bible (1970), one for the revised New Testament (1986), and one for the revised Psalms (1991).
[13] It must be noted that Paul VI's blessing applies only to the original version of the NAB, not to the revised New Testament and Psalms, which were completed after his death. Furthermore, it is unclear to what extent Pope Paul VI personally examined the text and commentary of the NAB before granting it his blessing. English was not his strongest language. Paul VI himself taught the orthodox, Catholic doctrine of Scripture. Cf. Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., The Teaching of Pope Paul VI on Sacred Scripture (Rome: Pontificium Athenaeum Sanctae Crucis, 1997).
[14] "The New American Bible," http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM, 11/11/2002.
[15] Cf. St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1994) p. 208.
[16] SJNAB, p. [42]. The SJNAB, for some reason, paginates the front matter with numbers in brackets, rather than with the standard Roman numerals. This author is tempted to speculate that the cause is to be traced to the anti-Roman attitude.
[17] The SJNAB has given prominent Muslim apologist Shabir Ally this false impression ("Confessions of the New American Bible," http://www3.sympatico.ca/shabir.ally/new_page_19.htm). Ally, as is his custom, seizes upon this product of liberal "Christian" scholarship in order to attack the Bible.
[18] Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, 37. This analogy is particularly useful because it contains within itself the refutation of all attempts to limit or circumscribe Scripture's inerrancy. Some, for instance, will argue that Scripture is only inerrant when it treats of certain subject matters such as faith or morals; others will argue that Scripture is only inerrant as regards its overall salvific purpose, not as regards particular details; still others will argue that Scripture is only inerrant in what it asserts, i.e., in what it says with deliberate reflection and with explicit intention to teach, as opposed to what it merely states, casually, carelessly, and in passing (obiter dicta). I pose the following questions to proponents of these theories. Is Christ only sinless with respect to certain categories of sin? Is Christ only sinless as regards His overall purpose to redeem the human race, as opposed to being free of all particular sins? Is Christ only sinless when He acts with full knowledge and deliberate consent, such that it is possible to impute to Him involuntary, venial faults? I submit that each proposition described above is equally heretical.
[19] DeRev, Par. 5. The description of biblical inspiration as divine "dictation" is well attested in the patristic, conciliar, and papal sources. Cf. St. Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels, Book I, Ch. 35; St. Gregory the Great, Moralia, or Commentary on the Book of Blessed Job, Preface, 2; The Council of Trent, Session 4, Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures; PD, 5, 20; Benedict XV, In Praeclara Summorum, 5; SP, 8; Pius XII, Menti Nostrae, 42.
[20] PD, 1.
[21] Ibid., 20. Benedict XV says much the same thing in SP, 8-9: "You will not find a page in [St. Jerome's] writings which does not show clearly that he, in common with the whole Catholic Church, firmly and consistently held that the Sacred Books - written as they were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - have God for their Author, and as such were delivered to the Church. Thus he asserts that the Books of the Bible were composed at the inspiration, or suggestion, or even at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; even that they were written and edited by Him. If we ask how we are to explain this power and action of God, the principal cause, on the sacred writers we shall find that St. Jerome in no wise differs from the common teaching of the Catholic Church. For he holds that God, through His grace, illumines the writer's mind regarding the particular truth which, 'in the person of God,' he is to set before men; he holds, moreover, that God moves the writer's will - nay, even impels it - to write; finally, that God abides with him unceasingly, in unique fashion, until his task is accomplished." St. Pius X condemns the contrary proposition in LS, 9: "They display excessive simplicity or ignorance who believe that God is really the author of the Sacred Scriptures."
[22] SJNAB, p. [18].
[23] Cf. PDG, 22.
[24] SJNAB, p. [18].
[25] Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Verbum (On Divine Revelation), Ch. 3, Par. 11.
[26] SJNAB, p. [18].
[27] DeRev, Pars. 6-7; Dei Verbum, Ch. 3, Par. 11.
[28] SJNAB, p. [18].
[29] HG, 22. Cf. SP, 19: "For while conceding that inspiration extends to every phrase - and, indeed, to every single word of Scripture - yet, by endeavoring to distinguish between what they [the modernists] style the primary or religious and the secondary or profane element in the Bible, they claim that the effect of inspiration - namely, absolute truth and immunity from error - are to be restricted to that primary or religious element. Their notion is that only what concerns religion is intended and taught by God in Scripture, and that all the rest - things concerning ‘profane knowledge,’ the garments in which Divine truth is presented - God merely permits, and even leaves to the individual author's greater or less knowledge. Small wonder, then, that in their view a considerable number of things occur in the Bible touching physical science, history and the like, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress in science!"
[30] Cf. Luke Timothy Johnson, "The Bible's Authority for and in the Church" in William P. Brown, ed., Engaging Biblical Authority (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) pp. 62-72.
[31] Since God is simple, His attributes are identical with His essence. Therefore the statements "God is justice" and "God is love" (1 John 4:8) are equally true.
[32] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 100, Art. 8, ad 3 (New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, Inc.: 1947). For a helpful, if incomplete, explanation of God's purposes in ordering the Jews to destroy the pagan nations of Canaan, see Roy Schoeman, Salvation is from the Jews (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003) pp. 46-51. See also Bishop Richard Challoner's comment on 1 Samuel 15:3, cited infra, footnote 114.
[33] SJNAB, p. [19].
[34] Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (New York, NY: Knopf, 1993) pp. 122-123.
[35] SJNAB, p. [19].
[36] Ibid., p. [24]. Cf. LS, condemned proposition 64: "Scientific progress demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption be re-adjusted." Emphasis mine.
[37] Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is a famous example of this genre.
[38] SJNAB, p. [19].
[39] Council of Trent, Sess. V, Canon 1.
[40] St. Pius X, Motu Proprio Praestantia Scripturae (Acta Sanctae Sedis [1907] 724ff; Enchiridion Biblicum 278f; Denzinger 2113f): "We now declare and expressly enjoin that all without exception are bound by an obligation of conscience to submit to the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, whether already issued or to be issued hereafter, exactly as to the decrees of the Sacred Congregations which are on matters of doctrine and approved by the Pope; nor can anyone who by word or writing attacks the said decrees avoid the note both of disobedience and of rashness or be therefore without grave fault" (in CCHS, p. 67).
[41] Decree "Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis" (Acta Sanctae Sedis 1 [1909] 567ff; Enchiridion Biblicum 332ff; Denzinger 2121ff): "II: Notwithstanding the historical character and form of Genesis, the special connection of the first three chapters with one another and with the following chapters, the manifold testimonies of the Scriptures both of the Old and of the New Testaments, the almost unanimous opinion of the holy Fathers and the traditional view which the people of Israel also has handed on and the Church has always held, may it be taught that: the aforesaid three chapters of Genesis Contain not accounts of actual events, accounts, that is, which correspond to objective reality and historical truth, but, either fables derived from the mythologies and cosmogonies of ancient peoples and accommodated by the sacred writer to monotheistic doctrine after the expurgation of any polytheistic error; or allegories and symbols without any foundation in objective reality proposed under the form of history to inculcate religious and philosophical truths; or finally legends in part historical and in part fictitious freely composed with a view to instruction and edification? Answer: In the negative to both parts. III: In particular may the literal historical sense be called in doubt in the case of facts narrated in the same chapters which touch the foundations of the Christian religion: as are, among others, the creation of all things by God in the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man; the unity of the human race; the original felicity of our first parents in the state of justice, integrity, and immortality; the command given by God to man to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine command at the instigation of the devil under the form of a serpent; the degradation of our first parents from that primeval state of innocence; and the promise of a future Redeemer? Answer: In the negative" (in CCHS, pp. 68-69).
[42] "When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own... [T]he first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters... in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents" (HG, 37-38).
[43] SJNAB, p. [20].
[44] St. Augustine, The Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B. (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1998) p. 80.
[45] PD, 18.
[46] St. Pius X, in PDG 36, condemned the following modernist error: "In the Sacred Books there are many passages referring to science or history where manifest errors are to be found. But the subject of these books is not science or history but religion and morals. In them history and science serve only as a species of covering to enable the religious and moral experiences wrapped up in them to penetrate more readily among the masses. The masses understood science and history as they are expressed in these books, and it is clear that had science and history been expressed in a more perfect form this would have proved rather a hindrance than a help." He had this to say about the modernist position: "We, Venerable Brethren, for whom there is but one and only truth, and who hold that the Sacred Books, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, have God for their author (Conc. Vat., De Revel., c. 2) declare that this is equivalent to attributing to God Himself the lie of utility or officious lie, and We say with St. Augustine: In an authority so high, admit but one officious lie, and there will not remain a single passage of those apparently difficult to practice or to believe, which on the same most pernicious rule may not be explained as a lie uttered by the author willfully and to serve a purpose (Epist. 28)" (ibid., 37, italics his; cf. SP, 19).
[47] The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book I, Ch. 21, Par. 41, quoted in PD, 18.
[48] Some have attempted to distinguish between the sacred authors' "assertions" and their mere "statements", such that the former are guaranteed to be immune from all error, whereas the latter are not. Such persons argue that the author of Genesis 1 made a number of erroneous statements about cosmology in passing, which he assumed were true but which he did not explicitly intend to teach. Thus, he stated, but did not assert, that God created the earth in six days, for example.
This is a fatuous distinction. There is no sound, objective criterion by which one might determine which statements the Biblical authors truly "affirmed," and as such this distinction leads to exegetical anarchy. Furthermore, in addition to being unworkable, this distinction is theologically impossible as well. Humans may enunciate careless obiter dicta which, upon reflection, we realize that we do not stand behind; God, however, does not, and He is the author of the entire Scripture. Finally, Holy Mother Church has rejected this distinction, and when she did so, she certainly did intend to teach. According to "the Catholic dogma of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Sacred Scriptures... everything affirmed, stated, or implied by the sacred writers must be held as affirmed, stated or implied by the Holy Spirit" [...dogmate item catholico de inspiratione et inerrantia sacrarum Scripturarum, quo omne id, quod hagiographus asserit, enuntiat, insinuat, retineri debet assertum, enuntiatum, insinuatum a Spiritu Sancto]. Vatican II's Constitution Dei Verbum, in its first footnote to Article 11, cites two documents which make this statement: Biblical Commission, Decree of June 18, 1915: Denzinger 2180 (3629): EB [Enchiridion Biblicum] 420; Holy Office, Epistle of Dec. 22, 1923: EB 499. The translation quoted above is from Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., "The Truth and Salvific Purpose of Sacred Scripture according to Dei Verbum, Article 11," Living Tradition, No. 59 (1995).
St. Gregory of Nazianzus likewise refutes the contention that Scripture contains unaffirmed obiter dicta when he states, "We however, who extend the accuracy of the Spirit to the merest stroke and tittle, will never admit the impious assertion that even the smallest matters were dealt with haphazard by those who have recorded them" ("Oration II," par. 105, in NPNF, Ser. II, Vol. VII, p. 225).
[49] SJNAB, p. [20].
[50] Ibid.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Ibid.
[53] "The Psalmist contrasts the felicity of the conqueror, with the misery of the citizens, without approving of his conduct" (W. F. Berthier, in HOT, p. 794).
[54] SJNAB, p. [20].
[55] SJNAB, p. [21].
[56] SJNAB, pp. [21]-[24].
[57] "To hear [the modernists] talk about their works on the Sacred Books, in which they have been able to discover so much that is defective, one would imagine that before them nobody ever even glanced through the pages of Scripture, whereas the truth is that a whole multitude of Doctors, infinitely superior to them in genius, in erudition, in sanctity, have sifted the Sacred Books in every way, and so far from finding imperfections in them, have thanked God more and more the deeper they have gone into them, for His divine bounty in having vouchsafed to speak thus to men. Unfortunately, these great Doctors did not enjoy the same aids to study that are possessed by the Modernists for their guide and rule, - a philosophy borrowed from the negation of God, and a criterion which consists of themselves" (PDG, 34).
[58] "Jerome maintains that belief in the Biblical narrative is as necessary to salvation as is belief in the doctrines of the faith; thus in his Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon he says: ‘What I mean is this: Does any man believe in God the Creator? He cannot do so unless he first believe that the things written of God's Saints are true.’ He then gives examples from the Old Testament, and adds: ‘Now unless a man believes all these and other things too which are written of the Saints he cannot believe in the God of the Saints’ (S. Jerome, In Philem., 4)" (SP, 24).
[59] "As to Enoch and Elias and Moses, our belief is determined not by Faustus’ suppositions, but by the declarations of Scripture, resting as they do on foundations of the strongest and surest evidence... To give you in a word, without argument, the true reason of our faith, as regards Elias having been caught up to heaven from the earth, though only a man, and as regards Christ being truly born of a virgin, and truly dying on the cross, our belief in both cases is grounded on the declaration of Holy Scripture, which it is piety to believe, and impiety to disbelieve... The reason of our believing Him to have been born of the Virgin Mary, is not that He could not otherwise have appeared among men in a true body, but because it is so written in the Scripture, which we must believe in order to be Christians, or to be saved" (St. Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XXVI, Pars. 3, 6, and 7, in NPNF, Ser. I, Vol. IV, pp. 321, 323).
[60] Greek historians often introduced their works with a brief note on their methodology and intentions, much like Luke 1:1-4. One wonders if Arrian intended to write a catechism of Alexander the Great, or Thucydides a catechism of the Peloponnesian War (cf. The Campaigns of Alexander, 1:1; History of the Peloponnesian War, 1:22).
[61] This is the only possible justification for departing from a literal hermeneutic, according to the rule laid down by St. Augustine and confirmed by Leo XIII in PD, 15.
[62] "What can we say of men who in expounding the very Gospels so whittle away the human trust we should repose in it as to overturn Divine faith in it? They refuse to allow that the things which Christ said or did have come down to us unchanged and entire through witnesses who carefully committed to writing what they themselves had seen or heard. They maintain - and particularly in their treatment of the Fourth Gospel - that much is due of course to the Evangelists - who, however, added much from their own imaginations; but much, too, is due to narratives compiled by the faithful at other periods, the result, of course, being that the twin streams now flowing in the same channel cannot be distinguished from one another" (SP, 27).
[63] St. Pius X, in LS, condemned the following propositions: "13. The Evangelists themselves, as well as the Christians of the second and third generation, artificially arranged the evangelical parables. In such a way they explained the scanty fruit of the preaching of Christ among the Jews. 14. In many narrations the Evangelists recorded, not so much things that are true, as things which, even though false, they judged to be more profitable for their readers. 15. Until the time the canon was defined and constituted, the Gospels were increased by additions and corrections. Therefore there remained in them only a faint and uncertain trace of the doctrine of Christ." In PDG, 34, he directly attacked the notion of the Gospels having been created by transfiguring actual history with theological interpretation: "The result of this dismembering of the Sacred Books and this partition of them throughout the centuries is naturally that the Scriptures can no longer be attributed to the authors whose names they bear. The Modernists have no hesitation in affirming commonly that these books, and especially the Pentateuch and the first three Gospels, have been gradually formed by additions to a primitive brief narration - by interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretation, by transitions, by joining different passages together."
[64] SJNAB, pp. [24]-[25].
[65] Protestants have often alleged that (a) the teachings of the Catholic Church cannot be infallible because they are not consistent over time, and (b) the Church's claim to be under the authority of the Word of God is disingenuous. If Kersten's description of Catholicism were accurate, both of these criticisms would be true, for in his view, (a) the Church's teaching on Scripture has changed, and (b) the Church can correct what is erroneous in Scripture.
[66] John Henry Cardinal Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1878) pp. 203ff.
[67] AAS 26 [1934] 130f, in CCHS, p. 74.
[68] On the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch (ASS 39 [1906-07] 377f; EB 174ff; Dz 1997ff): "I: Are the arguments gathered by critics to impugn the Mosaic authorship of the sacred books designated by the name of the Pentateuch of such weight in spite of the cumulative evidence of many passages of both Testaments, the unbroken unanimity of the Jewish people, and furthermore of the constant tradition of the Church besides the internal indications furnished by the text itself, as to justify the statement that these books are not of Mosaic authorship but were put together from sources mostly of post-Mosaic date? Answer: In the negative" (in CCHS, p. 68).
[69] AAS 26 [1934] 130f, in CCHS, p. 74.
[70] E.g., at Gen 37:28. Contrast the authentic Scriptural piety of St. Augustine: "For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it" (St. Augustine, Letter 82:3). St. Augustine saw apparent inconsistency as evidence of textual corruption. The NAB scholars see apparent harmonization as evidence of textual corruption.
[71] SJNAB, p. 1.
[72] Cf. Umberto Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis (Jerusalem, Israel: Shalem Press, 2006); Duane Garrett, Rethinking Genesis: The Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1991); Gleason Archer, A Survery of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1996).
[73] Cf. Josh 1:7–8; 8:32–34; Judg 3:4; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 21:8; 2 Chron 25:4; Ezra 6:18; Neh 8:1; Dan 9:11–13.
[74] Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, Vol. 2 (New York, NY: The Seabury Press, 1980) p. 129.
[75] Cf. also Matt 19:7–8; Luke 24:27, 44; John 1:17; 7:19; Acts 6:14; 13:39; 15:5; 2 Cor 3:15; Heb 10:28.
[76] Baba Bathra 14b, Soncino edition. "The portion of Balaam" refers to Balaam's oracles in Numbers 23-24.
[77] Confessions, Book XI, Ch. 3.
[78] Cf. Ex 17:14; 24:4–7; 34:27; Num 33:2; Deut 31:9, 22, 24.
[79] KD, Vol. 1, p. 11.
[80] Ibid., pp. 11-12.
[81] Ibid., pp. 10.
[82] John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Genesis, Volume 1 (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2003) pp. 29-30.
[83] Ibid., p. 3.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Ibid.
[86] Cf. supra, footnote 45.
[87] KD, Vol. 1, p. 9.
[88] Cf. Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988).
[89] SJNAB, p. 4.
[90] Currid, op. cit., p. 59.
[91] Rev. Victor P. Warkulwiz, M.S.S., The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11 (New York, NY: iUniverse, 2007) p. 42.
[92] Ibid., p. 43.
[93] C. John Collins, "The Wayyiqtol as 'Pluperfect': When and Why," Tyndale Bulletin 46.1 (1995) 117-140.
[94] Bl. Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus.
[95] Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. I, Ch. 2, Par. 2.
[96] Bl. Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, 7.
[97] "The sons of God. The descendants of Seth and Enos are here called Sons of God from their religion and piety: whereas the ungodly race of Cain, who by their carnal affections lay groveling upon the earth, are called the children of men. The unhappy consequence of the former marrying with the latter, ought to be a warning to Christians to be very circumspect in their marriages; and not to suffer themselves to be determined in their choice by their carnal passion, to the prejudice of virtue or religion." (Bishop Richard Challoner, in HOT, p. 20)
[98] It would of course be perfectly legitimate to assert that the Old Testament means something in addition to what the inspired Apostles taught that it means. However, to assert that it means one thing rather than what the Apostles taught implies that the Apostles found a meaning there which was not there in fact, and hence interpreted incorrectly.
[99] Retractationes, 1:9:3.
[100] Currid, op. cit., p. 262. Currid cites P. Wapnish, 'Camel Caravans and Camel Pastoralists at Tell Jemmeh', Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 13 (1981): 101-21.
[101] Ibid., p. 280.
[102] For example Sulpicius Severus, in Sacred History, takes it for granted that sacred history is just as rooted in fact as the profane variety: "I address myself to give a condensed account of those things which are set forth in the sacred Scriptures from the beginning of the world and to tell of them, with distinction of dates and according to their importance, down to period within our own remembrance. Many who were anxious to become acquainted with divine things by means of a compendious treatise, have eagerly entreated me to undertake this work. I, seeking to carry out their wish, have not spared my labor, and have thus succeeded in comprising in two short books things which elsewhere filled many volumes. At the same time, in studying brevity, I have omitted hardly any of the facts... I will not shrink from confessing that, wherever reason required, I have made use of profane historians to fix dates and preserve the series of events unbroken, and have taken out of these what was wanting to a complete knowledge of the facts, that I might both instruct the ignorant and carry conviction to the learned" (Sacred History, 1:1). Cf. SP, 22: "Those, too, who hold that the historical portions of Scripture do not rest on the absolute truth of the facts but merely upon what they are pleased to term their relative truth, namely, what people then commonly thought, are - no less than are the aforementioned critics - out of harmony with the Church's teaching, which is endorsed by the testimony of Jerome and other Fathers."
[103] Midian was Abraham's son by his wife Keturah, and Ishmael his son by Hagar, so Midianites are not Ishmaelites technically. However, it is possible that Ishmaelite became a generic term for all tribes descended from Abraham besides Israel, and is used in this sense here. Another possibility, which the NAB itself entertains in its footnote to Judges 8:24, is that Ishmaelite can denote nomads, in addition to its more specific ethnic specification.
[104] John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Genesis, Volume 2 (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2003) pp. 291-292.
[105] Cf. supra, "Prolegomena to Genesis."
[106] This was among the reasons cited by the Pontifical Biblical Commission for its decision to reprobate Die Einwanderung Israels in Kanaan. The Commission stated: "doing violence to the sacred texts, [Schmidtke] explains many miracles of the Old Testament as purely natural events" (AAS 26 [1934] 130f, in CCHS, p. 74).
[107] PDG, 34.
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