According to a report in the London Times, the Catholic Church has said that not all parts of the Bible are literally true.
The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.
The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect ?total accuracy? from the Bible.
?We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,? they say in The Gift of Scripture.
This is sure to get the Evangelicals and other fundamentalist Christians in another anti-Catholic uproar, but it really isn’t that big a change in modern Catholic doctrine. For example, the Church has taught for a long time that there is nothing inherently anti-Catholic about the Theory of Evolution. Additionally, Catholic scholars, particularly Jesuits, have been at the forefront of scientific exploration for a considerable period of time. It is literal truth wing of Protestantism that is stuck in a Middle Ages interpretation of the Bible.
In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is ?God?s word expressed in human language? and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.
They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways ?appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries?.
The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: ?We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.?
They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its ?intransigent intolerance? and to warn of ?significant dangers? involved in a fundamentalist approach.
Sounds good to me so far.
As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing.
Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of the risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ the Lamb.
The bishops say: ?Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come.?
Finally a counterbalance to the Pat Robertson’s of the world. Obviously, Benedict XVI had a big role in the release of this document and its message. I take as a good sign that the he intends to nuture the intellectual life of the Church during his Papacy.
H/T: Cafe Oregano
