Religion Review (Part deux) Pgs 24-27: Divine Revelation and The Church’s Book

Early Church and Scripture: Ahh the good ol’ days… When Jesus and the early Church used the word Scripture, they meant the O.T. (Old Testament) Did they believe these scriptures (writing) to be divinely inspired? Yes.

New Testament For about the first 19 centuries of Christianity, it was also accepted that the N.T. (New Testament) was also inspired.

Teachings/Documents Church gave detailed teachings about divine inspiration at the Second Vatican Council in the year 1962 The document created issued on this is called The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. This document deals with God’s revelation of himself to us and how that revelation is transmitted through time.

Receiving Divine Revelation Two ways in which Divine Revelation comes to us: Passed on by the word of mouth, it became Tradition Recorded writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it became Scripture.

Passages Two passages presenting a clear explanation on the truth of inspiration: 2 Timothy 3: 16 and 2 Peter 1: You do not need to have the actual texts/words memorized, just need to know the passage reference.

We still cannot fully understand We can never fully understand how the Bible can be co-authored because we are dealing here with a mystery…

Explaining Holy Spirit Be able to explain briefly in your own words how the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of the Bible.

Scripture Insight (Pg 25) Be able to explain the connection of the word Inspiration and it’s meaning “to breathe.”

The Bible and truths of faith Copernicus’ theory about the movement of the Sun: Earth revolves around Sun, therefore, Sun (not earth) is the center of the universe

Why were these theories a problem? If the Bible were wrong in one area, perhaps there were other areas of error.

Truth of scripture Truth of scripture is the truth of faith, truths for our salvation. Does this mean the Bible may contain errors about other things? Yes. If so, then how can the Bible hold errors about certain things and no error in other things? The Bible teaches without error the truths we need for salvation, and not the truth about everything.

73 Books Recognized The church recognized only 73 books that we now call the bible because it was guided by the Holy Spirit

How did the church select books? The books included: 1.Sublime (unique or inspiring) quality 2.Had a special role in the faith life of church 3.Expressed the tradition and history of the church 4.Mirrored the church’s true faith and message

N.T. By the beginning of the 2 nd century, official lists of the New Testament books were being developed.

First person to mention NT The first person to use the term New Testament was the Christian author Tertullian

Canon Together the 73 books of scripture are called the canon… Canon comes from the Greek word meaning “measuring rod” This term is used because with these books, the Church can “measure” its Faith, or see if it is correct

Canon of Scripture Catholics use this term when speaking about the official list of books in the Bible.

3 things that show it is the Church’s book. The church 1.Assembled these books 2.Passed on these books, and 3.Interprets them in light of its own tradition.

Testing 1-5 (Pg 29) How does the Bible have both one author and many authors? The many authors of the Bible were its human authors. At the same time, God is the author of Scripture because all the books of the Bible and all of the words were written under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

#2 What do we mean by the “dictation theory of inspiration”? What does the church think of this theory? God dictated the to the human authors every single word of the Bible. The Catholic Church rejects this theory because God respects human beings and does not treat them like unthinking machines.

#3 What do we mean when we say that the Bible is the Church’s book? The Church chose the writings that would be part of the Bible, passed them on through centuries, and interprets them in the light of its own tradition, we say the Bible is the Church’s book.

#4 Does the fact that the Bible is an inspired book mean that it cannot contain any errors? Explain. The Church teaches that the Bible does not contain any errors about the truths of faith. However, the Bible does not teach every king of truth in the world. It is not our primary source for the truth of history or science.

#5 How did the individual books become part of the canon of Scripture? The 73 books of the canon were chosen by the Church because they had a certain sublime quality. They expressed the Church’s apostolic tradition and origin. The Church saw in them a true and necessary reflection that mirrored its own faith.