Bible Basics, Day 7: The Septuagint

Pharos by Salvador Dali

The Septuagint
     This lesson will be less "inspired" and more "historical", as we dig a little deeper into the history of the texts of the Old Testament and find out how the differences between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles arose.  I hope this history won't be too dry!

I.  The Legend of the Seventy

Ancient synagogue at Sardis

 While we think of ancient Jews as living mainly in the area that is today occupied by Israel, they were in fact scattered about with sizable populations in many other countries.  These faithful Jews were called the "Diaspora"--that is, the dispersed (or the "Dispersion").  They lived in Jewish communities centered around synagogues thoroughout the civilized world, although they were required to travel to Jerusalem annually for the Passover celebration.  Most of them, as well as just about everyone else, spoke the common international trade language of the day--Greek (just as many people around the world today conduct business in English, even though it may not be their native language).  Since the days of Alexander the Great, Greek had been the lingua franca (common tongue) of the entire eastern Mediterranean basin and also of the eastern nations, being used almost as far east as the Indus River. 

So the uniquely Jewish vision of one mighty Creator God along with the Hebrew Scriptures were spread about the known world.  God was preparing the soil of the Gentile nations to receive the seed of the Word of God!

Ptolemy II Philadelphus

     Around the year 250 B.C., the Greek King of Egypt, Ptolemy II, commanded Jewish scholars to translated the Hebrew texts of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings into Greek so that anyone could read them.  According to legend, either seventy or seventy-two scholars were locked up in  separate rooms.  Some legends say they were locked up in the Pharos lighthouse that guarded the harbor of Alexandria.  There, they each sat down to translate the sacred writings, and when they were finished--lo and behold!  A miracle!  Every one of them had produced the exact same translation!  Well, according to legend, anyway!  The fact is that these writings were translated around the time of  Ptolemy II (whether at his direct command or not, we have no idea) and that a group of scholars, probably working in Alexandria, completed the translation, most likely intended for the great library in Alexandria. We do not know how long it took them, possibly as long as a hundred years! Personally, I like the legend better!  This translation is called "The Septuagint" (which means "seventy" in Greek), often denoted by the Roman numerals LXX, after the "seventy" who produced it.  It was the most wide-spread and well-known of all the Hebrew canons, and it was used both in the land of Judea and throughout the ancient world.

The Pharos was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. One of the tallest structures of the ancient world, with a height estimated to have been between 393 and 450 ft., it guarded the harbor entrance to Alexandria for over 1500 years. It was completed in the reign of Ptolemy II (which may be why it enters into the legend of the translation of the Septuagint).  It sustained a lot of damage during two earthquakes in the 14th century, but portions of it stood until 1480,  when it was finally destroyed by conquering armies.

II.  The Septuagint and the Early Church Fathers

     The Septuagint version of the Old Testament was the version usually quoted by the writers of the New Testament and by the early Church Fathers.  In using the Septuagint, they were most likely following the lead of Jesus, whose quotes of the Old Testament mainly follow the Septuagint translation.

Codex Sinaiticus (Septuagint)

     The Septuagint included seven books that the Pharisees did not recognize as inspired. These seven books were excluded from the Hebrew Scriptures sometime near the end of the first century, or even a little later.  They are the books known as the "deutero-canonical" books, sometimes called the "Apocrypha":  Judith, Tobit, Wisdom, Baruch, Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus, not to be confused with Ecclesiastes), 1 and 2 Maccabees.  Portions of Daniel and Esther not found in the Hebrew Scriptures  today were also part of the Septuagint.


III. Why the Catholic and Protestant Bibles are Different

     Once we learn about the Septuagint and the differing Hebrew canons, we can understand how differences between Catholic and Protestant Bibles arose.  Here's what happened, step by step:

1.  The Septuagint was the version used by Christ and the Apostles, and by the Fathers of the Church.
2.  The Christian canon which was finalized at Carthage was based on the Septuagint and included ALL of the Old Testament books that were in the Septuagint.  Therefore, the "deutero-canonical" books were part of the inspired canon as decreed by the authority of the Catholic Church (which, as we saw in this lesson on the canon, is really the authority of the Holy Spirit Himself acting through the Church Christ founded).  

3.  Much later on in history, in the year 1517, Martin Luther begins to question Church authority and to point out problems he sees in the Church.  Unfortunately, difficulties which should have prompted only reform in the Church lead to a split which widens and deepens into a permanent divide between Protestants and Catholics.
4.  Martin Luther not only challenges Church teaching, but also calls into question the authority of the Church to set the canon.  He objects to some of the books of the Bible because they contradict his personal theological opinions. For example, 2 Maccabees specifically mentions prayers for the dead--not a popular idea with Luther!
5.  Martin Luther decides to use the Hebrew (Masoretic) canon, which was actually set after the time of Christ and does not include any of the seven deuterocanonical books or the portions of Daniel and Esther that were in the Septuagint and also in the Catholic canon.
6.  Martin Luther tries to remove James and possibly other New Testament books, but people object to this effort and all the New Testament books remain in the Protestant Bible.

Main Altar, St. Peter's Basilica

The Catholic Bible contains the entire written Word of God, confirmed by the Holy Spirit through the Church which Christ established.  Holy Mother Church, under the guidance of her living Magisterium, preserves, protects, interprets, and proclaims the Bible with authority and certainty, both yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  

1.  You are probably familiar with the New Testament, but you may want to just thumb through it to get an idea of the books contained in it.
2.  Read Luke 1:1-4, Matthew 28:16-20, and 1 John 4:13.  List the reasons these verses give for the writing of the New Testament.
3.  Think about the preciousness of the gift of the Bible.  Not all people have a Bible, or the ability to read it.  Many Jews and Christians have sacrificed their lives throughout the course of history to defend and guard this sacred Book.  How can you show reverence to the Word of God?  Share with us here ways that you in your family reverence the Bible.  Here's one thing we do:  if a Bible falls on the floor, we immediately picked it up and kiss it.


Main Idea:  The Catholic Church based her canon on the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible; later Protestants removed seven books and a little more from the authorized Old Testament canon.  


Next lesson:  The New Testament
(and a reminder: this is just a quick overview, we will be coming back to the individual books of the Bible in our next series...which is only a few more posts away!)


Do you wonder why I am posting this material using such a large text? I realized that many of the Moms among us are probably reading these posts with a baby or toddler in their laps, and it can be pretty tough to see the little font sizes if you are 4 feet from the screen so that your baby doesn't play with your keyboard...so a little accommodation for Moms!  They deserve it!

Correction!

Dear readers,

Yikes!  I have discovered that Scribd didn't upload the entire "Books of the New Testament" document!  I can't contact those who have already accessed that (incomplete) document, so if you did download it prior to the date of this post, please try again here. I have corrected the list to include all of the books, not just half of them!

Thanks!

Bible Basics, Day 6: The Old Testament

Torah Reader by Irving Amen

The Old Testament

I.  Why study the Old Testament?  

     Why should we bother learning about the Old Testament?  Many Christian groups don't consider the Old Testament very important, but as Catholics we treasure these books as foundational to our  faith.  The Catechism teaches:

"...the books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God's saving love: these writings 'are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers; in them, too, the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way.'"--CCC 122

What a wonderful meditation!  When we pray, "Dear God, come to me and hear me!  Answer my prayer and save me from my sins!", do we stop to consider that since the very foundation of the world God has already been preparing and working to answer that prayer?  Everything that happened and is recorded in the Old Testament is part of God's plan of salvation and His pedagogy, or teaching. The value of the entire body of Scripture was stated by St. Jerome  when he declared:

St. Jerome in His Study, Ghirlandaio

[I obey] the precepts of Christ who says "examine the Scriptures" (John 5:39) and "seek and you will find." (Matt 7:7) (remember here that the only "Scriptures" these listeners had were, of course, the Old Testament Scriptures!)  Let me not hear with the Jews: "you are wrong because you do not know scriptures nor the power of God." (Matt. 22:29)  For if, according to the apostle Paul, Christ is "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24) and who does not know Scripture does not know the power or the wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.(emphasis added)

A "pedagogue" was a special slave in Ancient Greece. "Pedagogue" literally means "lead the child."  He had the responsibility of escorting the young boys of the household to school and carrying their books and equipment. "Pedagogy" means "a style  or theory of teaching".  God's "style of teaching" was to prepare His people by means of all of the events and prophecies recorded in the Old Testament. 

The more we study the Scriptures, we more will learn more about Christ--who He is, why He came, how we should respond to Him.   

Another Father of the Church,  St. Augustine, said this about the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament:

St. Augustine,

  

The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, 
and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.

 




  We study the Old Testament because it is the inspired Word of God, declaring and communicating to us everything God did to prepare for the coming of His Son.  All of its prophecies, the entire law, and all of its hopes were perfected and fulfilled in the life, death, and Resurrection of Our Savior:

 Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.--Mt. 5:17


  Hidden in the Old Testament stories and words of wisdom are lessons for us on the love, faithfulness, and mercy of God.  It contains the prophecies that prove Jesus to be the Savior, the Redeemer of Israel who was to come, the Suffering Servant, the Lion of Judah,  the great offspring of David, and the King whose reign would have no end.  It helps us conform our minds to God's thoughts and to learn what are the rewards of holiness and the punishment of wickedness--indeed, even to learn what we must do (or avoid doing) to be pure and holy. It teaches us the price that must be paid for the forgiveness of sin and the need for sacrifice. Later, we will delve more deeply into some of the ways Christ is hidden in the Old Testament, especially in the prophecies and images of sacrifice and love.

Christ Crucified, Diego Velazquez

II.  The Languages of the Old Testament

      If you open your Bible in the very middle, you will most likely find yourself in the Book of Psalms.  Wasn't God so good to place this book in the center of our Bibles?  In times of trial and distress, joy and praise, we can just open right in the middle and find a Psalm that will express the joy or sorrow of our hearts. When we open to the middle of our Bible, however, it doesn't neatly divide into Old and New Testaments;  we are still in the Old Testament.  In fact, the 46 books of the Old Testament compose about 2/3 of our present Bibles.
 

   God used many different authors over a period of more than 2,000 years to compose the Old Testament Scriptures. Among them were Moses, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.   Most of these authors composed in their native Semitic language--Hebrew.  A few small sections scattered throughout were probably originally in Aramaic (a language related to Syriac which we shall discuss at greater length when we look at the New Testament). A few of the latest books (Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, for example) may have been composed in Greek.  There is evidence, however, that they were originally written in Hebrew and translated into Greek almost immediately. 



 III.  The Sections of the Old Testament

      The Hebrew Scriptures were usually divided into three sections:

          Torah (the Law):  This included the first five books of the Bible, known as the "Pentateuch" (do you see the resemblance to "pentagon"?  "Penta-" means "five").  These are the foundational texts of Judaism and include the Ten Commandments, the Law of Moses, and the record of God's dealings with His people from the Creation of the world to the death of Moses just prior to their entry into the land of Canaan.  The Books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers are considered "Torah".

      Naviim (the Prophets):  Here would be included the books of Samuel, the writings of the early history of Israel (such as Joshua and Judges), and the writings of major (their writings were more extensive and so the scrolls holding them were greater, or major) prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the writings of minor (short writings, smaller scrolls) prophets. The books included in  "Naviim" are: Joshua, Judges, Samuel (both combined), Kings (combined), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and The Twelve (one book which combines all twelve minor prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).
      
       Kethubim (the Writings):  The Psalms are the first "writings", followed by other books of wisdom sayings and poetry (Proverbs, Song of Songs). In "Kethubim" are the books of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah (combined), and Chronicles (combined).

     When Jesus says in Luke 24:44, "...These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled,"  he is referring to these three traditional sections of the Old Testament.  These three sections together were known as "Tanakh", an acronym that uses the first few letters from the names of each section. 

IV.  The Old Testament Canons

     When we talk about the Hebrew Scriptures, we must first of all realize that in the early years of the first century, there was no single authoritative list of which books were considered to be Scripture.  There were multiple opinions on this matter at the time of Christ, and among the possible canons were: 

Samaritan Canon:  The Samaritans only recognized the first five books of the Bible, the Torah or books of Moses, as inspired.  The Sadducees also probably followed this canon. 

Masoretic Text:  This is the "Tanakh" referred to above, and is recognized by Jews today as the Hebrew Scriptures.  It includes 24 books which you can see listed above.  Most of our current Old Testament is included, with the exception of the seven books known as "Deuterocanonical" or "Apocrypha".We will discuss these soon. 

The Pharisees probably used this canon or a similar list.

Septuagint:  This is a Greek translation of the Hebrew works which was used by Christ and by the Apostles and Fathers of the Church. It included the seven "Deuterocanonical" books mentioned above. More on this translation to come! 

You can see that at the time of Christ, there was not a set or fixed canon.  Different books were considered Scripture by different groups.  The Jewish canon was not "closed", or definitively set, until sometime between AD 90  and AD 200.

In my next post, we will dig more deeply into the Septuagint and learn why the Church set the Old Testament canon based on this text. 

 I want to take a moment to comment here on B.C. and A.D.  This method of dating was not developed until  AD 525, and was really not used widely until the 9th century.  When it was first invented by a Scythian monk named Dionysius Exiguus, he determined that the year of Christ's birth was 525 years prior (which it probably wasn't exactly) and it was on this date that all other dates were based..  B.C. means Before Christ, and A.D. means "Anno Domini", which is Latin for "The Year of the Lord".  Generally, we write 44 B.C., but  usually we put the "A.D." first, as in A.D. 123.    Some scholars today use "C.E."  (Common Era, that would correspond to A.D.) and "B.C.E." (Before the Common Era, which corresponds to B.C.) instead of the traditional B.C. and A.D. dates, but they are the same.  That is, A.D. 525 is the same as 525 C.E.   One other important tidbit...there is no year 0.  The calendar goes directly from 1 B.C. to AD 1!  Once our Lord was born, it WAS the Year of the Lord.  (In fact, most scholars today think Dionysius was a few years off.  Herod the Great died around 4 B.C., and we know from the Gospel of Luke that Jesus was born sometime before Herod died.)

 

 

Wow!  Sometimes the hardest part of the post is thinking of a "homework assignment"!

1.  Read I Corinthians 10:6-13.  One of the reasons the lives of so many people are recorded in the Old Testament is for our benefit...so that we can take warning and avoid sin.

2.  Read Hebrews 11.  Another reason for the stories of the Old Testament is to encourage us in faith, to show us the faithfulness and perseverance of those who have trusted in God in the past, and to reveal to us the great worth and infinite preciousness of the gift of salvation which was finally accomplished by Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Main Idea:  The Old Testament Scriptures are an integral part of God's plan and Revelation.  Study of the Old Testament is important to increasing our faith and understanding. 

Next lesson: The Septuagint 

 A beautiful song that reminds me of the everlasting love of God:

Bible Basics, Day 5: The Canon of Scripture

Ummm.....not this kind of cannon!

The Canon of Scripture

I.  The Authority of the Church

       Well, dear readers,  you may have had a chance to read this Bible verse over the last few days:

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that,  if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of

            God, which is the church of the living God, the  

             pillar and bulwark of the truth. 1 Timothy 3:14-15 

From Merriam-Webster:

 bulwark: 1a: a solid wall-like structure raised for defense

                     2: a strong support or protection

This verse very clearly describes for us the role of the Church...to defend and uphold the truth.  And how does the Church know the truth?  Jesus made this profound promise to His disciples on the night He was betrayed:

And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever,  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.  John 14:16-17

 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. John 14:26  

In promising the Holy Spirit would be with the Church and guide it, Jesus was sending Truth Itself to indwell His Holy Church.  This Spirit of Truth will never abandon the Church, and it remains with the Church throughout all the ages. It is this indwelling Spirit of God that gave the Church the knowledge and the authority to determine which books were inspired by God and therefore worthy of being included in the Canon of Scripture.

It is important to note that I said the Church determined "which books were inspired"...not that the Church took some books and by choosing them for the Bible somehow caused them to become inspired.  God had already inspired the authors of these books at the time they were written, so the role of the Church was not to create inspired writings, but simply to identify them.

     It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books.  This complete list is called the canon of Scripture.  It includes 46 books for the Old Testament and 27 for the New.--CCC120

II.  Why a canon?
       In the very early days of the Church, all of the converts were Jewish.  Even after they joined "The Way", as the Christian sect was called, they continued to be considered Jews and to attend the synagogue services.  During these services,  a rabbi (or even a visiting dignitary) would read the Old Testament Scripture designated for that day and then comment on it.  This is exactly what was happening when Jesus read to the people in the synagogue at Capernaum in Luke 4:16-21 and then applied it (shockingly!) to Himself:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day.  And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah.  He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
                                "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,       
                                  because he has anointed
                                  me to preach good news to the poor. 
                                  He has sent me to proclaim release to 
                                  the captives and
                                  recovering of sight to the blind, to set at
                                  liberty those who
                                  are oppressed, to proclaim the
                                  acceptable year of the Lord."
                     And he closed the book, and gave it back to the
                     attendant, and sat down;  and
                     the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on
                     him.  And he began to say to them, "Today this 
                     scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
                                 
         The first Christians attended such services and listened to the readings from Scripture on the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday).  Then, very early Sunday morning (even as early as midnight), they would meet in homes to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus and participate in the Holy Sacrifice.  So the two parts of the Mass we have today, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, naturally arose out of these two celebrations. 
     When the Christians were forced out of the Jewish synagogues, they continued the custom of reading the Scriptures before the celebration of the Eucharist.  As time passed, the gospels and letters of the Apostles began to be read in these assemblies as well as the Old Testament writings, and so they began to be considered as "Scripture", too.  Unfortunately, not everything written was worthy of this distinction.  Heresies arose and false gospels began to be composed that distorted the true Faith in one way or another.  So, it became necessary for the Church to state authoritatively which gospels and letters could be read during the Liturgy of the Word and which could not. 

 

 III.  The Councils that set the Canon

     The Church considered this question at several councils.  The canon of Scripture Catholics use today, listed at the Synod of Hippo in 393 A.D.,  was officially decreed by the Church at the Council of Carthage and confirmed by Rome in 397 A.D. This ancient list is the same list of books that are in the Catholic Bible today.  It was accepted and in use throughout both the Eastern and Western Church by the 5th century. 

This list of inspired books would be re-stated at the 2nd Council of Nicea in 787 A.D. and at the Council of Florence in 1441.  It was solemnly defined at the Council of Trent in 1546 A.D. in response to Martin Luther's efforts to eliminate several of the inspired books. 

IV.  The Books in the Bible Today

     By the authority given to her by her Lord and by the indwelling Spirit of Truth which He sent to guide the Church,  we can be SURE that the books which the Church has decreed to be inspired are in fact and truth inspired and without error.  The authority of the Bible rests solidly on the authority of the Church, which Jesus promised to preserve from error and to lead into all truth.  If the Church is fallible, then we have only a "fallible collection of infallible books", as one Protestant scholar declared.  If our collection of books is fallible, then how can we know with certainty anything Jesus taught or did?  How can we trust the words of Scripture if there is no authority that can assure us that these words and no others are the truth?  Why shouldn't we just take the parts that we like and ignore the rest?  Indeed, without the authority and infallible teaching office of the Church, we find exactly such an approach being taken to Divine Scripture in many places today.  The Church and the Bible stand or fall together.

The original "books" of the Bible were written on paper made from papyrus or on parchment skins and stored as scrolls.  Each "book" was an individual scroll.  Sometimes a long work, such as Isaiah, would take up two scrolls.  When Jesus sat down to read in the synagogue in Luke 4:16-20, the book He was handed was not a book as we think of it, but a scroll.

     I put together a one-page chart listing the names and abbreviations of the Old Testament books according to the Revised Standard Version, as well as the Douay-Rheims Version names, which you can download  here.

The New Testament canon with abbreviations is here for you.
These lists are also to be found on one of the first pages of your Bible, along with their page numbers.  This is very handy, I have found!  I always have to use the page numbers to find the teeny, tiny books like Obadiah and Haggai!

I recommend for further reading a brief excerpt from "Where We Got the Bible" by Henry Graham.  The entire book is available free online or you can purchase it here:  Where We Got the Bible.

Your Assignment

1.  Why do you think the Old Testament was written?
2.  Is the Old Testament still important for us today?  Why?
3.  Read CCC 121 and 122.
4.  Read Matthew 5:17-20



Main Idea:  The Catholic Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, authoritatively established the canon of Sacred Scripture as the true and inspired Word of God for the benefit of the faithful of all times. 


Next lesson:  The Old Testament

Bible Basics, Day 4: Inspiration and Inerrancy

St. Paul at His Writing Desk, Rembrandt van Rijn

The Inerrancy and Inspiration of Scripture

All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.  2 Timothy 3:16-17

I.  The Inspiration of Scripture

"Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely.
     You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since He who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for He is not subject to time. (St. Augustine)"--CCC 102 
 
Scripture is God speaking.  "God is the author of Sacred Scripture" (CCC 105).  God inspired the human authors to  write down "without error....that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred  Scriptures." (CCC 107)  In this process, God fully respected the freedom, style, and personality of each human writer.  The words God inspired by the Spirit were the words that the human authors intended, and at the same time they were the exact words that God wanted written down.  

     When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Jewish people were already the "People of the Book".   Since the time of Moses, if not even earlier, the Jews had written down the words and deeds of God Almighty that had been part of their history.  Everything that was recorded before the birth of Christ is known to Christians today as "The Old Testament".   Then, after the ascension of Christ, the evangelists and apostles began writing down Jesus's words and deeds (we will not discuss here in any depth the dating of the New Testament, it's too long and involved). The collection of their writings are called "The New Testament".  Together, the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT) make up our Christian Bible.

  For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him  they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them,  they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.   Dei Verbum

II. The Inerrancy of Scripture
      

The passage from the Vatican II document Dei Verbum, quoted above, continues on:

     Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.  Dei Verbum

     Inerrancy is the term used to express the fact that the Bible  teaches "without error" the truths God intended to reveal to us.  When we think about the inerrancy of Scripture, we must remember that this inerrancy applies only to the original writings, so some error could enter in due to improper interpretation or translation.  This is one reason why the Bible needs to be translated and interpreted in the context of the Church.  The Holy Spirit preserves the accuracy of the Scriptures through the teaching of the Magisterium and the illumination of Sacred Tradition.  Here we see our three-legged stool again!

But since the word of God should be accessible at all times, the Church by her authority and with maternal concern sees to it that suitable and correct translations are made into different languages, especially from the original texts of the sacred books. And should the opportunity arise and the Church authorities approve, if these translations are produced in cooperation with the separated brethren as well, all Christians will be able to use them.  Dei Verbum


We need to note here that when we talk about the inerrancy of the Scriptures, we mean they are inerrant when properly understood.  Later we will discuss the various genres of books that are in the Bible and the four different ways of looking at Scripture, but here I need to mention that the "fundamentalist" interpretation of Scripture is not always correct.  Jesus, for example, did not mean that we were literally to cut off our hands in  Matthew 5:30, but was employing the common technique of hyperbole (or exaggeration) to stress His point about the utter abhorrence we should have for sin in our lives.
 
III. How the Bible came to us 

   
The Bible didn't fall fully written from Heaven!  How were these books chosen?  Who determined what was in fact "inspired" and "inerrant" and what wasn't?  Many books were written, both in Old Testament times and in New Testament times that could have been included in the Bible, but were not.  How do we know the books in our Bible today are the ones God intended to have included in the Bible?  How do we know some weren't left out, or whether extras were put in that didn't belong?

In ancient times, the Phoenician city of Byblos made and exported across the Mediterranean the material used as paper--papyrus.  After its place of manufacture, papyrus was called "bublos", which later was to evolve into the word "biblios", meaning"book".   This word entered Greek and then Latin as "biblion", or "biblia" for "books".  Our word "Bible" really means "books".  And it is a collection of individual books!  Here's a look at papyrus growing along the Nile, for all you Nature Study folks:

II.  What is a canon?

     When we talk about the "canon" of Scripture, we mean the list of books that are included in the Bible.  These are the books the Church believes to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God.

  "Canon" comes from the Greek "kanon", meaning a measuring rod or standard.  One of its meanings is "the works of a writer that have been accepted as authentic" (Wiktionary).  In this sense, the accepted books of the Bible are the works of God, who is their ultimate Author. 

In our next few lessons, we will discuss how the canon of the Bible, or list of authorized books, was determined by the Church.

Your Assignment

1.  Read 1 Timothy 3:14-15.

2.  Read CCC 120.

3.  Spend some time meditating on the gift of Scripture.  How can you appreciate this gift more deeply in your life? 

Thank God for this great gift, which is a true source of inspiration, strength, consolation, and wisdom.

Main Idea:  The Holy Scriptures are inspired by God and teach " solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation."

My dear readers, is this study what you were expecting?  Are you looking for something else?  I really want to accomodate your needs, so please let me know how you are faring.  Is twice a week too often, or is only one topic too slow?  Or is everything about what you expected and needed?  I know this is all basics and that you would probably find it more exciting to be actually studying the Bible itself, but I believe these basic lessons are important in understanding what the Bible is, how to read it, and why it is reliable.  Let me know your thoughts on the matter!

Next lesson: The Canon of Scripture

Editing comment:  I just want you to know, in the interests of full disclosure, that I will edit these posts as I find errors, or points of confusion, or just weird layout issues.  I won't use strike-outs or necessarily indicate these edits and corrections.  I know there is some kind of blog "law" that dictates that you should show all of your edits, but frankly, I think it would be distracting for people who happened along on this study to have to endure all sorts of strike-outs and ETA's.   .... so I'm breaking the blogging law and the blogging police may have to come and get me......