Catholic Church admits parts of the Bible are false

[Jernau]

An interesting Times (UK) article about a recent teaching document released by the Catholic Church that admits parts of the Bible are not true: Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of Bible

To start the discussion I'd like to play Devil's Advocate...

To my understanding there are two main schools of Christian thought on the Bible:

1) The Bible is the inerrant word of God. It is historically accurate and everything in it should be taken literally.
2) The Bible is the word of God through man. Parts are historically inaccurate and only some of it should be taken literally.

This study guide from the Catholic Church places them firmly in the second camp, and I would suggest that this non-literal interpretation of the Bible is actually a harder position to defend than a literal one. This may sound counter-intuitive at first glance, so let me explain. As soon as you admit that parts of the Bible are not true you beg the question; where do I look to find out which parts are true? To my knowledge the church does not have a 'Holy Bible II: Your guide to the true parts of the original Bible'. Without a God given guide such as this, the truth of the Bible can only be discerned through individual interpretation: "Genesis is obviously figurative", "The Old Testament is mainly myths, but the New Testament is all true", "The Gospels aren't an accurate account of Jesus' life, but we can still learn from them", etc.

The literalists don't have to ask themselves these difficult questions; according to them the whole book is the absolute truth. Non-literalist's admission that the Bible has errors requires the further admission that the Bible cannot be from God. The source of these human errors is largely irrelevant; they could be from the original authors, or from the socio-political decisions involved in selecting the cannon, or from errors in translation from the Hebrew and Greek. The point is that as soon as you admit to one error in the Bible, you cannot claim it to be the true word of God, it becomes simply a flawed work of man.

I believe the Catholic Church have opened a huge can of worms with this admission. It will be fascinating to follow the ramifications; will this be swept under the carpet and forgotten or will it be a catalyst that helps to bring down the whole house of cards?

[jakethebake]

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Catholic Church admits parts of the Bible are false

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Did all those e-mails David sent to the Pope have anything to do with this?

[sexdrugsmoney]

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I believe the Catholic Church have opened a huge can of worms with this admission.

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Only for those who deem the Catholic Church an authority on Christianity. (Orthodoxy &amp; Protestants excluded)

Hey, to those of us that base our decisions on experience and logic, this is nothing new. But people like NotReady have ready made excuses for stuff like this i.e. God wanted flaws to be found, or it's just another way to test the faith of believers, etc.
I used to be a Christian and I know exactly how their flawed thinking works.

[BluffTHIS!]

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

The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious Right, in particular in the US.

Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.

But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”.

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."

The first paragraph in the above citation from that article is the key part. Only those christians who insist on limiting the manner in which God might choose to communicate truth or carry out His will via specific means, and can't distinguish between the real doctrinal import of various scripture passages and they way they are presented, would have a problem with this. The important point is that God created the universe regardless of how He did it. The bible does not purport to lay out the scientifc mechanisms or historical timeline of same.

Question for OP: are you really a noob poster or is this a gimmick account for a well-known regular here?

[sammysusar]

i dont the exact position on the issue but if the Bible was written my man but inspired by god would not some parts be wrong? i dont know what the catholic church position is.

[Zygote]

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The important point is that God created the universe regardless of how He did it.

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Would you bet on this? If so, why is it a good bet?

[Peter666]

This is an extraordinarily stupid article which makes all sorts of false assumptions and contains erroneous facts.

First, the Catholic Church has never changed its teaching about the bible. If one wants an accurate view, I suggest they read an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Also, they did not condemn Galileo for heresy and everything Pope St. Pius the X says about modernism stands forever.

The writer is just too stupid.

[Cooker]

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As soon as you admit that parts of the Bible are not true you beg the question; where do I look to find out which parts are true?


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You have used "beg the question" incorrectly in the above sentence (Do you see why?). Now I must be extremely careful that I not make any grammar or spelling mistakes for the rest of my post. I don't think too much of your arguement either. Every copy of the bible is clearly not shipped directly from God to the store, so the idea that it might be an imperfect translation of Gods words is not such a big deal. All groups are picking and choosing what they want to consider the important parts of the bible already. You don't hear any group calling for the death penalty for working on Sunday do you?

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Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death. Exodus 31:15


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This is a direct quote of God to Moses.

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First, the Catholic Church has never changed its teaching about the bible.

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Wow. Just wow.