How to Read the Bible as a Catholic [How? Don't take indv. verses as "literally true", says Pope]

National Catholic Register ^ | 05/05/2011 | Cindy Wooden

[Alex Murphy]

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While Catholics believe the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and that it is true, one cannot take individual biblical quotes or passages and say each one is literally true, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“It is possible to perceive the sacred Scriptures as the word of God” only by looking at the Bible as a whole, “a totality in which the individual elements enlighten each other and open the way to understanding,” the Pope wrote in a message to the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

“It is not possible to apply the criterion of inspiration or of absolute truth in a mechanical way, extrapolating a single phrase or expression,” the Pope wrote in the message released May 5 at the Vatican.

The commission of biblical scholars, an advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, met at the Vatican May 2-6 to continue discussions about “Inspiration and Truth in the Bible.”

In his message, the Pope said clearer explanations about the Catholic position on the divine inspiration and truth of the Bible were important because some people seem to treat the Scriptures simply as literature, while others believe that each line was dictated by the Holy Spirit and is literally true.

Neither position is Catholic, the Pope said.

[annie laurie]

I wanted to know the answer to this, too, so I went to the host site to check (http://www.remnantofgod.org/pix/pixmenu.htm). The caption says, “Novice priests lay in worship before the pope” ... with no source information.

Seems to be an SDA-affiliated conspiracy website, including material from “he who must not be named on the FR RF”.

[Rashputin]

Someone who posts carefully cropped photos is posting lies. Once someone has obviously and deliberately posted a lie they do not profusely apologize for, they are a liar.

That means anything and everything they have posted to that point is at best a horribly tortured version of the truth and more likely a outright deliberate deception liberally sprinkled with lies. IOW, someone not worthy of wasting you time with and to be just skipped over and ignored.

Now that you've found a link a rabidly and irrationally anti-Catholic site that repeats all the lies that have been spread based on the huge collection of lies and total fabrications of Alexander Hislop, it's obvious that the poster has no desire to serve Christ, defend the Faith, or anything else other than defame the Church Christ founded. Sites like that one are no different the the anti-Catholic comics that circulate and repeat 150 year old lies and fabrications, they exist to destroy His work, not to defend the truth.

Regards

[Zionist Conspirator]

Really, wow, because that’s funny, I read where he explicitly denied that it was merely literature. But i guess when your sole purpose is to bash Catholicism, everything the pope says looks like a nail, huh?

And I read in the article at the top of this thread where he warned Catholics not to interpret the Bible "literally" (ie, don't believe Genesis 1-11 actually ever happened).

Why doesn't your "conservative" Pope (who doesn't even believe in "original sin," btw) ever come out and say that Genesis 1-11 is literal history if he wants to teach that? He doesn't say it because he doesn't believe it! The Vatican and the bishops can't make it any clearer--Catholics are all but forbidden to believe all the Biblical events actually happened! "Biblical literalism" is "dangerous." Those are your Pope's words, not mine!

Why wouldn't I bash a religion that is committed to the destruction of something I hold dear . . . especially a hypocritical religion that lets Indians keep their totem poles but won't let a poor redneck boy keep Genesis because it's "dangerous?" Totem poles aren't "dangerous" but Genesis 1-11 is!

There are two words for a person who insists the creation narrative simply can't be true because "we now know the world doesn't work like that" but who simultaneously claims Mary shot the sun all over the place in Portugal in 1917: one of them is Catholic; the other is hypocrite.

"Home?" "Mother?" Something so utterly alien? The fact that Catholics continue to make that claim is infuriating.

[Salvation]

It would seem that you have never attended an ordination. These men are lying prostrate to give their lives to God. It is a part of the ordination ceremony. They are just about ready to receive the laying on of tje Bishop's hand in order to receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Here is some information on the Sacrament of Holy Orders for you.

So is that OK with you if they prostrate their bodies to Christ?

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[Ransomed]

Seems to be an SDA-affiliated conspiracy website, including material from “he who must not be named on the FR RF”.

Does the site contain images of the giant super computer underneath the Vatican with all the Protestant names and locations, too?

Freegards

[Zionist Conspirator]

Again I never wrote anything to indicate I believed that.

You're defending the Pope for saying that very thing.

Please define what you mean by myth.

Something that didn't actually happen. How's that?

[Salvation]

sorry -- but you are interpreting Scripture on your own again, aren't you?

[Carpe Cerevisi]

Your response is as cryptic as your tagline. Oh well...

[Zionist Conspirator]

Yes, they at least allowed reason to penetrate dogma and they no longer insist that the Sun circles the Earth or other overt irrationalities.

Ah, so the Catholic religion is no longer "unchanging!" Thanks for clearing that up! I hope everyone on FR remembers your admission when some Catholic apologist is waxing poetic about the "one true original church!"

BTW, why is it un-Catholic to believe the sun circles the earth but ueber-Catholic to believe the sun once danced in the skies of Portugal in 1917?

Some would prefer that dogma be absolute

Good to know that Catholics have nothing in common with such people.

and immune from any physical evidence - and think being “absolutely unchanging” while being in error is preferable to modifying a worldview in light of evidence and reason.

Hmm. Maybe one day science will discover that dead people can't come back to life and then the ever-changing, intellectual, rationalist, so-superior-to-those-stupid-rednecks Catholic Church will have to reinterpret something else as a "beautiful parable."

These people haven’t contributed much of anything to human knowledge.

Spoken like a true Comtean positivist.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I believe that God willed the universe into existence. That there is no separation from God’s will and what He wills coming into existence. Heck I even believe angels move the planets. Do I think days must mean 24 hour days? No but neither do I believe that it can not mean 24 hour days.

Yet the Pope just said believing that it can mean 24 hour days is "dangerous.

Every act of creation was at the hands of God. I don’t worry about the details too much except that knowing any theory that says it just happened randomly is bokum.

You Catholics literally don't understand what is at stake here. Really. You think that saying "hey, I believe G-d created everything, who cares how he did it" makes everything just tickedy boo. What for some strange reason you seem incapable of grasping is that what is at stake is whether or not G-d is truthful. If G-d's account of how creation took place is full of factual errors, then G-d ceases to be G-d. G-d does not lie.

Now go ahead and ignore that and give the same old speech again.

[Rashputin]

It's funny how so much that ties directly back to He Who Must Not Be Named still manages to end up here. It actually surprises me that there are people so intent on getting that garbage posted somewhere and that so much of it isn't categorized the same as the comic writer. I guess it can't be avoided, though, since you have to make restrictions as narrowly focused as possible due to the fact that can add a link to anything else in a heartbeat.

So, while surprised, I understand that there's no way it can all be weeded out. People who link to that sort of thing, though, can and should be ignored so they're just talking to themselves. Once it's apparent that they're regular readers of comics everyone knows they're only here to get their propaganda out and that answering them just provides them a reason to post more garbage.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Are you arguing that there is a Catholic dogma on everything for which opinions might exist? What, pray tell, is the Catholic dogma on which is better, asparagus or broccoli?

It'll be the opposite of whatever the "rednecks" believe.

Yes, and he is likewise able to dictate exact numbers if we are to accept them as literal and absolute truth. It seems highly unlikely that events throughout biblical history constantly happened in neatly rounded figures. Therefore, the question is not what God could do, but rather what he did do. So, we have to ask, did exactly 100,000 footmen die that day? Can we say, as a matter of faith, that we know without a doubt that it couldn't have been 99,999? Or 100,001? Either it is so, or it isn't.

Evidently a G-d who is 100% accurate is a threat to Catholicism.

[Zionist Conspirator]

And Virgin means Virgin.

And lamps means lamps.

So, if there every really is a Rapture there's going to a huge number of disappointed Protestants since only Virgins with lamps will meet the groom.

SP, don't you just love the way Catholics "prove" that Genesis 1-11 is a big parable by quoting a parable that is clearly labeled a "parable" in the text?

It reminds me of the Catholic who claimed you can't interpret the Bible literally because if it did G-d would have a beard made of sheep (Song of Solomon). The thing is, interpreted literally, the text of SoS isn't referring to G-d but to a "beloved." It is allegory that declares--correctly, to be sure--that the "beloved" represents G-d.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Your response is as cryptic as your tagline. Oh well...

The Pope is implying that the "higher criticism" of liberal scholars is necessary to discover the "true meaning" of the Bible and that the text doesn't and cannot mean what it actually says (because "stuff like that just doesn't happen").

My tag line is Isaiah 60:12--"For the nation and the kingdom that does not serve you shall perish and the nations shall surely burn." This refers to Mashiach HaMelekh who will conquer the world and compel all nations and all individuals to cast off their false "gxds" and serve the One True G-d: HaShem.

My Douay-Rheims bible actually gives this verse as "proof" that all nations must submit to the Catholic Church in spite of the fact that it is addressed to Israel and not to any non-existent chr*stian church. But then, that's what Catholics and all chr*stians (except the despised Fundamentalists) have done for centuries with the Prophets" "it all refers to the Church!" Yeah . . . right!

However, the Douay-Rheims doesn't have higher critical notations so I suppose it doesn't count as a Catholic bible any more.

[Ransomed]

Well, who knows why or how that pic was found.

If it was up to me, all that stuff would be allowed!! Let it rip, it would only make a small but vocal minority around these parts look extremely stupid, which would be hilarious. Let the tracts flow...

Freegards, Vatican albino monk assassin #245 out

[dangus]

>> And I read in the article at the top of this thread where he warned Catholics not to interpret the Bible “literally” (ie, don’t believe Genesis 1-11 actually ever happened). <<

Again, when the truth doesn’t fit what you want to believe, you fill in the gaps. The pope didn’t say not to take the bible literally, let alone dismiss Genesis 1-11. I find your insistence on this from thread to thread to thread quite amusing, in fact, because both Benedict and John Paul write quite extensively on the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Adam. What he said was that you should not take individual passages literally without reading the bible as a whole.

This doesn’t mean that Genesis 1-11 is untrue. Quite the contrary, he explicitly states that the entire bible is true. He’s not guarding against someone believing that the Earth was created in seven days; how would reading the entire bible prevent you from holding that belief? He’s guarding against stoning adultresses, smiting the Assyrians, etc.

[Natural Law]

"hat Rubbish.....Here is some advice for the Pope. Read the Bible, and encourage Catholics to read it!"

It has been said that even Mein Kampf can be completely supported with select snippets and verses from the Bible. The Revealed Word of God is a rich mosaic that forms one comprehensive Truth. Every verse must be interpreted in the context of the whole.

[lastchance]

That would only be the case if I believe God dictated the Bible word for word to Moses. I do not.

[Mr Rogers]

“Or will we all suddenly become Baptists? Or is it Seventh Day Adventists? “

Baptists. Become Baptists. Don’t forget to bring your specialty to the pot luck...

[lastchance]

I need to correct myself. I should have written that is only true if I believe God dictated the creation story to Moses word by word. I do not believe that.