Introduction
- It is a sad, but undeniable, fact
that Catholics are ignorant about the Bible.
- The ignorance is not because
Catholics are not exposed to Sacred Scripture - in fact, a person who attends Sunday Mass
(assuming that he or she comes early enough to listen to the readings) for 3 years
will have heard a substantial portion of the Bible being read.
- For Catholics who attend Daily Mass,
their exposure to the Bible is further increased by a factor of 2-3 times.
- The problem is that Catholics
don’t know the Bible apart from what they hear (or read) at Mass - as a
result, most of the readings, which they are encountering for the 1st time, will be
whizzing above their heads instead of providing food for reflection and prayer.
- In this presentation, I intend to
deal with 2 aspects:
- information about the Bible (theory);
and
- how to study the Bible (practical).
Information
About The Bible
(1) The Canon
Of The Bible
- The Bible is essentially a collection
of books or writings which are recognised by the Church as being inspired by God.
- The word "Bible" is, in
fact, derived from the Greek biblia (the books) - over time, the word was
understood as a singular noun (the Book) instead of a plural noun.
- There are 2 broad divisions in the
Bible: the Old Testament (OT) consisting of writings before the coming of the Lord
and the New Testament (NT) consisting of writings since the coming of the Lord.
- The OT, which was written mainly in
Hebrew, corresponds with the many centuries during which the Jewish people enjoyed a
national existence.
- The books of the NT, which were
written mainly in Greek, were composed shortly after the Ascension of the Lord by some of
the Apostles (or their disciples) for the Infant Church.
- Even though there are two
"testaments", the Church considers both the OT and the NT as forming one organic
whole - she has always condemned heretics like Marcion, who taught that the promulgation
of the NT had made void the OT.
- Matt 5:17:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the
Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them."
- Matt 13:52:
"He said to them, ‘Therefore every
teacher of the Law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner
of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.’"
- CCC 128-129:
"The Church, as early as apostolic times, and
then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two
Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant
prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his
incarnate Son... As an old saying put it [attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo],
the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New."
- cf. John 1:51 and Gen 28:12
(Jacob’s ladder);
- cf. John 3:14-15 and Num
21:8-9 (the bronze serpent);
- cf. John 6:32-33 and Exod
16:4 (manna from heaven);
- cf. John 10:22-36 and 1
Macc 4:36-59 and 2 Macc 10:1-8 (the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah));
- cf. 1 Pet 3:20-21 and Gen
6-9 (Noah and the Flood).
The important question to ask at this
juncture is: "Which books of the OT and NT are inspired and rightly belong to the
list (canon) of Sacred Scripture?"
- CCC 120:
"It was by the apostolic Tradition that the
Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This
complete list is called the canon of Scripture."
Tradition furnishes us with 2
essential facts about the books "vying" for places in the canon:
- The authorship of the books,
eg. how do we know that St. Matthew wrote the Gospel which was attributed to him? by the
same token, how do we know that St. Thomas did not write the Gospel which was
attributed to him?
- The receptiveness of the
Fathers to the books.
Some Christians (especially those
from non-Catholic communities) simply "assume" that the canon had "always
been there" - without endeavouring to find out how and when the canon was discerned -
the problem was actually quite a complicated one.
The development of the OT canon
requires some explanation:
- The Protestant Bible has 7 fewer
books than the Catholic Bible.
- The difference is easily accounted
for - what had happened was that the "Reformers" had rejected (mainly due to
doctrinal reasons) the following 7 OT books: Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of
Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach) and Baruch.
- In addition, Catholic Bibles contain
an additional 6 chapters (107 verses) in the book of Esther and another 3 chapters in the
book of Daniel (174 verses).
- These 7 books are called the
"Apocrypha" (hidden) by Protestant Christians - in fact, the Catholic Church
uses the word "Apocrypha" to refer to non-inspired (usually spurious) Jewish or
Christian writings, eg. the Assumption of Moses, the Shepherd of Hermas.
- The 7 books are known in Catholic
circles as the "Deuterocanonicals" (2nd list) because their position in the
canon was, for some time, not as clear as that of the "Protocanonicals" (1st
list), which consists of the 39 OT books which our Protestant friends do accept.
- The OT protos were written in Hebrew
while the OT deuteros were written in Greek.
- Due to the Babylonian Exile and the
resulting dispersion (the Diaspora), Hebrew had become an essentially dead
language, read only by rabbis, several centuries before Christ was born.
- Jews outside of Palestine spoke
"koine" (common) Greek, those in Palestine spoke primarily Aramaic.
- In the post-Exile period, targums
(Aramaic paraphrase commentaries of sacred Hebrew books) were written within Palestine -
outside of Palestine, the Diaspora Jews relied on Greek translations of Scripture
commonly called the "Septuagint", which means "the 70" (designated as
"LXX", which is the Roman numeral equivalent of "70").
- The Septuagint was named after the 70
scholars of legend who supposedly translated the sacred Hebrew books into Greek in
Alexandria - earning these collections the present-day nickname of "the Alexandrian
(or Greek) canon" while the Hebrew text is called the "Palestinian",
"Hebrew" or "Jamnian" canon (after the Jewish Council of Jamnia, see
below).
- By Christ’s birth, the canon of
Hebrew Scripture had only been partially defined - the Hebrew Scriptures had a tri-partite
structure: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.
- While the list of books belonging to
the Law and the Prophets was clearly fixed and ordered by 130 BC, it was not clear what
books belonged to the Writings.
- The Septuagint, on the other hand,
arranged books by style: narrative, poetical and prophetic.
- Since most post-Exile Jews wrote
primarily in Greek, the Greek collections soon added historical books which the Hebrew
version never saw.
- Because the Septuagint didn’t
have a standard ordering or a completely standard list of books, the list of books
included in the Greek varied according to collection, with no distinction made between
earlier and later works.
- By the time of Christ's Incarnation,
the Septuagint had acquired several more books than the Hebrew Scriptures: Tobit, Judith,
the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch (including the Letter of Jeremiah), 1-3 Maccabees,
the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, the Book of Jubilees, 1 Esdras, additions to Esther and
Daniel, and very rarely, 4 Maccabees (since this last was not widely used and was never
considered inspired by Jews or Christians).
- Of approximately 350 references made
to OT Scripture by the inspired writers of the NT, over 300 (85%) refer to the Septuagint,
not the Hebrew version of Scripture.
- Jesus, for instance, when discussing
"human traditions" (Mark 7:6-8), quotes a version of a passage in Isaiah
found only in the Septuagint.
- A more famous example is Matt 1:23
quoting Isa 7:14 - the word "virgin" is explicable only in the LXX
version - the original Hebrew uses the word "almah", ie. a young woman.
- By AD 70, when the temple in
Jerusalem was razed by the Romans and the Levitical priesthood was wiped out, the Jewish
faith was losing followers to the rapidly spreading belief that Jewish prophecy had been
fulfilled in the person of Jesus.
- These new Christians were as likely
to be Gentile as they were Jew, and if they were Jewish, they were quite a bit more likely
to be Hellenistic Jews than Palestinian Jews, ie. these Jewish and Gentile Christians
didn’t read or speak Hebrew, they spoke "koine" Greek.
- Because the Jews of the Diaspora
and the Gentiles of eastern Mediterrenean were the first converts, the Greek Septuagint
was not only in wide use among Jews, but it was virtually the only text used by
Christians.
- It must also be borne in mind that
there were many Greek speaking Jews in Palestine (cf. Acts 6:1).
- The fact that the Early Christians
used the LXX version of the OT is evidenced by the fact that the catacombs have frescoes
depicting scenes from the deuteros, such as Judith holding the head of Holofernes, Tobias
and Raphael, Judas Maccabeus, the mother of Maccabees with her 7 martyred sons, Daniel in
the lion's den, and the 3 boys in the fiery furnace.
- Jewish Christian oral teaching
competed successfully against Jewish oral teaching, and it used Jewish Scripture to do it,
causing Jewish scholars to debate whether or not the Christians’ "Greek
Scripture" was really Scripture.
- Non-Christian Jews ultimately refused
the deuteros, probably because of theology (eg., 1 & 2 Macc teaches
resurrection of the dead, while Wis 1-5 contains an unsettlingly prophetic
description of Christ’s Passion and Death) and because they were written in Greek,
not Hebrew.
- It is commonly believed that the
decision to adopt the Hebrew Scriptures as the canon of the Jews was made at the Council
of Jamnia (or Javneh) under the leadership of Yohanan ben Zakkai, some years after the
fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.
- The sub-Apostolic writings of St.
Clement, St. Polycarp, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of the pseudo-Clementine
homilies, and the "Shepherd" of Hermas, contain implicit quotations from or
allusions to all the deuterocanonicals except Baruch (which anciently was often united
with Jeremiah) and 1 Maccabess and the additions to Daniel.
- Looking at post-apostolic times, many
Church Fathers (such as St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, St. Cyprian, Tertullian) cite the
deuteros as Scripture without distinction - others, mostly from the east, recognised some
distinction but nevertheless still customarily cited the deuterocanonical books as
Scripture.
- "It should be observed that the
Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more
comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament]... It always included, though with
varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. The
reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the
hands of Christians was... the Greek translation known as the Septuagint.... most of the
Scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the
Hebrew.... In the first two centuries... the Church seems to have accept all, or most of,
these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture.
Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas... Polycarp cites
Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus. Irenaeus refers to Wisdom, the History of
Susannah, Bel and the Dragon [i.e. the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel], and Baruch.
The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria
is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary."
(Early Christian Doctrines, J.N.D.
Kelly, 53-54)
- The issue of the inspiration of the
deuteros was progressively laid to rest after each of the following
decisions/pronouncements:
- Council of Rome (382);
- Council of Hippo (393);
- The decision of these 2 Councils on
the canon was "ratified" by Pope Innocent I (405, 414) (who wrote a letter to
the Gallican Bishop Exsuperius of Toulouse, which listed the books of Scripture).
- 4th Council of Carthage (419);
- Pope Gelasius I (495);
- The Oxford Dictionary of the
Christian Church
(2nd ed., edited by F.L. Cross & E.A. Livingstone, Oxford Univ.
Press, 1983, p. 232) states: "A
council probably held at Rome in 382 under St. Damasus gave a complete list of the
canonical books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament (also known as the
‘Gelasian Decree’ because it was reproduced by Gelasius in 495), which is
identical with the list given at Trent."
- 2nd Council of Nicaea (787), which
ratified the African code (which contained the canon);
- Council of Florence (1441);
- Council of Trent (1546);
- Vatican Council I (1869).
The fixing of the canon for the OT
was a complicated process, but the canonisation of the NT books was not any easier (please
refer to Appendix A).
The ironic thing is that Protestants
uncritically accept the decisions of Catholic Councils in determining the NT canon, while
denying that the Church has authority to teach other doctrines on faith and morals.
- In fact, if not for the protests of
his followers, Luther might have thrown out more than just the 7 OT deuteros - his views
on the Bible and the canon are decidely "unique"!
- "[John's Gospel is] the one,
fine, true, and chief gospel, and is far, far to be preferred over the other three and
placed high above them... [T]he epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter far surpass the other
three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke... St. James' epistle is really an epistle of
straw, compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about
it."
(Timothy F. Lull,
editor Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
1989), p. 117) - we will understand Martin Luther's disdain for the Epistle of St. James
when we recall that the latter, directly contradicting Luther, taught that a man is not
justified by faith alone (James 2:24).
- In another passage, Luther says that
he "... therefore
refuse[s] him [ie. St. James] a place among the true canon of the Bible",
although he concedes that he "... would not prevent anyone from placing him or
raising him where he likes, for the epistle contains many excellent passages." (Martin Luther, Preface to the Epistles
of St. James and St. Jude, in John Dillenberger, editor Martin Luther: Selections
from His Writings (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1961), p. 35)
- Of course we remember that Luther
also excised 2 Macc (along with the other 6 Deuterocanonical OT books) from the
Bible because it taught that "it
is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their
sins", thereby
confounding Luther's soteriology - not to mention that he was doubtful about the
canonicity of 2 Pet, Jude and Rev.
Without authoritative Church Councils
(modelled after the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15), it would be quite impossible
for the canon of the Bible to be determined - the solution proposed by the
"Reformer" John Calvin is simply "validation" of the sacred books via
personal feelings (which is not terribly different from how the Latter Day Saints
"authenticate" the Book of Mormons):
- "Those whom the Holy Spirit has
inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is
self-authenticating; hence, it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning. And the
certainty it deserves with us, it attains by the testimony of the Spirit... Therefore,
illumined by his power, we believe neither by our own nor by anyone else's judgment that
Scripture is from God... We seek no proofs... Such, then, is a conviction that requires no
reasons... such, finally, a feeling that can be born only of heavenly revelation. I speak
of nothing other than what each believer experiences within himself."
(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
Religion, I, 7, 5)
- In response, Mark P. Shea (a convert
from Evangelicalism to Catholicism) wonders how the canon can be determined by one’s
feelings: "[H]ow in the
world was I supposed to arrive at an answer [to the problem of the canon], especially
since I was forced to admit that in my own reading I was not at all confident I felt my
spirit whispering one peep about what was and wasn’t canonical? Was one’s heart
supposed to be strangely warmed upon a reading of the rather slimy instructions in
Leviticus for removing and burning the fat from the kidneys of goats? Was the sure and
certain knowledge of inspiration to pervade one’s being upon reading the
blood-curdling butchery of Judges? Was I really to sense the peace that passes
understanding descending in Shekinah glory upon my inmost being as I persevered through
the gloating curses of Nahum or the reams of numbing census statistics in Numbers? If so,
it wasn’t happening. Yet I had indeed and in truth trusted Jesus as my Lord and
Savior and still do." (Mark
P. Shea, By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition, OSV
Publishing Division, 1996, p. 59)
(2) The Inerrancy
Of The Bible
The Church teaches unambiguously that
the Bible, being authored and inspired by God, is incapable of containing error:
- CCC 105 & 107:
"God is the author of Sacred Scripture.
‘The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of
Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit.’... The inspired books teach the truth. ‘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.’" [emphasis added]
There has been much confusion on this
point, so it is opportune to clear up the misconceptions now.
- Some Christians (even Catholics!)
have asserted that there is error in Scripture - this is totally contrary to the teachings
of the Church.
- Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante
Spiritu (1943):
"In
our age, the Vatican Council, to reject false teachings about inspiration, declared that
these same books [of Scripture] must be considered ‘as sacred and canonical’ by
the Church, ‘not only because they contain revelation without error, but because,
being written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and as
such have been handed down to the Church.’ But then, when certain Catholic authors,
contrary to this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, in which authority of this kind
is claimed which enjoys immunity from any error whatsoever, for these books ‘whole
and entire, with all their parts’ - when these authors had dared to restrict the
truth of Holy Scripture to matters of faith and morals... our Predecessor of Immortal
memory, Leo XIII, in an encyclical, Providentissimus Deus... rightly and properly refuted
those errors..."
- cf. Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus
Deus (1893): "[Since
God is the author,] it follows that they who think any error is contained in the authentic
passages of the Sacred Books surely either pervert the Catholic notion of divine
inspiration, or make God Himself the source of error."
How then should a Catholic react to
charges of apparent "errors" in the Bible?
- First, he should recall that, as a
Catholic, he has put his faith in the Lord and His Church - and that his faith is not
misplaced!
- Secondly, he should remind himself
that the Church has taught clearly, decisively and authoritatively that the Bible does not
contain error.
- Thirdly, he should not be too quick
to believe in the findings of this scholar or that scientist in preference to what is
stated in the sacred text.
- Lastly, he should examine the
so-called "error" to see if the contradiction is more apparent than real (or
even non-existent!).
On this last point, it is important
to discard the fundamentalist way of reading Scripture.
- The problem with such an approach is
that it looks at the Bible as though it were written like a newspaper in modern-day
language - the Bible should not be read the way we intend it, but the way intended
by the sacred writers, taking into account culture, background, history, etc.
- CCC 109-110:
"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’ intention, the reader must take into
account the conditions of their 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.’"
With the "Catholic
approach" in mind, we see immediately that different genres and literary forms
are used in the Bible, ie. historical (eg. Gospel of St. Luke); didactic (eg. Epistle of
St. James); apocalyptic (eg. Revelation); poetical (eg. Song of Songs); wisdom literature
(eg. Proverbs); edifying narrative (eg. Daniel).
- To "argue" that there are
historical "errors" in, say, the book of Judith is to miss the point - Judith
was not a historical work.
In regard to the book of Genesis,
some people, who are unacquainted with history, think that Catholics universally held to a
literal 6-day creation story until science proved "otherwise" - in fact, St.
Augustine (who lived about 1600 years ago) thought the account, if taken literally, to be
rather ludicrous:
- "That God made man with bodily
hands from the clay... is an excessively childish thought..., we should rather believe the
one who wrote it used a metaphorical term, instead of supposing God is bounded by such
lines of limbs as we see in our bodies."
(De Genesi ad litterams 6.12.20)
- "Since it was not the intention
of the sacred writers to teach the inmost constitution of visible things, or the complete
order of creation, in a scientific manner, but rather to give his countrymen a popular
notion, conformable to the ordinary language of those times and adapted to their opinions
and intelligence, we must not always and regularly look for scientific exactitude of
language when interpreting this (the first) chapter of Genesis."
[emphasis added] (Decree of the
Pontifical Commission for Biblical Studies, June 30, 1909)
However, the Church does enjoin
Catholics to believe in an actual Adam and Eve, the first pair.
- "When however there is question
of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenesis, the children of the Church by no means
enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either
that after Adam there existed on earth true men who did not take their origin from him as
from the parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now
it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources
of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with
regard to original sin actually committed by an individual Adam, and which through
generation is passed to all and is in everyone as his own."
[emphasis added] (Humani Generis
by Pope Pius XII)
- The Catechism of the Catholic
Church also teaches the traditional belief in Adam and Eve (eg. cf. CCC 359-360,
375, 390, 399, 402-406, etc.)
(3) The Preservation
Of The Bible
It is sometimes asserted that the
Catholic Church tried to suppress the Bible - nothing could be further from the truth!
We have seen above that the Church,
through a series of Councils and papal decisions, had collated and canonised the Bible.
Copies of the Bible were laboriously
handcopied by Catholic monks until Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th
century (the first book to "roll off the press" in 1455 was the Bible!).
- Since Bibles were hard to come by
before the advent of the printing press, copies were chained in the library - not to
prevent people from reading them, as anti-Catholics claim! - but so that thieves would not
make off with them (roughly the same reason why phone books are chained to phone booths in
New York).
Another myth spread by anti-Catholics
is that the Church deliberately kept the Bible in the "dead language" of Latin
so that common folks couldn’t understand it - this is incorrect for 2 reasons:
- Up till the time of the Middle Ages,
Latin was not a dead language but was the universal language of Europe (much like
English is today).
- It is historically incorrect to say
that the Bible was not translated into the vernacular, eg. between 1466 and 1517 (the
birth of the Protestant "Reformation"), there were no fewer than 14 editions of
the Bible in High German and 5 in Low German (cf. Where We Got The Bible, Henry G.
Graham).
- The situation was no different in
other European countries, eg. from 1450 to 1550, there appeared (with express permission
from Rome) more than 40 Italian editions or translations of the Bible and 18 French
editions, as well as others in Bohemian, Belgian, Russian, Danish, Norwegian, Polish and
Hungarian.
- Spain published editions starting in
1478 with the full approval of the Spanish Inquisition - a total of 626 editions appeared,
of which 198 were in the vernacular languages, with the sanction of the Catholic Church,
before any Protestant version saw the light of day.
- John Wycliffe was not the 1st
person to give the English the Bible in their own tongue in the 14th century, as a popular
misguided myth would have it - we have copies of the work of Caedmon from the 7th century,
and that of the Venerable Bede, Eadhelm, Guthlac, and Egbert from the 8th (all in Saxon,
the prevalent language at that time); from the 9th and 10th centuries come the
translations of King Alfred the Great and Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury; early English
versions include that of Orm around 1150, the Salus Animae (1250), and the
translations of William Shoreham, Richard Rolle (d. 1349) and John Trevisa (c. 1360).
In order to maintain the integrity of
the Sacred Books, the Church had to "weed out" erroneous translations from time
to time, eg. those by Wycliffe and Tynedale - that the Church burnt these translations
shows her reverence for the authentic word of God and her corresponding disdain for the
counterfeit version!
In summary, the Church was
instrumental in preserving the Bible by doing the following:
- Canonising the Bible.
- Making copies of the Bible.
- Translating the Bible and making it
accessible to all.
- Taking steps to stamp out erroneous
translations of the Bible.
How To Study
The Bible
During the last decade or so, there
has been a resurgence among Catholics to read and study the Bible - this is certainly
something encouraged by the Church!
- CCC 131 & 133:
"‘And such is the force and power
of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigour, and the
children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and
lasting fount of spiritual life.’ Hence ‘access to Sacred Scripture ought to be
open wide to the Christian faithful.’... The Church ‘forcefully and specifically
exhorts all the Christian faithful... "to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus
Christ" by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. "Ignorance of the
Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."’"
However, we must recall that the
Bible is a document produced and guarded by the Church and as such, can never be
read apart from the Church.
- 1 Pet 1:20-21:
"Above all, you must understand that no
prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy
never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along
by the Holy Spirit."
- 2 Pet 3:16:
"[Paul’s] letters contain some
things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do
the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."
- CCC 113:
"Read the Scripture within ‘the
living Tradition of the whole Church’. According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred
Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and
records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word,
and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture
(‘... according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the
Church’)."
- "[I]t is not from Sacred
Scripture alone that the Church derives her certainty about the whole content of
[Christian] revelation. And so, both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are to be
accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence... The office of
authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed down, has been
entrusted to the living office of the Church alone, whose authority is exercised in the
name of Jesus Christ. It is clear therefore that, by God's most wise design, Sacred
Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Church's teaching authority are so linked and so
associated together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and
each in its own way contribute effectively to the salvation of men under the action of the
one Holy Spirit."
[emphasis
added] (Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum (1965) 9-11)
With the above considerations in
mind, we shall now look at what we can do in order to embark on a fruitful Bible study.
(1) Choosing A
Bible
First, make sure that you are
purchasing a Catholic Bible - don’t shortchange yourself of 7 books (some of
which are very interesting) - these are some suggestions to see if you’re getting all
73 books in the Bible:
- Count every single book to see if
there are 66 or 73 books!
- Check the contents page to see if the
OT deuteros are listed.
- Look for the "Nihil
Obstat" and/or "Imprimatur" in the 1st few pages of the Bible -
it’s a sure-fire sign that the Bible is Catholic if the Latin words are there.
Next, you’ll have to think of
getting a good translation - for Bible study, it is recommended that you get a literal
translation instead of a paraphrased translation or a free translation.
- A literal translation is one
which follows the original text faithfully, sometimes even retaining the sentence
structure and the order of the words (I would recommend the Catholic RSV).
- Paraphrased
or free translations
are actual Bibles with "in-built" commentaries.
- In such versions, the
translator’s opinions as to what the text means is weaved into the text itself
instead of being confined to footnotes.
(2) Getting A
Commentary
I have had the Jerome Biblical
Commentary for years (it was a steal at $20.00; saw it at a book fair) but it may be too
dry and scholarly.
Instead, I highly recommend the
Navarre Bible (and Commentary).
- These books are produced by the
Theology Faculty of the University of Navarre.
- So far, they have completed the NT
series and the Pentateuch.
- The Bible and Commentary are
conveniently divided into different volumes so they’re very handy (eg. each Gospel is
a separate volume, the Catholic Epistles are lumped together as 1 volume, the Letters of
St. Paul to the Romans and to the Corinthians are 1 volume, etc.).
- Each volume has the full Catholic RSV
text (including the Latin Vulgate) and Commentary.
- The Commentary is excellent -
it’s replete with cross-references to other passages in the Bible, and quotations
from Popes, Councils, Saints and Doctors!
(3) Other
Stuff
Sometimes, it is also a good idea to
read books about the Bible, eg. Free From All Error by Fr. William G. Most,
or "Life of Christ" accounts by Fulton Sheen, F. J. Sheed, etc. - these books
really make the Gospels come alive!
Other books to read would be the
Catechism (which shows the authentic interpretation and use of Scripture) and the writings
of the Saints (you’ll be intrigued at how easily and comfortably the Saints move
within and quote the Bible).
Another idea to make the Bible
interesting is to pay attention to the liturgy - you’d be surprised at how scriptural
the Mass is - in fact, the liturgy is the setting for the jewel which is the
Bible.
Bible Study can also be enhanced by
doing it in a little group - the following suggestions are based on actual Bible Study
sessions:
- In such groups, there should be a
leader or facilitator.
- He or she should prepare beforehand -
reading the chosen passage (maybe half a chapter or more), reading the commentary,
checking the cross-references, praying to the Spirit for guidance, etc.
- The Bible Study group should not
get hung-up about whether the passage is "relevant" or not - it’s enough to
know that we’re reading God’s word and trying to find out more about Him.
- The main part of the Bible Study is
the 30 min to 1 hour presentation by the leader/facilitator on the passage.
- After that, have a short break.
- In the 2nd part, throw out some
questions relating to the passage and let everyone participate.
- This "system" works - try
it!
Appendix A
A Visual
Diagram of the History of the New Testament Canon
by Dave Armstrong
based on the following (Protestant) sources:
1) Douglas, J.D.,
ed., New Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962 ed., pp. 194-98;
2) Cross, F.L., and
E.A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford:
Oxford Univ. Press, 2nd ed., 1983, pp. 232, 300, 309-10, 626, 641, 724, 1049, 1069;
3) Geisler, Norman
L. & William E. Nix, From God to Us: How We Got Our Bible, Chicago: Moody
Press, 1974, pp. 109-12, 117-25.
Explanation of
Symbols:
a. * Book accepted
(or quoted)
b. ? Book personally
disputed or mentioned as disputed
c. x Book rejected,
unknown, or not cited
New Testament Period
(c. 35-90)
In this period there
is little formal sense of a Canon of Scripture
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Apostolic Fathers
(90-160)
Summary: The New
Testament is still not clearly distinguished qualitatively from other Christian writings
- Gospels
Generally accepted by 130
- Justin Martyr’s "Gospels"
contain apocryphal material
- Polycarp first uses all four Gospels
now in Scripture
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Acts
Scarcely known or quoted
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Pauline Corpus
Generally accepted
by 130, yet quotations are rarely introduced as scriptural
- Phillipians, 1 Timothy
: x Justin
Martyr
- 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon
: x
Polycarp, Justin Martyr
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Hebrews
Not considered canonical
- ? Clement of Rome
- x Polycarp, Justin Martyr
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- James
Not considered canonical;
not even quoted
- x Polycarp, Justin Martyr
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1 Peter
Not considered canonical
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2 Peter
Not considered canonical,
nor cited
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1, 2, 3 John
Not considered
canonical
- x Justin Martyr
- 1 John
? Polycarp / 3 John
x Polycarp
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Jude
Not considered canonical
- x Polycarp, Justin Martyr
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Revelation
Not canonical
- x Polycarp
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Irenaeus to Origen
(160-250)
Summary: Awareness
of a Canon begins towards the end of the 2nd century
Tertullian and
Clement of Alexandria first use phrase New Testament
- Gospels
Accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Acts
Gradually accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Pauline Corpus
Accepted with some
exceptions:
- 2 Timothy
: x Clement of
Alexandria
- Philemon
: x Irenaeus, Origen,
Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Hebrews
Not canonical before the
4th century in the West.
- ? Origen
- * First accepted by Clement of
Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- James
Not canonical
- ? First mentioned by Origen
- x Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of
Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1 Peter
Gradual acceptance
- * First accepted by Irenaeus, Clement
of Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2 Peter
Not canonical
- ? First mentioned by Origen
- x Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of
Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1 John
Gradual acceptance
- * First accepted by Irenaeus
- x Origen
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2 John
Not canonical
- ? Origen
- x Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 3 John
Not canonical
- ? Origen
- x Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of
Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Jude
Gradual acceptance
- * Clement of Alexandria
- x Origen
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Revelation
Gradual acceptance
- * First accepted by Clement of
Alexandria
- x Barococcio Canon, c.206
- ==================================================================================
- Epistle of Barnabas
* Clement of
Alexandria, Origen
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Shepherd of Hermas
* Irenaeus,
Tertullian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The Didache
* Clement of
Alexandria, Origen
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The Apocalypse of Peter
* Clement
of Alexandria
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The Acts of Paul
* Origen
- * Appears in Greek, Latin (5),
Syriac, Armenian, & Arabic translations
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Gospel of Hebrews
* Clement of
Alexandria
- ==================================================================================
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Muratorian Canon (c.
190)
- Excludes Hebrews, James, 1 Peter,
2 Peter
- Includes The Apocalypse of Peter,
Wisdom of Solomon
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Origen to Nicaea
(250-325)
Summary: The Catholic
epistles and Revelation are still being disputed
- Gospels, Acts, Pauline Corpus
Accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Hebrews
* Accepted in the East
- x, ? Still disputed in the West
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- James
x, ? Still disputed in the
East
- x Not accepted in the West
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1 Peter
Fairly well accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2 Peter
Still disputed
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1 John
Fairly well accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2, 3 John, Jude
Still disputed
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Revelation
Disputed, especially
in the East
- x Dionysius
**************************************************************************************************************************************
Council of Nicaea
(325)
Questions canonicity
of James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude
**************************************************************************************************************************************
From 325 to the
Council of Carthage (397)
Summary: Athanasius
first lists our present 27 New Testament books as such in 367. Disputes still persist
concerning several books, almost right up until 397, when the Canon is authoritatively
closed
- Gospels, Acts, Pauline Corpus, 1
Peter, 1 John
Accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Hebrews
Eventually accepted in
the West
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- James
Slow acceptance
- Not even quoted in the West until
around 350!
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2 Peter
Eventually accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2, 3 John, Jude
Eventually
accepted
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Revelation
Eventually accepted
- x Cyril of Jerusalem, John
Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen
- ==================================================================================
- Epistle of Barnabas
* Codex
Sinaiticus - late 4th century
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Shepherd of Hermas
* Codex
Sinaiticus - late 4th century
- Used as a textbook for catechumens
according to Athanasius
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1 Clement, 2 Clement
* Codex
Alexandrinus - early 5th century (!)
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