This Catholic Journey
I don't mean to cause a fuss or a wrinkle, but consider whether Scripture has been necessarily guarded from error in its copying and transcribing.
Case in point, 2 Samuel 21:19 and 1 Chronicles 20:5 talk about a battle fought against the Philistines during the reign of David. The passage from 2 Samuel 21 says "Elhanan ... slew Goliath the Gittite". The passage from 1 Chronicles 20 says "Elhanan ... slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite". (Those quotes are from the RSV; the NAB and the DR are essentially the same.) The KJV fixes this by including a gloss in 2 Samuel 21, inserting "the brother of" (where it does not exist in the Hebrew nor the Greek of the Septuagint.
Another such disparity can be found in 2 Kings 8:26 vs. 2 Chronicles 22:2. In the first, Ahaziah is said to be 22 when he begins his reign; in the second, he is said to be forty-two, thirty-two, or twenty-two, depending on the manuscript used. The NAB renders it as "twenty-two".
What must be understood is that the copyists and scribes who passed the Scripture on through the ages made errors, but the original manuscripts (autographs as they're called) were entirely preserved from such error when they were written, by the hands men, under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
This doesn't excuse your DRE's position on the matter, but I hope it clears some confusion.
Japhy,
I'm aware of this but this is not the issue at hand. This is why I included the quote:
St. Augustine to St. Jerome said, On my own part I confess...that it is only to those books of Scripture which are now called canonical that I have learned to pay such honor and reverence as to believe most firmly that none of their writers has fallen into any error. And if in these books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand.
I'm not referring to possible errors or discrepancies in translations but rather the claim that Scripture, in and of itself, is only inerrant on matters of faith and morals: a position which contradicts the teaching of the Church.
These discrepancies in copying and transcribing do not mean that Scripture itself contains error or that the writers of Scripture erred.
I think this is an important difference... and these translation/copy errors are not what the DRE was referring to. If she were, I'd be inclined to agree with her. Instead, she was claiming that the writers themselves wrote error, yet agreed that the Scriptures were inspired. It doesn't even make sense to believe this because God cannot make mistakes and would not permit the authors to err.
Thank you for sharing your comments...
Amber,
Your scholarship is commendable. I find it difficult to see how anyone would fail to be persuaded by your evidence. I read your post carefully, not to be persuaded, but to find a response to seeming inconsistancies such as those pointed out above. I was touched by the same quote that you used in your reply:
"And if in these books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand.
It makes such perfect sense to me. It accounts both for the possibility of errors in translation and the more likely senario that I just don't understand. God's word says what it needs to say when it needs to say it and to whom it needs to be said. I won't presume that I know the full depth of His words and their intentions.
Ah, thanks Amber. I've read that quote by Augustine enough times that it didn't register with me this time!
God bless, and keep fighting the good fight.
JLF,
Thank you... I only seek to bring light to the truth because stating the Bible contains error reduces God to being the author of error. This cannot be tolerated.
Great work Amber. Its our duty even as laypeople to confront error. Unfortunately this evil is widespread in the Church and is going to take a long time to purge. Im beginning to think we may just have to wait for the generation of hippies to die off. What the @*!# was in the water in the 60s?!
You are right. Here is also a quote I found in the Catholic Encyclopedia. It is from an Encyclical by Leo XIII calle Providentissimus Deus:
It will never be lawful to restrict inspiration merely to certain parts of the Holy Scripture, or to grant that the sacred writer could have made a mistake. Nor may the opinion of those be tolerated, who, in order to get out of these difficulties, do not hesitate to suppose that Divine inspiration extends only to what touches faith and morals, on the false plea that the true meaning is sought for less in what God has said than in the motive for which He has said it. (Denz., 1950)
But that does not mean we know what the bible means. For example, we do not have to believe that there is water behind the sky (Gen 1:7). Being inerrant is not the same as being a historical fact book.
Sacred scripture requires interpretation. Here is what the CCC says:
(109) In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.
(110) In order to discover the sacred author's intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at the time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression"
Exactly... saying the Bible "contains errors" because it doesn't meet the standard of a history or science book is like denouncing the square block because it doesn't fit in the circular hole.
The Bible is something which points beyond itself towards God and His truth. In this regard, it is Sacred, Holy, and inerrant. It was never intended to be scientific journal, which serves a completely different purpose.
Is it worth pursuing up the chain of command? Particularly since you want your children to be raised in the admonition of the Lord, correctly.
What does your Pastor say?
Interesting. I must say I have always thought the Bible inspired, and inerrant, but not factual. For me, to limit God to facts is a bad idea, and in many respects is putting him to the test. God is too vast, truth is too monumental and complex to be understood in simple terms.
I personally relish the inconsistencies of facts in the bible, because I know that even though it says two conflicting thing, I also know they are both true, by some great and unknowable mystery.
It's like the parables Jesus tells, we know they aren't factual, they aren't historical or "truthful" in the non-fiction way, however they are the truth itself and they have infinitely more worth than any fact I've ever learned.
Since the enlightenment the philosophic worldview is far to concerned with facts, with what is measurable and identifiable and provable and sure. This is, perhaps, one of the greatest tragedies of mankind.
Great scholarship Amber and I completely agree with you.
The bible is inerrant and that includes the science part of it. Why do I say this? Because think about it. Moses, the author of the first five books of the bible, received information from God through, for lack of a better word, visions. In his description of the creation in Genesis, he is "seeing" what God is showing him. That doesn't mean that he entirely understands what he is seeing, and so he is describing it as best as he can. For example, as one of your readers found a great example, which ought to strengthen, not weaken, faith:
For example, we do not have to believe that there is water behind the sky (Gen 1:7).
Actually, the newspapers are full of publicity about astronomers detecting water "in space." So when Moses observed the separation, he saw water here on earth, but he also correctly sees water in space, although he does not scientifically understand that is what he is seeing.
The same is true for the seven days of creation debate. Non-Catholic fundamentalists think this is a literally 24 hour solar day being described. Catholics keep an open mind that they have no way of understanding what a "day" is in God's mind. Quite likely Moses was seeing a light and darkness cycle in order to give him context of a "day" but that could be a galactic day in God's point of reference. So while yes, the bible cannot be used as a science textbook, it should not be dismissed in it's science facts so easily, just because the focus is not on God saying, "OK Moses, here's the deal. You are on a planet, and it's a round body in the void and you don't fall off of it because of gravity. And the Big Bang occurred about 14 billion years ago, and so each "day" that you see is the Cliff Notes for about 2 billion years of activity. And by the way, E=mcsquared!
That's where the doubt creeps in with people like the DRE person you mention. They think that in light of our oh so great knowledge in modern times that those primitive writers got some things wrong. Instead, people should assume they are right, as the Church teaches steadily, and open their minds as to what the prophets and Biblical authors were actually seeing and experiencing, that might challenge their capacity to articulate in modern terms, but that does not render them untrue.
Just wanted to thank everyone for their comments on this post. There are a lot of really great thoughts here. I'm so thankful to know people who are with me in fighting to keep our parishes orthodox.
God Bless!
Just a thought. A statement can only be false if it asserts something false or denies something true. Now, in the case of the Bible, it could be argued that when it appears to state something false on the factual level, what is being asserted is a spiritual truth other than the apparent factual meaning. Thus it is not asserting something false. The intended meaning is a truth for the sake of our salvation. The fact which appears to be stated erroneously is not being either asserted or denied and therefore the statement cannot be in error. Does this make sense?
The question for interpreters is then: what is the writer intending to affirm/deny?
This is also why many orthodox Catholics have chosen to home educate their children...even many of our Catholic schools are still far from teaching the fullness of the Truth. I pray that you will be involved as a Catechist where your children receive their religious instruction. My husband and I both have chosen to be Catechists of the Faith, even though I homeschool so that we can help teach the Catholic Faith...our Catholic children are starving for it and their parents seem to know so little. It is a very sad situation. You would be great! God bless!
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