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Catholic Church Disses Bible?



Looks like I was wildly wrong back when I predicted that Catholic Fundamentalism was on the rise… Instead, it looks like they’re out their kickin down the doors of Biblical literalism with a kooky new document called The Gift of Scripture:

THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.

The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible.

“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.

The only thing I wish they’d done differently here is to approach the whole issue of, something doesn’t need to be factual in order to contain Truth. But shit, this announcement is still way beyond what I would have ever expected - especially with all the outright jabs to literalists and Fundamentalists.

They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.

“Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”

They also say that Genesis and Revelations are symbolic rather than literal teachings.

As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing.

Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of the risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ the Lamb.

The bishops say: “Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come.”

If you’re thinking, “Where the hell did this come from?” then you’re on the right track.

The document shows how far the Catholic Church has come since the 17th century, when Galileo was condemned as a heretic for flouting a near-universal belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible by advocating the Copernican view of the solar system. Only a century ago, Pope Pius X condemned Modernist Catholic scholars who adapted historical-critical methods of analysing ancient literature to the Bible.

In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.

They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”.

Man, as if the Catholic Church wasn’t already despised enough by a lot of Fundamentalist Christian groups. This seems very likely to create an enormous shit-storm. I wonder what Pat Robertson and pals are going to have to say about all this. It seems like their argument would probably be that once you throw out part of the Bible, you may as well throw out the whole thing. That argument doesn’t stand up historically of course, since the books of the Bible were chosen by councils out of many possible books.

You know what I think would be interesting to see though is a new Catholic Bible which is edited down to only include the elements which they say are actually true. You know, separate the wheat from the chaff. I wonder if such a change is inevitable. Especially when you look at the reforms of Vatican II, and how they eliminated many saints from their liturgical calendar on the grounds of their being ahistorical (mythological). I wonder also if this new spirit is going to draw more of the Emerging Church movement into the orbit of the Catholic Church. I will be very curious to see how this plays out over the next few years.







7 Reader Responses

  1. psicosm Says:
    October 6th, 2005 at 4:13 pm

    Just to make a note, this was put out by the British Catholic Hierarchy, and not Rome. However, it’s not a cpmpletely new teaching. It has roots in Dei Verbum from Vatican 2, and even a turn of the cetury Papal encyclical which I’ll have to dig up for you.

    Also, read St. Augustine’s On The Literal Interpretation of Genesis. You’ll discover that the Church has never been bound by the narrow fundamentalist view. The Galileo debale , and I’m no expert, but to my understanding, had to do with certain of his supporters making theological conclusions about certain biblical texts that would be affected. This is what rankled Rome the most. For instance, the conclusion that the miracle of the still sun in Joshua was myth.

  2. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 6th, 2005 at 4:23 pm

    Good point about the Vatican not releasing this. Yeah, I knew this wasn’t an entirely new thing, but I couldn’t think of how to find where it originally came about. I do however think it’s still very important that it’s being so strongly reiterated for today…

  3. psicosm Says:
    October 6th, 2005 at 5:23 pm

    Here we go: PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS by Pope Leo XIII.

    Of particular interest are passages 18 & 19.

    18. In the second place, we have to contend against those who, making an evil use of physical science, minutely scrutinize the Sacred Book in order to detect the writers in a mistake, and to take occasion to vilify its contents. Attacks of this kind, bearing as they do on matters of sensible experience, are peculiarly dangerous to the masses, and also to the young who are beginning their literary studies; for the 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. It need not be pointed out how the nature of science, just as it is so admirably adapted to show forth the glory of the Great Creator, provided it be taught as it should be, so if it be perversely imparted to the youthful intelligence, it may prove most fatal in destroying the principles of true philosophy and in the corruption of morality. Hence to the Professor of Sacred Scripture a knowledge of natural science will be of very great assistance in detecting such attacks on the Sacred Books, and in refuting them. There can never, indeed, be any real discrepancy between the theologian and the physicist, as long as each confines himself within his own lines, and both are careful, as St. Augustine warns us, “not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known.'’[51] If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: “Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so.”[52] To understand how just is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost “Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation.”[53] Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers — as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us — “went by what sensibly appeared,”[54] or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.

    19. The unshrinking defense of the Holy Scripture, however, does not require that we should equally uphold all the opinions which each of the Fathers or the more recent interpreters have put forth in explaining it; for it may be that, in commenting on passages where physical matters occur, they have sometimes expressed the ideas of their own times, and thus made statements which in these days have been abandoned as incorrect. Hence, in their interpretations, we must carefully note what they lay down as belonging to faith, or as intimately connected with faith — what they are unanimous in. For “in those things which do not come under the obligation of faith, the Saints were at liberty to hold divergent opinions, just as we ourselves are,”[55] according to the saying of St. Thomas. And in another place he says most admirably: “When philosophers are agreed upon a point, and it is not contrary to our faith, it is safer, in my opinion, neither to lay down such a point as a dogma of faith, even though it is perhaps so presented by the philosophers, nor to reject it as against faith, lest we thus give to the wise of this world an occasion of despising our faith.”[56] The Catholic interpreter, although he should show that those facts of natural science which investigators affirm to be now quite certain are not contrary to the Scripture rightly explained, must nevertheless always bear in mind, that much which has been held and proved as certain has afterwards been called in question and rejected. And if writers on physics travel outside the boundaries of their own branch, and carry their erroneous teaching into the domain of philosophy, let them be handed over to philosophers for refutation.

  4. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 6th, 2005 at 9:00 pm

    Cool, thanks! I appreciate it

  5. sparkwidget Says:
    October 8th, 2005 at 5:10 pm

    http://homoplasmate.blogspot.com/2005/...urch-document-to-commemorate-dei.html

  6. adam Says:
    October 10th, 2005 at 11:36 am

    Tim being, unsure of your exact location, I wonder did you get to watch the programme ‘The Monastery’ that showed on BBC2 in the UK?

    It was a reality TV show where 5 guys spent 40 days and 40 nights at a UK Monastery run by the Dominicans, living the same routine as the Monks. It was a very interesting show in general but the thing think I think that came across best were the Monks. They all appeared to very intelligent, very open and deeply spiritual people. Far from the dogmatic narrow mindedness I’ve always associated with the Catholic Church (I mean the Dominicans! These were the guys who invented the inquisition).

    Anyway it seems Catholicism (at least in the UK anyway) is going through a bit of a re-branding exercise at the moment, possibly to try and distance themselves from the protestant literalists.

  7. Pop Occulture » Be Careful of This Website! Says:
    October 10th, 2005 at 9:21 pm

    […]

    I found this fun quote on a message-board where they are discussing my recent post about the Bible and the British Catholic Church. An obv […]



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