Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Bible the word of God? Message-ID: Date: 19 Nov 90 08:41:56 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 117 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article I wrote > I've seen Biblical inerrancy defined by a Catholic author as the notion > that the Bible contains no mistakes in things pertaining to salvation. > The trouble with that is that as a criterion it is practically useless; I should make it clear that I was careful to say "by a Catholic author"; I have no idea what the teaching of the Catholic Church is. I suppose I should find out. In article , mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes: > It works in the context of Catholicism. The claim of the > Catholic church is that as the body ordained by Christ to carry > out His work it is in a position to decide which parts of the > Bible pertain to salvation. As you rightly point out, if this > is left entirely to individual conscience, the whole thing collapses. What _is_ the teaching of the Catholic Church on the authority of the Bible? I know that they regard the Church as essential to interpret the Bible, but _do_ they in fact regard some of it as _not_ inspired or _not_ having authority (when interpreted by the authentic church)? > Your message seems to read to me that it is only possible to be > a Protestant if one is prepared to make a huge effort and go to > the extent of considering the original Greek and Hebrew versions. > This is not too far from the Islamic insistence that > the Koran be studied only in the original Arabic Well, that's certainly not what I meant to say, and I don't think that's what I said. There is a distinction to be drawn between those people who profess to be able to tell *other* people what the Bible says and those who sit in the pews. People who profess to be able to interpret the Bible to others (and in particular people who profess to be able to show that the whole thing is unreliable) should be judged by a higher standard. Personally, I don't see it as "making a huge effort" to consider the original Greek of the NT. I've not yet learned Hebrew, but even that doesn't count as a huge effort. (I _can_ read the letters and _can_ find a passage in an interlinear and _can_ look things up in a good dictionary, it's just that I have little vocabulary and less grammar! So I'm not in a position to make interpretations of my own, but I _am_ in a position to check _some_ of the things that commentators say.) But that's beside the point. I *do* think that ministers ought to learn Hebrew and Greek. I *do* think that people who write commentaries should learn Hebrew and/or Greek (as appropriate to the text they are commenting on). I *do* think that someone who wants to argue that the Bible is full of mistakes ought to get his facts straight. But for the ordinary Christian-on-the-Clapham-omnibus, no, I don't think this is called for, and I don't recall having said that it is. Here's what I actually said: BEFORE CLAIMING THAT THERE IS A MISTAKE IN THE BIBLE, OR IN ANY DOCUMENT WHICH DID NOT ORIGINATE IN YOUR OWN TIME IN YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AS GOOD A TRANSLATION AS YOU CAN GET. THE _TRANSLATOR_ MAY BE AT FAULT, NOT THE AUTHOR. That doesn't look to me like an insistence that people study in the original languages, it looks like a recommendation to get a good translation! The Revised English Bible is a pretty good translation, and the Catholic Church in Britain had a hand in it. The New International Version, where I've checked, is very good. There are quite a few other good modern translations. > In practice, I guess that most Protestants are satisfied to > rely on the interpretation given by their pastor. This is in > itself dangerous since the pastor cannot claim any particular > authority. I was told by a Methodist minister in the USA that Methodists rely on "The Wesleyan Quadrilateral": - scripture - tradition - reason - and experience Unfortunately, her ethical teaching was not only at variance with the teaching of the Catholic Church, but at variance from the teaching of Wesley himself. She never would explain to me how come she understood the Wesleyan quadrilateral better than Wesley. I have heard of a Baptist minister in England teaching quite explicitly that you could sleep with anyone you chose to and that that wasn't "fornication". That really horrified me, because I think of myself as a Baptist. Hence the question which I really would like to see someone from the "other side" try to answer, "may Richard O'Keefe visit a legal brothel in Victoria". So yes, the danger is real. On the other hand, the Reformers argued that the Catholic Church had fallen into error on a number of points (indulgences, for example). Protestants would thus argue that the danger is not restricted to them. (I would have been an iconoclast, or at any rate an iconomach.) It's worth bearing in mind that there are Catholics saying (for example) that homosexual behaviour is wrong, and there are Catholic priests who say not only that homosexual behaviour is excellent but that people _can't_ be celibate (I have a particular book in mind in the Catholic bookshop down the road). Can _both_ of these groups be presenting the authentic message of the Holy Spirit for today with the authority of the Church? If one of these groups is right, aren't ordinary people who listen to a priest from the other camp in exactly the same kind of danger as people who listen to a Protestant pastor? Is every point of Liberation Theology taught with the full authority of the church? Luther himself was a Catholic doctor of theology and taught as a Catholic. What guarantee is there that the Catholic Church won't have other Luthers? Wasn't Arius a priest of the Church, and Nestorius a bishop? The Catholic Church may plausibly claim that it has always _overcome_ error _in the end_. But for someone sitting in a pew _this_ Sunday, it can provide no guarantee that _this_ sermon will be orthodox. -- I am not now and never have been a member of Mensa. -- Ariadne.