Posted on 04/13/2013 2:54:16 PM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic faith is not centered simply on a book -- the Bible -- but on Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, Pope Francis said.
"The sacred Scriptures are a written testimony to the divine Word," which came before the Bible and exceeds it, the pope said April 12 during a meeting with members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, an international body of scholars that advises the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Commission members met at the Vatican April 9-12 to conclude work on a document about inspiration and truth in the Bible, which is likely to be published in the coming months.
Archbishop Gerhard Muller, prefect of the doctrinal congregation and president of the commission, told the pope the aim was to help people interpret the Scriptures "in accordance with the nature" of the Bible itself. The focus on "inspiration," he said, was an attempt to explain the divine origin of the Bible and the focus on "truth" was an attempt to describe what the Bible says "about God and his plan for salvation."
The archbishop said the commission recognized that when the church describes the Scriptures as being divinely inspired and true certain "challenges come from the Bible itself," including when passages seem to contradict scientific or historical evidence.
Another challenge, he said, is posed by "the violence in some passages" that seems to contradict basic Christian teaching and even phrases the Bible attributes directly to Jesus.
The point of the document, he said, is to help Catholics "overcome both fundamentalism and skepticism."
Pope Francis said the themes of biblical inspiration and truth are important not only for individual believers, "but for the whole church because its life and mission are based on the Word of God, who animates theology and inspires all of Christian existence."
Interpreting the Bible in an honest and authentic way means respecting its nature and recognizing its purpose, the pope said.
"The texts inspired by God were entrusted to the community of believers, the church of Christ, to increase the faith and guide the life of charity," he said. It is only with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and with full respect for the tradition and teaching of the church that the Scriptures' true meaning can be understood.
It’s only the carnal mind that thinks that a denomination is what Jesus meant about His Bride. Manmade distinctions and labels are what causes division.
The true body of Christ exists throughout time and space, not confined by manmade labels. There are saved and unsaved that attend what man has labeled churches around the world.
It’s not Catholics who are saved. It’s not the Lutherans, Baptists, Assemblies of God, whatever, who are the saved. It’s the saved who are found attending worship services in all those various denominations.
Too many people need to have there thinking transformed as we are admonished in Romans 12:2.
Psalm 119: I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
I'd hazard a guess that most of those of us to whom you are referring do not do canned prayers or Bible reading schedules but rather read as we are lead by the Spirit.
Memorizing Scripture plays a big role in that as well.
Prayer is conversing with God as our Abba, Daddy, and friend, not citing canned prayers in useless or vain, repetition.
That's what being in relationship is about, spending time with someone and getting to know them, not just knowing about them.
That’s Psalm 119:11
Canned prayers are not the Word, which is living and active and sharper that any double edged sword , piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
It’s small wonder that people would prefer the safety of religion and not being exposed to what the word which would reveal to the about what is in themselves.
If I were in relationship with another person, I would develop a far deeper relationship with them by talking WITH them, than AT them; by conversing with them than doing the equivalent of reciting poetry at or to them.
Monologues do not build relationships.
Which solution by some RC scholars by relegating the stories of the conquest of Canaan to being folk tales.
This is another of the daily incessant posts on the pope and inordinately promoting a church. Perhaps next it will be what he had for breakfast. But since you want to exalt a church, do not complain when it, and in its current form, is again negatively exposed.
In this case, while you may want to promote Roman Bible scholarship, the fact is that (besides the usual doctrinal aberrations) it has taught millions errors via the notes in official* RC Bible for America, the New American Bible (NAB) including its latest revision, which impugns the integrity of the Word of God by its adherence to the discredited JEDP theory, and by relegating numerous historical accounts in the Bible to being fables or folk tales, among other denials, along with other problems and gender inclusive language. Certain Catholics themselves have complained about its liberalism, such as seen in this comprehensive criticism by a Catholic apologist here.
The NAB footnotes assert alleged contradictions in Scripture, and Catholics are divided on whether the Vatican Two statement in Dei Verbum (which was seen as a response to a behind-the-scenes debate at Vatican II about inerrancy), that the Bible “teaches without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation," supports the position that the Bible is only immune from error within a certain limited area, versus what Pope Leo XIII, in Providentissimus Deus and Pope Benedict XV Spiritus Paraclitus state. However, the real authority for Catholics is their self-proclaimed infallible magisterium, although there is disagreement as to how many infallible statements there are, and the full meaning of these as well as multiple other non-infallible teachings canm be subject to some interpretation.
The USCCB (American bishops) owns the copyright for the NAB and the revised version (RNAB). However, their Bible text had to be amended for the lectionary because the Vatican rejected it for Mass, while no one in authority seems inclined to incorporate all these same emendations back into the NAB.
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. (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.) The U.S. bishops state that “any translation of the Sacred Scriptures that has received proper ecclesiastical approval ‒ namely, by the Apostolic See or a local ordinary prior to 1983, or by the Apostolic See or an episcopal conference following 1983 ‒ may be used by the Catholic faithful for private prayer and study.” After 1983 only the Apostolic See and the episcopal conferences have authority to approve Bible translations. (http://www.usccb.org/bible/approved-translations/index.cfm)
The approved 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.”
The current NAB footnote (http://www.usccb.org/bible/gn/1:26) 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 current footnote regarding the Red Sea (Ex. 10:19) 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!
It likewise explains as regards to the sons of heaven [God] having relations with the daughters of men, 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) The current footnotes also treats this as a non-literal story.
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.
Regarding the Gospels, the teaching of my 1970 NAB speculates that some of the miracle stories of Jesus in the New Testament (the fulfillment of of the Hebrew Bible) may be “adaptations” of similar ones in the Old Testament, and that the Lord may not have actually been involved in the debates the gospel writers record He was in, and thinks that most of which Jesus is recorded as saying was probably “theological elaboration” by the writers.
Going beyond the Holy Spirit condensing or expanding the words of Christ, as seen by duplicate accounts, it states under "Reading the Gospels,
“The Church was so firmly convinced that the risen Lord who is Jesus of history lived in her, and taught through her, that she expressed her teaching in the form of Jesus’ sayings. The words are not Jesus but from the Church.” “Can we discover at least some words of Jesus that have escaped such elaboration? Bible scholars point to the very short sayings of Jesus, as for example those put together by Matthew in chapter 5, 1-12”
It does allow that the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod, was “extremely probable,” and that people leaving Bethlehem to escape the massacre, is equally probable, but outside the historical background to this tradition, “the rest is interpretation.” This means is taught as justified due to the authors intent.
It additionally conveys such things as that Matthew placed Jesus in Egypt to convince his readers that Jesus was the real Israel, and may have only represented Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, to show that Jesus wa the s like Moses who received the law on Mount Sinai. (St. Joseph edition, 1970; How to read your Bible, "The Gospels," 13e, f, g. and i)
The “Conditioned thought patterns” (7) hermeneutic also paves the way for the specious argumentation of feminists who seek to negate the headship of the man as being due to condescension to culture, a very dangerous hermeneutic, and unwarranted when dealing with such texts as 1Cor. 11:3.
In addition, the current edition will not use render “porneia” as “sexual immorality” or anything sexual in places such as 1Cor. 5:1; 6:13; 7:2; 10:8; 2Cor. 12:21; Eph. 5:3; Gal. 5:19; Col. 3:5; 1Thes. 4:3; but simply has “immorality,” even though in most cases it is in a sexual context.
It is a slippery slope when historical statements are made out to be literary devices, and Muslims have taken advantage of the NAB's liberal hermeneutic to impugn the veracity of the Bible, http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Shabir-Ally/nab.htm.
The NAB has gone through revision, but a Roman Catholic apologist lists some of the above errors from the 1992 version, and is likewise critical of the liberal scholarship behind it (though he elsewhere denigrated Israel as illegally occupying Palestine), while the online NAB also reflects liberal “scholarship.” A Roman Catholic cardinal is also critical of the NAB on additional grounds.
One of the changes i have noted between the 1970 NAB and the online version of today, is that the former has “justice” (which perhaps the social gospel Catholics preferred) over “righteousness' in such places as Rom 4:5,6, and that David “celebrates” the man..., while the online NAB has “But when one does not work, yet believes in the one who justifies the unGodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. So also David declares the blessedness of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works”.
On the other hand there are Catholics who only sanction the Douay-Rheims Bible, yet one Roman Catholic apologist criticizes it as well. (http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4300&CFID=45541857&CFTOKEN=30609021)
*There is only one English text currently approved by the Church for use in the United States. This text is the one contained in the Lectionaries approved for Sundays & Feasts and for Weekdays by the USCCB and recognized by the Holy See. These Lectionaries have their American and Roman approval documents in the front. The text is that of the New American Bible with revised Psalms and New Testament (1988, 1991), with some changes mandated by the Holy See where the NAB text used so-called vertical inclusive language (e.g. avoiding male pronouns for God). Since these Lectionaries have been fully promulgated, the permission to use the Jerusalem Bible and the RSV-Catholic at Mass has been withdrawn.” http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/bible_versions.htm TOC
You got the first part of that right .. prayer is conversing with God. Insofar as the balance of your statement, I will refer you to my earlier response 230.
So (if we allow the Roman claim) being the stewards of Divine revelation makes the same the only sure and infallible interpreters of it, to whom all must submit?
Of course, since you are Protestant you could take out the hard parts that hold you accountable...again
So the apocrypha are the "hard parts" (though it is hard to make Judith a historically accurate book) which Luther uniquely removed from an infallible canon that was not open to dispute ?
Thank you for your witness. I invite you to share even more of the details of your prayer life with us.
It is said that prayer is more about effecting the change in us because we cannot hope to change God. How do you put yourself into the proper frame of mind to more thoroughly communicate with God and prepare yourself to recognize His responses? I find the Rosary a very useful tool because it brings so many types or prayer together at once. We pray the "rote" prayers that are largely recitation of Scripture, we contemplate on the Sacred mysteries and we contemplate on those thoughts and distractions that keep forcing their way into our conscience. Do you have any similar practices?
Do your prayers include any rote prayers such as the Lord's prayer or prayers of blessings before meals and bed or before a surgery? Do you make any rote prayers in Church services, funerals, baptisms, weddings, or on behalf of the sick? Do you consider frequent reading and reflecting of the same passages and verses of Scripture to be rote prayer?
Does you prayer life involve any meditative or contemplative prayer such as putting yourself and your mind at the foot of the cross or in the Garden of Gethsemane?
No one person or denomination has a corner or perfect formula for prayer and no single formula works ubiquitously, but sharing with other Christians your personal experiences has an efficacious effect on the prayer life of others.
Peace be with you.
It has been shown that historically Rome did not overall encourage Bible literacy among the laity, and can be said to have even discouraged it. And until recently little of the Bible was read in Mass, and today this is still not much.
“At mid-century study of Bible texts was not an integral part of the primary or secondary school curriculum. At best, the Bible was conveyed through summaries of the texts.” (The Catholic Study Bible, Oxford University Press, 1990, p. RG16)
Even by 1951 just a little of the gospels and the epistles were read on Sundays, with just 0.39% of the Old Testament (aside from the Psalms) being read at Vigils and major feast days in 1951. (http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Statistics.htm)
While that amount has increased since Vatican Two, only going to Mass will not give one a functional knowledge of Scripture. The average Catholic does not even get to Mass weekly, less alone daily as would be needed to get just 12.7% of the Bible over the two year reading cycle (based on stats from last source).
Actually, even having a supreme authority will not prevent the need for interpretations and people having different interpretations, and lack of complete unity. But unity in core teachings at least can be realized, as well as limitations in disagreements.
RCs must rely on fallible human reasoning in deciding to submit to Rome and then must discern which magisterial level as teaching falls under, and thus what degree of assent is required and if any dissent is allowed, as well as what they all mean.
RCs must give complete assent to certain core teachings, yet while Catholic teaching limits disagreements, the things RCs can disagree on is substantial .
And then there is the issue of what Rome effectually teaches, which interprets what she officially states, and results in an even greater variety of Catholics.
Moreover, the RC has great liberty to interpret the Bible to support Rome, as only a few interpretations will be excluded with certainty by what any of the four factors (passages of Scripture, by the judgment of the magisterium, by the Church Fathers, or by the analogy of faith) are understood as teaching.
Rather than any kind of comprehensive doctrinal unity, under the Roman model for unity, in which the church is supreme (sola ecclesia) you have sects within Rome as well as divisions without, both disagreeing on what Catholic Tradition, Scripture and history teaches, each infallibly interpreting it to support their side. . And which model is also shared with cults such as the LDS.
On the other side, while there are certainly and sadly divisions and disagreement, yet rather than doctrinal anarchy, those who take the Scriptures to be the supreme authority as the literal Word of God consistent with the evangelical "tradition," have overall historically evidenced a shared assent to salvific core truths, and which was manifested in a common front against cults which deny them, as well as liberal revisionism of Scripture (thus the rise of the modern evangelical movement 100 years ago), and which Rome herself is guilty.
And while both faiths are seeing declension is the latter days,. yet evangelicals testify to greater unity in moral views and certain truths than Catholics overall, the majority of which are liberal, yet whom Rome typically treats as members in like and in death.
Protestantism's objections to the actions of the Church are disqualified by the Clean Hands doctrines. Much of the communication of Scripture in the preliterate cultures was done through sacred and religious art which was ruthlessly destroyed by the Protestant iconoclasts because it was not presented in a media acceptable to them or in a form that they could manage the interpretations. Reducing the liturgy to the equivalent of a lecture diminished Bible awareness, rather than increase it.
However, it must be noted that the Bible, the Sacred Scripture, forms only one portion of the Deposit of Faith and that Catholic education feels it necessary to address the entire deposit of Faith, which includes the Sacred Tradition, which Protestants completely dismiss.
Peace be with you
Psalm 25:14 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.
What I meditate on is Scripture I memorized. And because it's memorized, I don't need to carry a Bible with me because I carry it in my head.
The bible helped me understand MY nature!
A sinful man - in need of GOD's grace.
yer BACK!!!
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
I see, kind of like saying a decade of the Rosary and lectio divina. It appears you can take the girl out of the Catholic Church, but you can't completely take the Catholic Church out of the girl.
Peace be with you.
Well, duh! yes.
If one doesn't read the Bible, that person IS ignorant of it. It's a given.
Anyone who depends on someone else to tell them what the Bible has to say instead of reading it themselves to find out for themselves is a fool and is jeopardizing themselves spiritually. It's a certain recipe for disaster and deception, and being led astray.
Accepting for the sake of argument that there were indeed evil popes, how does that impugn the Church? If we are to accept your syllogism then wouldn't the actions of Judas invalidate the mission of Jesus?
Peace be with you
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