1.
The Church considers the
Bible with its two testaments as ‘word of God’ and so as an infallible norm.
Bible
Ø The
word ‘bible’ comes from
the Latin word ‘Biblia’ or from Greek word ‘Biblos’ and it means ‘BOOKS’
(in the plural ‘ta biblia’ is singular i.e. book)
o
That it is
1) the book , 2) the book of books 3) the great book
o
The plural form suggests that it is a
LIBRARY OF BOOKS
Composition:
In OT – 46
In
NT – 27 Totally 73 books.
Testament
Ø The
very word ‘testament’ come from the Latin ‘Testamentum’, which was chosen to
translate the Biblical Idea of ‘Covenant’.
Ø The
‘ADJECTIVES’ Old and New indicate the TIME of composition of the book
Ø What
unites OT and NT is the promise and the fulfilment of Jesus
Word of God
How does bilbebecome the
word of God?
Ø Firstly,
how does bible becomes the ‘word of God’? it is the word of God, because it is
of APOSTOLIC ORIGIN and it has to it 3 key elements . i.e. a. revealed b. inspired c. inerrant
Ø REVEALED
: As ‘divine revelation’ it is word of God in the words of humans.
Ø INSPIRED:
the Latin word ‘inspiro’ means to breathe into’ or ‘blow into’. So inspiration
means that God breathes into human minds the ideas to be written down.
Therefore, subjects, humans are called ‘inspired’ and these humans choose
words, idioms, of the time to verbalize those ideas.
Ø So
2 CONSEQENCES OF INSPIRATION are
o
The bible become the word of God
o
It become the source and NORMATIVE for
Christian Theology and spiritual growth
Ø There
are 3 NT texts which tell us that the OT texts are important.
o
2 Tim 3, 16-17: ‘all scripture is inspired
by God; and is useful for teaching, for reproof for correction, and for
training in righteousness.
o
2 Pet 1, 19-21 ‘…so prophecy and scripture
is a matter of one’s own interpretation …. Because no prophecy ever came by
human will, but MEN AND WOMEN MOVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT SPOKE FROM GOD.
o
2 Pet 3, 15-16 this refers to the Pauline
corpus as being on par with the Jewish scriptures.
Ø Ø ‘Word
of God’, refers not only to words but also the deeds – it refers to Dabar
Yahweh – mighty acts of God.
Ø In
OT through the mighty acts of God, he liberated the people from Egypt/slavery.
Infalliable Norm = It is normative.
Bible can be looked at
from 2 different angles.
a. dogmatic perspective : What does the community say
about the bible.it is teh faith perspective.
b. Literary Historical perspective ; we read the
biblliterature.e like any other
Looking at the bible from the dogmatic / faith perspective we say Bible is normative
2.
Yet as literature, the bible is subject to the norms of literary form and
redaction criticism, which govern the interpretation of any literature (ND 236)
§ Pope
Pius XII allowed and in Divine Afflanto
Spiritu(1943) - OT
§ Pope
Paul VI allowed in Santa Mater Eccelsia
- NT
Method: Techniques
Historical Critical Method is a scientific way of
reading any literature
Criticism are techniques used to interpret literature
1. Textual – to explore and find authentic
text.
2. Redaction how scripture is collected and
edited tradition.
3. Literary – explores relationship bet the
sources. ex. JEDP or MT, Mk, Lk, Jn
4. Form – how text developed during oral
tradition.
Ø
Form =
units. Text developed in units.
3 things to remember about oral tradition –
·
Resurrection
·
Need
of the community
·
Biblical
language historical – we go back in time – through time we go back to see which
is the original.
3.
And so it is subject to the limitations of
human authorship and transmission. Thus the bible is the ‘word of God’ in the
words of humans.
Collected
and edited – so scripture is
subject to the limitation of the human authorship and transmission.
Here we bring both dogmatic and scientific dimensions
together. It is a word of god in the words of Humans.
Experience
o God can be genuine where as its expression might be deficient.
It’s infalliable norm because God is teh author.
Vat II says – ‘ Human author is teh true author. Therefore words of men.
So Vat I &II create a dilemma. how do we come out of this dilemma?
We explain this through 3 theories.
a.
Dictatiton theory : God dictated and human
wrote. Problem with the dictation theory is errors (historical and scientific).
Ex: book of Joshua.
b.
Instrumental
theory – man is chosen as the instrument. Therefore mist ake
can be explained. Problems -allusive authorship. Here one peron is not writing.
Scripture – has community is the author as its collected and edited tradition.
c. Ecclesia Charism Theory
of Karl Rahner
§ He
said ‘God calls into being the Church as an eschatological community of
salvation by a special act of God’s will. Therefore, God is its author.
[eschatological= definitive/ once and for all; special act= not merely
transcendental]
§ God
will the church as a historical community, and therefore, wills the apostolic
Church as NORMATIVE. [i.e. like a baby which has the constitutive elements of a
future adult]
§ God
will the NT as the constitutive element
of the Apostolic Church.( i.e. the apostolic church becomes the normative
through the scriptures)
§ God
wills the OT as the pre-history of the CHRIST EVENT. (in other words the OT is
the living context of Jesus’ experience)
Inerrancy
Since there is human contribution in
the writings of the Bible, there may be limitations of the knowledge (Ex.
Errors with regard to history, geography, science….). BUT THERE IS NO ERROR WITH
REGARD TO THE SALVIFIC TRUTH IN THE BIBLE. This is affirmed in the ‘Dei Verbum’
and also in ‘providentissimus Deus’.
·
Being aware of the historical and
scientific errors, we say “ Bible contains truths concerning salvation without
error.
·
Therefore in this soteriologial sense –
there is no error- with regard to the salvific truth. That is with regard to the faith and morls (
DV II).
4. Internal and external pressures led the
church to establish and fix the canon in a process that covered about four
centuries.
A. Internal pressures:
Jewish Christians were thrown out of the
Synagogue and had lost their identity. Hence they felt the need to establish a
charter which would restore their identity.
B. External pressure:
There was flooding of all sorts of
literature; apocryphal, Gnostic literature etc. So the church chose to close
the canon. They took four centuries because they had to arrive at a consensus
between east and the wet. (The OT Canon
was accepted much more easily than the NT).
·
The western church had problems with
‘letter to the Hebrew’, because the authorship of Paul was under question.
·
The Eastern Church questioned the books of
revelation because the ‘Chiliasts’ heresy seemed
to be based on it.
·
In
general to safeguard the identity of the community they had to come out with
the canon.
Principles for fixing the
canon were:
§ Apostolic
origin
§ Wide
liturgical use in the different local churches
§ Whether
the book has as its core the ‘Paschal mystery of Christ’
Canon
Ø Literally meant a ‘reed’ and hence later, metaphorically
a ‘measuring rod’. And finally it came to be meaning a ‘norm’ or also simply a
list.
Ø When applies to sacred scripture it means either, a
rule or norm for right believing of and right living or a list of
inspired books.
5.
Being the constitution and the character of
the church, the canon may not be tampered with by way of additions or excisions
(ND 210, 211, 212, 213)
§
Constitution
is one that gives identity.
§
Moment
of birth gives identity. Identity comes at the moment of birth.
§
Christianity
took birth during apostolic church.
§
It is
this apostolic church which is expressed in the form of a scripture gives an
identity. Therefore scripture becomes constitution. It cannot be tampered.
§
If we do that then the identity changes.
Council of Trent :
ND 210 – Written book and unwritten
traditions as coming from the mouth of Christ. OR being inspired by the HS and
preserved in the continuous succession in the CR.
ND
211 – Canon of Scripture
List
of OT books
ND 212 – List of NT books
ND 213 - If anyone doesn’t accept these books in their
entirety with all their parts as they are being read in the catholic church and
are contained in the ancient Latin vulgate editions, as sacred and canonical
and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions – anathema Sit.
6.
Since other religious too have
their scriptures, we need to inquire into their nature and function.
§ The answer to the question depends on your understanding of
inspiration.
§ Inspiration – the quality of the book that makes
the book inspired – expression of the faith of the apostolic community. It’s
domestic definition.
Ø If
inspiration is understood in a ‘broad sense’ i.e. Sacred Scripture as
containing God’s self revelation, then ‘all’ scriptures are inspired. So the
Sacred Scripture of other faiths are the attempts of their communities to
articulate their experience of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment