Basic Scripture

1. A desire for God is written into the heart of man: God has made our hearts too large, too demanding, to be filled with anything less than Him.

We begin to know Him and things about Him by reason. The Church teaches, without endorsing any particular set of proofs, that we can by reason alone be certain of His existence. And in seeing the manifold perfections of creatures, we can know that these perfections exist in the highest degree, and without alloy, in Him.

2. Even though we can know Him somewhat by reason, history shows that even the best minds make so many errors in thinking about Him. Hence He graciously has provided us with revelation about Himself. He revealed Himself to our first parents, and right after their sin, He lifted up their hope by the promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3:15. After the deluge, He made a permanent covenant with all humans. But soon He began to prepare for a fuller revelation, in choosing Abraham and his descendants. But the full revelation of Himself came in His own Son. This does not mean we do not have specific truths about that Son, and about the Father. We do of course.

Christ confided His truths to the Apostles, and commissioned them to teach others. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition come from the one source, God Himself. The Church by teaching and by its worship, perpetuates these truths about Him to every generation.

He gave to us, His people, a wonderful sense to discern what is truly revealed, so that if the whole Church, people as well as authorities, has ever accepted a thing as revealed, that belief cannot be in error. However, the task of giving an authoritative and clear interpretation of the meaning of both Scripture and Tradition He entrusted solely to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Christ.

In fact, it is only through this Church that we can know with certainty which books are inspired and contain His revelation. There are 46 sacred books of the Old Testament, and 27 of the New. The central part of these books is the Gospels, for they speak to us of His Son. These sacred books contain what He willed us to have for our salvation. This does not mean that other points may be in error in them. No, everything that is asserted by the Sacred Writers is asserted by the Holy Spirit. We need the action of that Spirit to fully understand the deposit of faith.

Since the chief Author of all of Scripture is the Holy Spirit, we cannot assume that one part of Scripture will clash with another. The unity of the divine design means that the Old Testament prepared for the New, which fulfills the Old. So, the two testaments shed light one another.

Has the Church in our times reversed many teachings about Scripture? This claim is made about the Scriptural Encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu of Pius XII, and still more about Vatican II, which is supposed to have revolutionized theology. The answer is: Definitely no. But we should see the specifics.

We are going to see the chief positive aspects of Scripture study. But first we must clear away some very serious objections.

We begin with Vatican II. The Constitution Dei verbum on Scripture had a stormy history at the Council, and was not finally approved until November 18, 1964.

The peak of the problem came on October 2, 1964, when Cardinal Koenig of Vienna rose and said that there are errors in Scripture in the matter of history. (Cf. A. Grillmeier, in H. Vorgrimler, ed. Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II,Herder & Herder, 1969, III, pp. 205-06). Sadly, many Bishops chimed in with him, and there was at least no public correction by Paul VI. Yet, the Holy Spirit was present. Really, considering the atmosphere at Vatican II, our faith in Divine Providence should be stronger, for the final documents left no trace of such unfortunate things (it is only the final texts that are divinely protected: floor speeches and debates are not protected. And the difference was evident at Vatican II, as also at the very first General Council, Nicea, in 325 AD, when about 15 Bishops denied the divinity of Christ).

We will answer every one of the specific cases Cardinal Koenig alleged presently, and also the broader charges made today in New Jerome Biblical Commentary which dares to assert, in reference to Cardinal Koenig's intervention, "pre-voting debates show an awareness of errors in the Bible" (p. 1169, 72:14 - which refers to other statements in 65:50 and 70-71 in the same vein).

But first, let us get the setting from the preface to Dei Verbum where the Council said: "Following in the footsteps of the Councils of Trent and Vatican I, [this Council] intends to present the true doctrine about divine revelation and its transmission." This of course does not fit at all with an idea of reversal of previous teaching or an acceptance of error in Scripture.

We begin with the specifics from Cardinal Koenig, and then we will meet the broader charges just mentioned. There were three cases given by the Cardinal:

1) In Mark 2:26 we read that David had entered the house of God "under the High Priest Abiathar" and eaten the bread of the Presence. But really, 1 Samuel 21:1 ff. shows that it was not under Abiathar, but under his father Abimelech (Cf. Grillmeier, p. 205).

Reply: The Greek text of Mk 2:26 has epi Abiathar archiereos. Now that Greek preposition epi when used with the genitive case of the person can readily have the generic time meaning, that is, "in the days of... ." (Cf. H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar for Colleges, American Book Co., NY, 1920, #1689, which reports such usages in various authors, e.g., Thucydides 7. 86). So the phrase really means "in the time of Abiathar". The reason for using Abiathar's name for the time period rather than that of Abimelech was that Abiathar was much more prominent and better known to readers of the Old Testament than his father, because of his close association with David under whom he became chief priest along with Zadok.

2)Matthew 27:9 says that in the fate of Judas, a prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled. Really, said Cardinal Koenig, it was Zechariah 11:12 ff. that was quoted (cf. Grillmeier, p. 205).

Reply: Even the hardly conservative original edition of the New American Bible has a note on this passage which says that Matthew's free quotation of Jeremiah 32:6-15 and Zechariah 11:13 shows that the Evangelist sees the death of Judas "as a divine judgment." Actually it was not unusual at all for the Rabbis to combine texts, and then give the name of the best known of the authors: cf. M. De Tuya, Biblia Comentada,V. Evangelios, 3d ed. Madrid, 1977, p. 441.

3)The Cardinal also charged that in Daniel 1:1 we read that King Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the third year of King Jehoiakim, which the Cardinal says was 607 B. C., whereas the authentic chronicle of the King that has been discovered shows that the siege must have taken place three years earlier (Cf. Grillmeier pp. 205-06).

Reply: If we were reading a modern historical novel about the Civil War, we would expect, and find, besides real history, also some fictional fill-ins. Finding these does not cause us to charge the author with ignorance or deception. No, that is the right way to write such a novel and we, as natives of this culture, know how to take it. There are many other patterns of writing in English, each with as it were, its own rules. But when we move into a very different culture stream, namely, ancient Semitic, it is foolish to think they used the same patterns. By accident they may at times, or may overlap. But we need to check what patterns were actually in use in that ancient culture at that time. Then and then only do we know how to take the various styles of writing. We often call these patterns literary genres. Now in Daniel, all agree there are two patterns or genres. One is apocalyptic - we will see about it later on. The other seems to be the edifying narrative. It contains much fact, but also free use of fill-ins, somewhat like what we know in the modern historical novel. The passages that one might mistakenly think were intended by the writer as our kind of history, are not such: they are the edifying narrative genre. We know for certain that such a genre was in use in the ancient Near East, e.g., in the story of Ahiqar.

Therefore, within such a framework, the author may or may not bother to observe historical precision. What is important is this question: What does he mean to assert? For example in our historical novel he does not assert that the fictional fill-ins really happened. Nor does a writer using the edifying narrative genre assert that all details are historical. In this vein, Pius XII, in his great Divino afflante Spiritu (Enchiridion Biblicum # 559) told us the ancient Semites often used more exaggeration than we do, and also, used mere approximation. No man then would ask his wife to meet him downtown at 4:15 PM. Such accurate time keeping then was out of the question.

But there is a different way, that is better. For there were two ways at that time of dating the first year of a king. In the non- accession year system the year in which a king actually began to reign was counted as his first year, even if he began to reign later in that year. In that system, the first year of Jehoiakim would be 608. This system was in use in Judah at the time (the northern kingdom had used the accession year system, but that kingdom came to an end with the fall of Samaria in 722.).

In the accession year system, the year in which the king actually began to reign was called his first year. In Babylon the accession year method was in use at this time. Thus in Babylonian reckoning the first year of Jehoiakim would be 607 and his third year would have been 605, the year of the siege of Jerusalem. So the problem vanishes if we suppose that Daniel, who was writing from Babylon, used the Babylonian system.

So any competent Scripture scholar should have known that the objections raised by Cardinal Koenig are all in vain.

We already mentioned that the New Jerome Biblical Commentary charges that Vatican II allows us to think there are all sorts of errors in Scripture: in science, in history, even in religion. Only the things needed for salvation are protected. They appeal to Dei Verbum # 11 which says: "Since, then, everything that the inspired authors or hagiographers assert should be held as asserted by the Holy Spirit, hence the books of Scripture are to be considered as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error, that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wanted to be confided to the Sacred Letters."

The writers of New Jerome Biblical Commentary focus on the clause at the end, which we have underlined. They want to say that it means that ONLY things needed for salvation are protected. There may be error in all else.

Reply: New Jerome Biblical Commentary claims the clause is restrictive, which is not impossible, but it is more normally taken as just descriptive. The charge is astounding, showing complete neglect of all normal rules of interpretation:

1) The Council itself adds notes on Dei Verbum # 11 which refer us to older documents of the Magisterium, which flatly rule out the proposal of New Jerome Biblical Commentary. First, it refers to Vatican I, Enchiridion Symbolorum 3006: "The Church holds those [books] as sacred and canonical not merely because they were approved by the Church, after being written by human efforts, nor merely because they contain revelation without error, but because since they were written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and as such, were handed down to the Church." Vatican II works most of this text into Dei Verbum #11. And Pius XII, in Divino Afflante Spiritu, said the text of Vatican I, was a "solemn definition."

Now it is completely obvious that if God is the principal author, there can be no error of any type whatsoever. New Jerome Biblical Commentary,p. 1169 comments that we now use "an a posteriori approach". An a posteriori approach is contrasted with an a priori approach. When we work a priori, we make a decision in advance, and say what we have just said: since God is the author, there of course can be no error. But the a posteriori approach would instead say: Look at the actual text and see all the errors. Thomas A. Hoffman, in an article in Catholic Biblical Quarterly,July, 1982, pp. 447-69, says Scripture is so full of errors that to try to answer them all would be "basically patching holes on a sinking ship." In fact, he says that would be a lack of faith. We wonder on what that faith is based, if Scripture is so full of errors! He adds that when it is said that Scripture is inspired it means "simply a writing in which they experienced the power, truth etc. of the Spirit of Christ. ." Shades of Calvin, who said we know a book is inspired if the Holy Spirit interiorly tells us so!

In contrast, Pius XII, in Divino afflante Spiritu, cited the words of Vatican I which Vatican II cited, and said (Enchiridion Biblicum # 538): "When certain Catholic authors, contrary to this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine... dared to restrict the truth of Holy Scripture to matters of faith and morals... our predecessor of immortal memory, Leo XIII, in the Encyclical, Providentissimus Deus... rightly and properly refuted those errors." So Pius XII, in an Encyclical greatly praised by the leftists, called the statement of Vatican I, that God is the Author of Scripture, which Vatican II quoted, a solemn definition. So the New Jerome Biblical Commentary would ask us to think that Vatican II intended to contradict a solemn definition - and even referred us to that definition and quoted it!

Ironically such charges are made today when finally we have the new techniques that allow us to handle successfully charges of error which earlier in this century were insoluble. We will give some presentation of those techniques in this book. For more details, cf. Wm. G. Most, Free From All Error,Prow Books, Libertyville, IL, 2d ed. 1990.

Dei Verbum # 11 also refers us to other older texts of the Magisterium, with the same general thought. Especially significant are the words of Leo XIII (Enchiridion Biblicum 124):"It is altogether not permitted to either limit inspiration to only some parts of Sacred Scripture, or to say that the sacred author himself was in error. Nor is the method tolerable which, to get out of the difficulties just mentioned, does not hesitate to say that divine inspiration pertains to matters of faith and morals and nothing more... For all the books, the complete books, which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, were written, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit. It is so far from possible that any error could underlie divine inspiration that it of itself not only excludes any error, but excludes and rejects it as necessarily as it is necessary to say that God, the Supreme Truth, is the author of no error at all." A clearer and flatter rejection of the theory of New Jerome Biblical Commentary could hardly be imagined -- yet Vatican II, in the very same passage, Dei Verbum # 11, refers us to this passage along with others!

2) We notice the words of Dei Verbum # 11 on genre, for it said -in words underlined in our quotation of the statement - that everything asserted by the human writer is also asserted by the Holy Spirit. When we explained genre briefly in answering Cardinal Koenig, we stressed that word assert. Not everything in a text is asserted by the Holy Spirit or the human writer. For example in the edifying narrative genre, some fill-in details are not asserted. Similarly, in a modern historical novel, the writer asserts that the mainline is history, and that the background descriptions fit the time. But the fill-ins are not asserted to be true. But whatever things are asserted, are asserted by the Holy Spirit, and so are free from every kind of error.

By observing this qualification, we can easily see that no error at all, of any kind, is possible.

With this approach - plus that of form and redaction criticism, which we will see after a bit - things that seem like errors can all be solved. Early in the 20th century, and before, Scripture scholars, both Catholic and Protestant, were well aware of many problems in Scripture, things that seemed like errors or contradictions. They could solve some problems; but many they could not. Yet they were men of faith, and lived and died saying: Even if we cannot find the answer, there must be one. Today thanks to great progress in techniques, we can solve the problems they could not solve. So it is strangely ironic that at the very time when we have the means to solve the formerly insoluble problems, so many today are claiming it is all hopeless. In fact, they say some things are hopeless whose solution was known before, e.g., as to the seeming contradictions in the three accounts of St. Paul's conversion in Acts, it is said that in 9:7 the men with Paul heard the voice, but saw no one, while in 22:9 it says they saw the light but did not hear the voice. The answer is so easy: in Greek, akouein has a broad span of meaning - so does English listen - so it can mean to perceive a sound, or to perceive it and also understand it (cf. John 12. 28-29). Again it is noted that in 26:14 the men all fell to the ground, while in 9:7 it says they stood amazed. One needs no Greek to solve this one: first they fall to the ground, but as soon as they could, scrambled to their feet and stood in amazement.

Our conclusion thus far: Vatican II is not guilty of the charge of contradicting earlier documents.

We have just seen a false notion of inspiration as proposed in New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Now we should see what the true doctrine is.

Athenagoras, an apologist of the second century, said the Holy Spirit used the human writer, "as if a flutist breathed into his flute" (Legation for the Christians 9). Not much later, around 181 A. D., St. Theophilus of Antioch wrote (To Autolycus 2. 10): "Moses... or rather, the Word of God, who used him as an instrument, said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth. '"

These texts imply that God Himself is the chief Author. A more explicit statement found in the Ancient Statutes of the Church (Enchiridion Symbolorum 325: 5th-6th century) says the one who is to be ordained Bishop should be asked, "if he believes that God is the one and same author of the New and Old Testament."

Vatican I (Enchiridion Symbolorum 3006) taught: "The Church considers them [the books of Scripture] sacred and canonical, not that they were written by mere human diligence and then approved by her authority, nor only that they contain revelation without error, but because being written with the Holy Spirit inspiring them, they have God as their author, and as such were handed down to the Church herself."

We notice Vatican I was rejecting two theories of inspiration: 1)It is not enough to say the books were produced by mere human labor and then approved by the Church. Then God could not be said to be their author. This was the old error of Sixtus of Siena in the 16th century. 2) Nor is it enough to say Scripture contains no error. That too would not be enough to let us say God is the author. So there is more.

Pius XII in Divino afflante Spiritu (Enchiridion Biblicum 556-- to which a note on Dei Verbum # 11 refers us) wrote: "The sacred writer in producing the sacred book is the organon, that is, the instrument of the Holy Spirit, an instrument living and endowed with reason... He, working under inspiration, still uses his own faculties and powers in such away that all can easily gather from the book he produces 'the proper character, and as it were, the individual lines and characteristics, '" of the human writer (internal quote is from Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus of 1920, Enchiridion Biblicum 448).

This does not mean that God dictated the words as one would do to a shorthand stenographer. Then the human being could not also be called the author. And what could we do with the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:14-18? First Paul says he is glad he baptized only Crispus and Gaius. Then he adds - as his memory wakes up in stages - that he also baptized the household of Stephanas. Still further, he adds that he is not sure if he baptized any others. So clearly, this could not fit with a stenographic dictation theory - such a theory was generally given up by the end of the 19th century.

We really have a remarkable picture. God can so employ the human writer as His instrument that the writer will write all that God wills, and do so without any error, but yet retain his own literary style and grammatical ability.

If we ask precisely how this can be, we must take refuge in divine transcendence, that is, we know He is above and beyond all our categories and classifications.

To illustrate we think of the question of how God knows things. We humans know things in either the active or the passive mode. In the passive mode, we receive, we take on an impression from outside, gaining something new. But God cannot be passive, nor can He lack anything. In the active mode: if a blind man is pushing a chair, he knows the chair is moving only because he is pushing it. But we must not make God like a blind man.

Some have wanted even so to say God knows things only by causing them. It is true, He does cause all things. But St. Thomas Aquinas does not limit His manner of knowing to that. Several times over, St. Thomas deals with the problem of how God can know a future free decision, for example, one I will make tomorrow at 10 AM. There are no causes lined up, which will, as it were intersect at 10 AM and cause me to make that decision. Then it would not be free. Further, the decision has not yet been made, and so it is non-existent.

St. Thomas explains (e.g., in Contra gentiles 1. 67; De Veritate 2. 12. c.; and Compendium theologiae 1, 133 # 272) that God's duration is eternity - a life in which there is no change at all. We creatures who live in time see ahead of us a moment we call future - it quickly changes to present - then to past. But since God cannot change, there is no past or future for Him. (Here is another case of transcendence. We say He made the world - a past statement. But to His eternal mind, creation is present. Again, we say Christ will return at the end - but to God, that too is present).

To return to our question. God can know my decision - which is future to me - because eternity makes it present to Him. Viewed as future, it would be non-existent, and so, unknowable. But in the present, it is knowable. However, St. Thomas always stops at precisely this point in making such explanations. He never goes on to say how God knows the thing, once it is present to Him. If St. Thomas really meant that God knows the future decision because He intends to cause it - there would be no need to go into the long explanation about His eternity making the thing present. Thomas would merely say: He knows it because He intends to cause it.

So we again appeal to His transcendence when we say He is the Chief Author, and the human author is a real author too, with his own style, but yet God causes the human to write all that He wills, and to do so without any error whatsoever.

Now that we know what inspiration is in general, it is obvious we need to ask which books are inspired. For in the first centuries there were many so-called Gospels in circulation in addition to the four we recognize, with the names of Apostles on them. So we ask: How can we tell which is which?

We must not start out by saying: Ask the Church. For there could be a vicious circle: believe the Church because the Gospels say so - believe the Gospels because the Church says so.

To avoid such irrationality, we will indeed start with the Gospels, but we will not at the start look on them as inspired. That is something still to be proved. Rather, we look on them at first as merely ancient documents. There is no doubt they are such.

We ask first: has the text come down to us substantially correctly? Textual Criticism deals with this problem. It is especially easy with the Gospels. In the case of pagan works, e.g., Julius Caesar's wars, there is a gap of nearly 1000 years between the copy he wrote or dictated, and the oldest manuscript we have. But for the Gospels the gap is far less. The Sinai and Vatican Codices each date from around 350 A. D. We have others, the Alexandrian Codex and the Codex Bezae from around 400 A. D. We can narrow even this small gap. We have papyri giving parts of the New Testament. The Chester Beatty Papyrus II comes from the early 200s, and includes most of the Epistles of St. Paul. Bodmer Payprus P 75 also comes from around 200, and has parts of Luke and John.

There are major new finds. In the library of Magdalen College, Oxford there are three small fragments of St. Matthew's Gospel. Carsten Thiede by careful paleographic analysis dates them to the 60s AD. (in: Eyewitness to Jesus,Doubleday, 1996). There is also a smaller fragment found at Qumran that is said to be from Mark.

There are other checks too. The Old Syriac and Old Latin versions go back to at least the late 100s. The Coptic and Sahidic versions come from the early 200s. Besides, the Fathers of the Church were quoting Scripture still earlier.

But really, no scholar at all worries about the accuracy of our texts, for the variations between the manuscripts are mostly trifling. They surely have no effect at all on the six key points we are going to be using soon.

A sad mistake was made by the famous scholar Norman Perrin of the University of Chicago. In his Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus,p.26 he claimed "No ancient texts reflect the attitudes of the modern western world." He clearly had not read much if anything of the ancient historians of Greece and Rome. From 5th century BC. Herodotus (Preface 1) and Thucydides (1.22) and Roman Livy (7.6.6) and Tacitus, Annals 1.1) and numerous others we see that their chief aim was to record facts. They added interpretations more than we do, but there is no harm in that. They also includes speeches, which we do not do. But Thucydides explains he tried to get the actual text or at least he wrote what seemed to fit. Since he so honestly tells us this, we need not be deceived. Modern historians would give Thucydides and Tacitus an "A" for facts (some think Tacitus is rather hard on Tiburius-- which is debated today). Livy and Herodotus would rate a B.

Next we ask what genre of writing the Gospels are. It is evident, they mean to give facts about Jesus, plus interpretations for the sake of faith. This is the sort of writing we would expect, in the Jewish factual tradition.

The objection arises: can we tell the facts from the interpretations? Is there any such thing as an uninterpreted report? The answer is: Many times it is very possible. We need two conditions.

First the item in question should not be entangled with an ancient culture, which might be hard to reconstruct. (Really this is hardly worth a mention, for the Hebrew culture is known so well).

Second, some happenings are such that anyone present could pick up the facts with eyes and ears, with no possibility of damage from bias. For example, a leper stands before Jesus asking to be healed. He says: I will it: be healed. Someone could fake the whole thing, but other than that, there is no room for any effect from bias.

Would someone fake the basic facts about Jesus? Definitely no: the first Christians believed their eternal fate depended on knowing about Him.

Someone will say: Muslims and others die for their beliefs. True, but that proves only sincerity. In addition, we must see whether they have the facts. Muhammed went into a cave, claimed revelations there. But there is no check whatsoever on it.

So we must ask now: could the Evangelists have access to the facts? Very definitely yes: (1)The First Epistle of Clement to Corinth is dated about 95 A. D. The writer says Peter and Paul were of his own generation - that is obvious, for Peter and Paul died around 66 AD. Clement became Pope in either 88 or 92. We would expect he was around to hear them - as were countless others still living later. (2)Quadratus, the earliest Greek apologist, wrote around 123 AD. He says that in his day, some were still alive who had been cured by Jesus or raised from the dead by Him. This need not be as late as 123 of course. But it would surely cover the period 80-90 when leftists think Matthew and Luke wrote (they think Mark wrote a bit before 70). (3)Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis c. 130, and also the Antimarcionite Prologues (late 2nd century) and St. Irenaeus (died c 200) all report Mark wrote from the preaching of Peter. Even Martin Hengel of the University of Tubingen - the source from which so many unsound critical and rationalistic views have come -- believes these reports about Mark. There are still other sources, but let us mention merely this: Jesus died around 30 or 33 AD. A person then in his/her teens would be about 65 by the year 80, the period when some think Matthew and Luke wrote. So there would be some still alive - as Quadratus said - who had heard Jesus in person.

Up to this point we are able to gather this: The Gospels should be able to give us at least a few of the very simple facts - not enmeshed with an ancient culture, and such that there is no room for bias in the report unless there was complete fakery, which their concern for their eternity ruled out. So we look for and find six facts, all of which match this description:

1)There was a man called Jesus. This is obvious from all over the Gospels. We have even pagan evidence. Tacitus, a Roman historian admired by modern critics, comments in connection with Nero's persecution (Annals 15. 44): "The author of this name, Christ, was executed during the reign of Tiberius, by the procurator Pontius Pilate."

2) He claimed He was sent by God, as a sort of messenger. This is evident all over the Gospels. He often demanded belief in Himself as a condition for a cure.

3)He did enough to prove He was such a messenger not just by working miracles, but miracles done in a framework where there is a tie between the miracle and His claim, e.g., when He healed the paralytic let down through the roof to prove He had forgiven the man's sins. As to the miracles themselves - not even His enemies in His own day denied them - they just said He did them by the devil or magic. (Incidentally, His miracles are in continuity with the scientifically checked miracles of Lourdes, many worked when the Blessed Sacrament passed in procession. This implies an abiding, not just a transient Real Presence there - which no other church claims is true).

4)We would expect this item: In the crowds He had a smaller group to whom He spoke more.

5)We would also expect this: He told them to continue His work, His teaching. We cannot imagine God sending a messenger with such power for just one generation.

6)Again, knowing He is a messenger sent from God, and seeing His power so often, we are not surprised when He promises God will protect their teaching: "He who hears you hears me" (Luke 10:16). We notice that although He identifies with the poor as poor, in this case He identifies with His teachers as His teachers. Again: "If he will not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican" (Mt. 18. 17).

Now, after this process, in which we did not appeal to faith at all, we have before us a group - we could call it a Church - commissioned to teach by a messenger sent from God, and promised God's protection on that teaching. Now it is not only intellectually permissible, but mandatory - if we have followed the reasoning - to believe what the group/Church says. It can then tell us which books are inspired, it can tell us that the Messenger is divine; it can tell us there is a Pope, and what authority he has. It can tell us many more things about the Gospels, so we do not have to fight our way through numerous incidents questioned by critics. We have made, with the six simple facts, a bypass around all their worries.

We notice that there is no other way to determine which books are inspired. Luther thought if a book preached justification by faith strongly, it was inspired. But he did not prove that was the standard, and further, he could write such a book, and so could I, and it would not be inspired. John Calvin thought we know which books are inspired by the interior testimony of the Spirit (Institutes I. 7). But that is hopelessly subjective.

There is no doubt that the great Scriptural Encyclical of Pius XII, Divino afflante Spiritu, issued in 1943, was and has been a great encouragement and help to Scripture study. But was it a real turn-about, so that Wilfred Harrington was right in saying (The New Guide to Reading and Studying the Bible, Enlarged Edition, Glazier,Wilmington, 1984, p. 32) that "the effect of that document had changed Roman Catholic biblical studies beyond recognition."

A major claim is that it was formerly forbidden to use the approach via literary genres - some prominent scholars had been disciplined for being rather free.

First a word about disciplinary actions - for we must carefully distinguish such decrees from doctrinal decrees. Yes, some scholars did suffer, but the reason was the need for precautions against two things: the new teaching of evolution, and the widespread heresy of Modernism.

When Darwin first proposed evolution, it shook the faith of many, both Catholic and Protestant. For although the Church had never taught a crude or fundamentalistic view of the creation account in Genesis, so many thought it had done so. In the minds of many, there was a tie-in, such that if they accepted evolution, the whole faith would be gone. That never was true, but the fact that people thought so, created a danger. We think of the story of a little boy who came and said: "Mommy, I just found out there is no Santa Claus. And I am going to look into this little Jesus story too!" Today, now that that psychological danger is gone, the Church no longer hinders writings on evolution, as Pope Pius XII explicitly said in Humani generis, in 1950 (Enchiridion Symbolorum 3896): "The Magisterium of the Church does not forbid that the theory of evolution... be investigated and discussed by experts in both science and theology... they are rash and go too far who act as if the origin of the human body from preexisting and living matter... were certain and fully proved."

But at first there was the great danger mentioned. Hence there was need of disciplinary action, to protect the faith of the many, until the passage of time would remove the bad psychology. A fundamentalist view would say that God made the world in 6 times 24 hours, that there were only 4000 years before Christ, that God literally made a clay statue and breathed upon it, and similar things. In others words, such people neglect the lesson of literary genres. They do not ask what is the genre of Genesis 1-3. It is actually an ancient story, made up to serve as a vehicle for teaching some things that really happened, chiefly: God made all things, in some special way He made the first pair (we leave room for possible theistic evolution, one that sees the need of God's intervention every time higher being appears), that He gave them some command (we do not know if it was about a fruit tree - that may be stage dressing in the story, something not asserted), that they violated His orders and fell from favor (= lost grace and so did not have it to pass on to their children). Pius XII in the Encyclical Humani generis,in 1950 wrote (Enchiridion Symbolorum 3898) that, "the first chapters of Genesis, even though they do not strictly match the pattern of historical writing used by the great Greek and Roman writers of history, or of historians of our times, yet in a certain true sense - which needs further study -do pertain to the genre of history." We have just suggested in what way they do pertain to history, namely, in that they report things that really happened, through the vehicle of a story.

Had the Church once taught a fundamentalistic view? First, to retell the story of Genesis in the same or similar words, does not amount to an interpretation. But further, the Fathers of the first centuries seldom tried to find what the ancient author really meant to say (=asserted). We comment that the words "literal sense" have two meanings, one which we have just indicated, which tries to find what the author meant to assert, taking into account genre, differences of language and culture etc. The other would treat the text as though written by a modern American and ignore genre and all such things. The Fathers instead preferred allegory, in which one thing stands for another. When they did seek the proper literal sense, they often were not at all fundamentalistic. For example, St. Augustine, in his De Genesi ad Litteram 6. 12. 20 (Literal Sense of Genesis) wrote: "That God made man with bodily hands from the clay is an excessively childish thought, so that if Scripture had said this, we should rather believe that the writer used a metaphorical term, than to suppose God is bounded by such lines of limbs as we see in our bodies." St. John Chrysostom made a similar comment on the episode of the creation of Eve from Adam's rib in Genesis 2:21-22. He said, in his Homily on Genesis 22. 21: "See the condescendence [adaptation to human weakness] of divine Scripture, what words it uses because of our weakness. 'And He took', it says, 'one of his ribs.' Do not take what is said in a human way, but understand that the crassness of the words fits human weakness." St. John did not suggest what was the sober way to take the text. A fine suggestion was made by Pope John Paul II in his Audience of November 7, 1979. He said putting Adam to sleep could stand for a return to the moment before creation, so that man might reemerge in his double unity as male and female.

What of the claim that the approach via literary genres had once been forbidden? It is not really true. On June 23, 1905, the Biblical Commission gave a reply: "Can that be accepted as a principle of sound interpretation which holds that some books of Scripture that are considered as historical - partly or totally - do not at times, give history strictly and objectively so called, but instead, have just the appearance of history, so as to convey something other than a strict literal or historical sense of the words?" The reply was: "No, except in the case in which when the sense of the Church does not oppose it, and subject to the judgment of the Church, it is proved by solid arguments that under the appearance and form of history, the sacred author intended to give a parable, an allegory, or a sense differing from the properly literal or historical sense of the words." In the case of evolution, there was danger from a false psychology. In the case of literary genres, there was danger from Modernism, which radically reinterpreted everything, so that Pius X called it the synthesis of all heresies. So the Church needed to be careful while the danger was fresh. Yet even at the start, the reply of the Biblical Commission did not really forbid the use of the genre approach, it merely insisted on careful scholarship, restricting the genre approach to things not against the sense of the Church, and requiring evidence for the genre used.

Later, when the danger seemed to have abated, Pius XII could positively encourage that which the Commission had only gingerly allowed. Even today Vatican II insists on careful scholarship, says that all must be subject to the Magisterium (Dei Verbum #10) and adds that one must watch for the sense of the Church and "the analogy of faith (Dei Verbum # 12) - see if a proposal fits with the whole body of teachings of the Church.

In addition, some say that the early decrees of the Pontifical Biblical Commission were mostly reversed: those decrees had said: a) Moses was substantially the author of the Pentateuch (first five books of Old Testament), b) That the early chapters of Genesis were historical, c) That there was only one author for the book of Isaiah, d) That Matthew was the first Gospel, e) That Luke and Acts were written in the 60s, f) That Paul was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Let us look carefully at the evidence for each point. But let us say at the outset that who was the author of a book of Scripture is not a matter of faith, but of history. Even so, let us look at the claims:

a)Mosaic authorship of Pentateuch: The Biblical Commission said on June 27, 1906 it was permissible to hold "that the work, conceived by [Moses] under divine inspiration, was entrusted to another or to several to be written... and that finally the work done in this way and approved by the same Moses as the leader and inspired author was published." The original (1968) edition of Jerome Biblical Commentary (I. p. 5) said: "Moses is at the heart of the Pentateuch, and can, in accord with the common acceptance of the ancient period, correctly be called its author." The ancient usage in mind is this: rights of authorship were not well respected. Some later person might change or add, and leave it under the name of the original author.

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary has pulled back from this position. It is believed by many that the Pentateuch was put together out of four basic documents: Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly Code, and Deuteronomist - hence the name JEPD for the Documentary Theory. But that Documentary theory is not proved. Joseph Blenkinsopp of Notre Dame in his review of R. N. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch (Journal For Study of Old Testament Supplement 5. Sheffield, 1987) wrote (Catholic Biblical Quarterly Jan. 1989, pp. 138-39): "It is widely known by now that the documentary hypothesis is in serious trouble, with no viable alternative yet in sight." He continues saying that Whybray has easily shown the fragility of many of the arguments given for the theory, sometimes requiring an unreasonable level of consistency within the sources, at other times not. Further, Newsweek of Sept. 28, 1981, p. 59 reported that Yehuda Radday, coordinator of the Technion Institute in Israel, fed the Hebrew text of Genesis into a computer, and concluded: "It is most probable that the book of Genesis was written by one person."

So we cannot be sure Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch in the ancient sense.

b)Historical nature of the first chapters of Genesis: We already cited Pius XII saying that in some way the first eleven chapters pertain to history, even though not a history of the type written by the great Greek and Roman writers, or by modern writers. We take this to mean that the literary genre is such that by the vehicle of a story, things that really happened substantially are conveyed. We add now that the theory of evolution is far from proved even today. The Research News section of Science, November 21, 1980 gives a long report on a conference held at the Field Museum in Chicago, of geologists, paleontologists, ecologists, population geneticists, embryologists, and molecular biologists. The majority of the 160 participants decided Darwin was wrong, in the sense that the fossil record does not show the intermediate forms Darwin supposed. So they - still not willing to abandon evolution - thought up a new theory of "punctuated equilibria" according to which a species might stay the same for millions of years, and then by some fluke, a much higher form, in the same type, would appear. If they had evidence that this actually happened, the research report did not mention it. The closest one could find to that would be the Grand Canyon, in which there are high vertical layers exposed, with simple organisms such as Trilobites down below, more and more complex things as one goes higher. But there was no proof that any of the higher ones simply came from the lower. It would take great faith - without basis -to suppose that. If one uses the mathematics of factorials to calculate the chances of such a fluke, the odds against it are enormous.

c)One Isaiah: It is now common to say that the Book of Isaiah had two or even three authors. The reasons given are these: first Isaiah threatens disaster, second Isaiah is addressed to exiles in Babylon; Jerusalem has been deserted. Second Isaiah mentions the dynasty of David, but transfers its privileges to the whole people (55:3-5). In Third Isaiah, Israel is back again in her own land and the problems spoken of in chapters 1-39 are no longer present. Similarly, the tone varies in the three parts - from threats - to sorrow - to consolation.

It is quite possible that there were three authors, for this is a problem of history, not of faith. However, the arguments given are inadequate. One Isaiah could have been given a prophetic vision to see the exile and the return. Really, the Deuteronomic pattern (threat, punishment, rescue) alone would suggest that, for it too moved from threat to punishment, to restoration. One wonders: was this theory of several authors originally motivated by the conviction that there can be no real prophecies?

d)Matthew's Priority: For long most scholars have held that Mark wrote first. That consensus is now weakening, several major works have called it into doubt. For example: W. R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem (Dillsboro, 1976); Bernard Orchard: Matthew, Luke and Mark,(Manchester, 1977); E. P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge, 1969); John M. Rist, On the Independence of Matthew and Mark (Cambridge, 1978); Hans- Herbert Stoldt, History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothesis (Edinburgh, 1980). The ancient witnesses put Matthew first. However, they were thinking of the Hebrew Matthew. We do not know the relation of our Greek Matthew to the Hebrew. In any case, it is a respectable opinion today, gaining in support, to deny that Mark wrote first.

The reasons for putting Mark first are not solid. They say that the prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, is not as clear, chiefly in 13:14, as it might have been. So Mark wrote before 70. But then they think that Matthew and Luke used Mark - since there is so much material similar in all three at many points: but this does not prove which of the three wrote first. Further, they say, Matthew and Luke are rather clear about the fall of Jerusalem, and so must have written after it happened. Luke even speaks of an army surrounding Jerusalem.

The reasoning is very weak. In ancient sieges, an army always surrounded a city. As to Matthew, he is clearly so fond of reporting fulfillments of prophecies, he could hardly have refrained from mentioning the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus about that fall if he had written after it happened.

There is also the claim that Matthew seems not to know the debate which St. Paul had with the Judaizers, in which he insisted we are free from the law, while Jesus said (Mt. 5:17) that He came not to destroy but to fulfill. But there is a good explanation. First, Matthew had a different purpose from Paul's. Secondly, if we get the setting, we will see how it all happened. Some Judaizers said that Christ is not enough - one must also keep the law. Paul naturally replied that Christ is sufficient, we need not keep the law. But he also made clear to all but Luther that if one violates the law he is lost: 1 Cor 6. 9-10; Gal 5:19-21; Rom 3:31; Eph 5:5. Luther did not know what Paul meant by the word faith, and thought it meant just the conviction that the merits of Christ count for him ("taking Christ as personal Savior"). After that, as Luther wrote to Melanchthon in Epistle 501: "Even if you sin greatly believe more greatly." The volume, Justification by Faith: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII, eds. H. G. Anderson, T. A. Murphy, J. A. Burgess (Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1985) ## 24 & 29 admits that poor Luther was scrupulous, he thought he was in mortal sin all or most of the time. He found peace only by thinking it made no difference if he did sin mortally. He could be all right if he just had faith that Christ had paid for his sins. But St. Paul meant something quite different by faith, as even the Protestant Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible,Supplement, p. 333 admits. If God speaks a truth, faith will believe mentally; if God makes a promise, faith will have confidence; if God gives an order, faith will obey (cf. "obedience of faith: Rom 1:5). All of this is to be done in love. Now, how could faith dispense one from obedience, as Luther thought, when obedience is an essential element of faith!

Briefly, Jesus said we must become like little children to enter heaven. Paul said if we break the law we will not inherit. We inherit as children of our Father and coheirs with Christ (Rom 8:17). So Jesus and Paul taught the same. For one who believes in the fact that the same Holy Spirit is the chief author of all books of Scripture, no difficulty at all could arise.

e)Luke and Acts written in the 60s: Objectors also claim Luke must have written late, and did not know Paul because St. Paul, who was supposed to be present at the Council of Apostles in Jerusalem, according to Acts 15, seemed not to know of its decree, found in Acts 15:28-29 which said people were free from the Mosaic law, but yet asked them to do a few things, including abstention from food sacrificed to idols. Yet Paul in 1 Cor. chapter 8 said they could eat such meat, unless there would be scandal. But the answer is simple: If the Vatican today sends an order to the Bishops of some one area, it holds only in that area, not outside it. So Paul did preach the decree within the area to which it was sent, Syria and Cilicia (cf. Acts 16:4. For more details on the agreement of Acts and Paul's Epistles, cf. Wm. G. Most, Free From All Error, Libertyville, Il, 1990, chapter 18).

f)Paul as author of the Epistle to the Hebrews: There were considerable doubts about Pauline authorship even in the first centuries. It as about the 4th century before the West accepted it, though the East did so earlier. The June 24, 1914 reply of the Biblical Commission asked (Enchiridion Biblicum 418) whether it was necessary to say that Paul gave it its present form. The answer was, "No. subject to further judgment of the Church." The first two parts of the same reply spoke more strongly in favor of Paul's authorship, so that the third only said we are not sure Paul gave it its present form.

The chief difficulty against Pauline authorship is the style. But anyone who has ever read Tacitus' historical works in the original Latin, and has also compared them with his Dialogue on Orators will never be moved much by stylistic differences. The style of Tacitus in his historical works is highly distinctive, even pungent. It is day and night different from that of the Dialogue. Yet other arguments have convinced practically all scholars that it really is by Tacitus.

It is easy enough to conclude that while the Encyclical of Pius XII was a real impetus it was not a revolution, and surely did not reverse any previous doctrinal positions. We add that it encouraged translations from the original languages. There had been a misunderstanding from the fact that the Council of Trent had declared the Vulgate "authentic". It meant merely that it was a proper base for religious discussion. It did not mean to forbid translations from the original.

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