Catholic ApologeticsSacred Scripture and Divine Revelation
Get them thinking
1) What are some beliefs that we have about the Bible?
2) What are some questions that we have about the Bible?
God Reveals Himself
Listen to this from the catechism regarding Divine Revelation.
“God ‘desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth’: that is, of Christ Jesus. Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth: God graciously arranged that the things he had once revealed for the salvation of all peoples should remain in their entirety, throughout the ages, and be transmitted to all generations.”
I think it is a beautiful thing when we come to realize that God desires to make Himself known to us, not understood, but known (big difference). He is actively seeking us and drawing us near. So how does God reveal himself to us? Well, in lots of ways and if we went around the room we would have a huge variety of experiences of God revealing himself to different people through different experiences. But to the Church, God reveals himself in two ways: Sacred Scripture and Tradition.
A good definition of Sacred Scripture and Tradition comes from the catechism: “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.” “And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound, and spread it abroad by their preaching.” Notice that the Holy Spirit is a key component to all this. An important thing to note immediately for us Catholics is that these two components work together as one. Together they are God’s Divine Revelation to the Church. The catechism states, “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing and move towards the same goal. Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own ‘always, to the close of age.” So, having said all this, it really important when you start to look at Sacred Scripture to understand how the Church views its relationship with Tradition. I think that it will start to make a whole lot more sense as we look at the history and formation of the Bible as we know it.
Inspiration
Read 2 Timothy 3:16-17
1) What does this verse tell you about Sacred Scripture?
Sacred Scripture is inspired by God. The catechism states, “God is the author of Sacred Scripture. ‘The divinely revealed realties, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit…God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. ‘To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more.” The BibIe is an inspired work of God, not a dictated. I think it was worded well in the pamphlet you guys got last week. “And so the word inspiration means the Holy Spirit enlightened and assisted the biblical writers so that they wrote all and only what God wanted them to write. Because Sacred Scripture is inspired, we may draw an important conclusion: It is free from error in matters that relate to our salvation. This does not mean that the Spirit also protected the biblical writers from scientific and historical error. God never intended them to compose books of science and history.” [Problem with Contradictions in the bible] It is very important to note that the Bible is not a detailed history or science book, but rather a historiography. In this light, it is less concerned with details and more with a meaning of life coming through a historical event.
How do you read Sacred Scripture?
Interpretation is very important. We have all seen people in our lives use scripture out of context to accomplish their agenda (give examples). So how should we interpret scripture? As Catholics, we take a holistic approach as opposed to a fundamental or literal approach. From a Holistic approach, what is the bible with its poems, stories, letters, parables, songs, and recollections trying to say? What is accomplished by all this working together? For this reason, as Catholics we look to the unity and content of the whole Scripture with regard to how it works for the unity of God’s plan in Jesus, we read scripture within the tradition of the whole church (remember scripture came from the church), and we are attentive to the analogy of faith. All scripture does not carry the same weight for Catholics, everything is weighed against the Gospels.
(Explain as you read) The catechism discusses interpretation like this, “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.
In order to discover the sacred authors’ intentions, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that 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.’
SO IMPORTANT: But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. ‘Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.”
How the Bible came to be
1) How do we know what belongs in the Bible? We trust the Church that Jesus Christ established. Through Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium.
2) How did the Bible come to be? Old Testament on Bible time line, New Testament on Bible Time line.
3) Why do Catholic and Protestant Bibles Differ? 450 BC Ezra begins collecting Hebrew Scripture, 3rd to 1st Century BC the Septuagint is Greek Translation of Hebrew Scriptures that includes Deuterocanonical books, 90 AD Jewish Rabbi’s settle in on Hebrew Canon and exclude those never written in Hebrew, but only Greek (Deuterocanonical), 16th Century AD during Protestant Reformation 7 Deuterocanonicals are dropped by Protestants because of decision made in 90 AD. There were other books Luther wanted dropped like Esther and Revelation (his personal opinion)
Final Questions
1) From what you know, what would be a problem with the idea of Solo Scriptura?
2) From what you know, why is knowing Sacred Scripture important?
3) Is Sacred Scripture important to Catholics? How do you know?
4) What is of great importance when reading or praying the Bible?
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