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TotusTuus
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Posted: Tue Mar 25th, 2008 04:31 am |
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This evening after the show we enjoyed a lively chat session in the chat room. I'm opening this thread in case anyone wanted to have additional discussion on this excellent show.
One question which was answered on the show was about the nature of biblical "inerrancy". John answered that the Scriptures, as the word of God, do not err; however, we have to understand what the author's intentions were. For example, was the author of Genesis One speaking literally or poetically in terms of the 7 days of creation? I'd like to add the following question: Does biblical inerrancy extend only to the truths which are necessary for our salvation or everything which is asserted by the biblical author? For example, do we have to accept literally that Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday astride two beasts:
Matthew 21: 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.
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JasPax
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Posted: Tue Mar 25th, 2008 08:24 am |
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TotusTuus wrote: Matthew 21: 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.
Good Morning:
I've thought that perhaps Jesus rode one for a while, then switched to the other. But Luke 19:35, Mk 11:7 mention only the colt John 12, an ass.
I found this: St. Jerome (homily 81) suggested that Matthew was writing that the two animals represented the two nations that Jesus brings under his kingship. The donkey represents the nation of Israel with its mature covenant with God, while the colt represents the new covenant with the gentile nations. An allegory.
The important thing is: "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"
God's Blessings,
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James
"Abide in me, and I in you..." John 15:4
"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." John 6:56
RSV-2CE
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JillD
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Posted: Tue Mar 25th, 2008 02:40 pm |
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One commentary I checked, The Jewish New Testament Commentary, offered this explanation:
"...the Greek grammar allows a different approach. In v. 5 Greek kai, corresponding to Hebrew letter vav, makes it possible to replace "and on a colt" with any of these alternative renderings: "yes, on a colt," "indeed, on a colt," "even on a colt," or "that is, on a colt." These eliminate explicitly the need for two animals in order to fulfill the prophecy, without excluding the possibility that there were nevertheless two animals there."
I don't necessarily understand the grammatic detail here, though I have heard that Matthew's Gospel was originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew which might have some bearing.
The author mentions that because of Matthew's description, some consider him an ignorant country bumpkin who didn't understand Hebrew parallelism, that the second line of a poem does not add new info, but only repeats the content of the first line (referring to the quote in Matthew 21:5 of Zechariah 9:9). However, Matthew's many quotations of Hebrew Scripture would not support this line of thinking.
Interesting question... But James is right. What's most important is that He came!
Jill
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"I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are our works! My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret." Ps 139
"Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men." Ps 140
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Irenic
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Posted: Tue Mar 25th, 2008 02:45 pm |
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This is a great topic, especially for those of us who grew up in a Fundamentalist framework.
One issue a friend of mine, who grew up in a such a framework, had the hardest time with was "were there one or two demoniacs among the tombs?" I remember one that trouble me at one time was that two of the Gospels seemed to put Jesus' cursing of the fig tree in different chronological order. Things like this interest me.
I have seen some pretty fancy hoop-jumping to preserve a wooden, "reading the Bible like you would read the newspaper" method of understanding Scripture used to deal with issues like the one you raise and the ones above. Many skeptics and "the new atheists" are not really mounting good arguements against the historic Christian faith or the Scriptures, but against this way of dealing with the Biblical text.
I think it's key to understand the genre of Gospel whether or not it differs from contemporary journalistic and historical writing. I think it's also important to think about why information was arranged as it was in terms of numbers and chronology. I have read that Matthew tended to arrange events for emphesis or to show connections rather than for chronology.
I hope some of you smart folks who are educated beyond me can shed some light on those two ideas above.
Pax.
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Through Him, with Him, and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.
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TotusTuus
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Posted: Tue Mar 25th, 2008 02:46 pm |
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| My question is not about the passage per se, but about whether "inerrancy" encompasses only the truths necessary for our salvation or every positive assertion of the biblical author. I've heard both views expressed ...
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Marcus
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Posted: Thu Mar 27th, 2008 11:37 am |
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| great topic & question. Sorry I can't answer in more detail (due to limitations of mobile phone), but subtly lingering, tempting us, if you will, behind any hypothetical answer to this question is the question of private interpretation. How do we as "Bible-believing" individuals handle apparent or seemingly contradictory or "hard-to-believe" scriptures? For this we truly need to hear the Church's position on this--and I don't mean "most Catholic biblical scholars." All the necessary Church documents are on line: let's hear the results of your (anyone on the foeum) research.
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In Christ,
Marcus
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TotusTuus
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Posted: Thu Mar 27th, 2008 03:11 pm |
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Marcus wrote: great topic & question. Sorry I can't answer in more detail (due to limitations of mobile phone), but subtly lingering, tempting us, if you will, behind any hypothetical answer to this question is the question of private interpretation. How do we as "Bible-believing" individuals handle apparent or seemingly contradictory or "hard-to-believe" scriptures? For this we truly need to hear the Church's position on this--and I don't mean "most Catholic biblical scholars." All the necessary Church documents are on line: let's hear the results of your (anyone on the foeum) research.
By way of illustrating the apparent divergence of views on this issue:
Vatican II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church seem to express a "low" view of inerrancy as limited to those truths necessary for our salvation: "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures" (Dei Verbum, no. 11; Catechism, no. 107, emphasis added). Some theologians have seized on this to suggest that inerrancy does not extend to truths expressed about science, chronology, etc.
On the other hand, some have cited older traditions which seem to say that any positive assertions of the human author are infallible. The following, for example, is found on the Catholics United for the Faith website (http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=22):
Is Inerrancy Limited to Matters of Faith and Morals?
Despite these explicit statements on biblical inerrancy, some have taught that the Scripture’s inerrancy is restricted only to "religious matters," arguing that the Bible is without error only when it deals with matters of faith and morals. However, when it comes to non-religious matters of history or "background details," these critics argue that God may have permitted human errors to exist alongside more important religious truths.
But this position has been refuted repeatedly by the Church because it necessarily limits God’s inspiration of the sacred texts. Leo XIII explained inspiration and inerrancy cannot be restricted only to religious matters of the Bible:
"t is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. As to the system of those who . . . do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond . . . this system cannot be tolerated" (Providentissimus Deus, II, D, 3, emphasis added). The Bible must therefore be inerrant not only in "religious truths," but in all its intended affirmations.
Pope Benedict XV in Spiritus Paraclitus (1920) also emphasized the Bible’s absolute immunity from error. He went so far as to say that "belief in the biblical narrative is as necessary to salvation as is belief in the doctrines of the faith" (III, 3). After explicitly condemning any position that restricts inerrancy only to so-called "religious" elements of the Bible, he quotes St. Jerome, the "Father of Biblical Science," who wrote more than 1,500 years ago that "t would be wholly impious to limit inspiration to only certain portions of Scripture or to concede that the sacred authors themselves could have erred" (III, 1).
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TTM!
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TotusTuus
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Posted: Thu Mar 27th, 2008 06:51 pm |
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I discovered an explanation of this issue by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, whom I would consider to be highly reliable in their fidelity to Church teaching. Here's how they explain it:
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/hahn_mitch_ss_aug05.asp
"The principle of biblical inerrancy follows logically from this principle of divine authorship. After all, God cannot lie, and he cannot make mistakes. Since the Bible is divinely inspired, it must be without error in everything that its divine and human authors affirm to be true. This means that biblical inerrancy is a mystery even broader in scope than infallibility, which guarantees for us that the Church will always teach the truth concerning faith and morals. Of course the mantle of inerrancy likewise covers faith and morals, but it extends even farther to ensure that all the facts and events of salvation history are accurately presented for us in the Scriptures. Inerrancy is our guarantee that the words and deeds of God found in the Bible are unified and true, declaring with one voice the wonders of his saving love.
The guarantee of inerrancy does not mean, however, that the Bible is an all-purpose encyclopedia of information covering every field of study. The Bible is not, for example, a textbook in the empirical sciences, and it should not be treated as one. When biblical authors relate facts of the natural order, we can be sure they are speaking in a purely descriptive and "phenomenological" way, according to the way things appeared to their senses."
Last edited on Thu Mar 27th, 2008 06:52 pm by TotusTuus
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