Sacred scripture

• Bible


  Not only an account of the words of God nor does it contain revelations made by God, it is really the Word of God
• Scriptural Basis (Old Testament)


  • Deut 4:2, 13:1 - prohibition of adding or subtracting anything from the Word of God
  • Jer 36 - burning of the scroll of Scripture is a crime against the Word of God
  • Eze 2:3-3:11 - Ezekiel was asked to eat the scroll on which the oracles of God were written, a sign of appropriating the Word of God
  • 1 Mac 12:9; 2 Mac 8:23 - Scripture is referred to as the Holy Book
• Inspiration


  In Latin is inspirare, a compound of in + spirare, "breathed into"
• Types of Inspiration


  • Pastoral inspiration - inspiration to act; persons were inspired to lead God's people and to act on their behalf
  • Prophetical inspiration - inspiration to speak; moved by God's Spirit, certain men spoke God's word to the people
  • Scriptural inspiration - inspiration to write is the logical sequence of the other inspirations; it is meant to preserve the revelation imparted through pastoral and prophetical inspiration
• Effects of Inspiration


  • Revelation - they give us the self-disclosure of God
  • Unity - the Bible is not just a collection of books; it is also a book since it has God as its sole principal author
  • Completeness - the degree of self-disclosure that God planned to provide in the bible has been perfectly and completely achieved, no other new revelation is needed
  • Sacramentality - the Bible offers men the opportunity to encounter God in Christ
  • Inerrancy - the Bible is free from error
• Canonicity


  The Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, recognizes the traces of God and of the Spirit in some books, of which she has made a precise list, called the Canon of Scriptures
• Kanon (Greek)


  1. Originally, a reed was used for measuring

  2. Came to mean as the measurement, the norm, the rule

  3. First three centuries: the word designated the rule of tradition or the rule of faith which Christians must live

  4. 4th century: the word acquired the meaning of the list of inspired books that contained the normative faith of the people
• Canonical books


  Books recognized by the Church as inspired and are proposed to the faithful as the source of the norms of faith and Christian life
• The Church relies on the Canon, but the creation of the Canon is dependent upon the judgment of the Church
• Catholic vs. Protestant Bibles


  • The Protestant Bibles have a smaller number of books, than the Catholic Bibles

  The books common to both Protestant and Catholic Bibles are called protocanonical books

  The books found in Catholic Bibles but not in the Protestant counterparts are called deuterocanonical books by Catholics while the Protestants call them apocryphal books
• Contested books appear only at the OT; in the NT section, Catholics and Protestants agree on the same Canon
• Apocryphal


  For Protestants, it refers to the Catholic deuterocanonical books. For Catholics, it refers to books similar to the canonical books but are not part of the official Canon of Scriptures.
• Deuterocanonical Books


  • Tobit
  • Judith
  • 1 & 2 Maccabees
  • Baruch
  • Sirach
  • Wisdom
  • Daniel 13-14
  • Parts of Esther
  • Letter to Jeremiah
• Inerrancy


  Since the Bible is inspired, therefore it is inerrant
• Quotes on Inerrancy


  • "The words of the Torah were placed in the manner of oracles in the mind of the prophet by God himself. No error therefore is to be attributed to it" -Philo Judaeus, De praem. et poen., 55

  "The Scripture cannot be set aside" -John 10:35

  "The Scripture must be fulfilled" -Luke 24:44; Acts 1:16

  "It is written..." (cf. Mk 4:4, Acts 15:15; Rom 1:17; 1 Pt 2:6) this means that the arguments taken from Scripture cannot be refuted

  "I can never dare to think or to say that there are contradictions in the Sacred Writings. If there are instances that seem to be such in Scripture, I must confess that I do not yet understand what they mean, and I will try to persuade anyone who has the suspicion that there are contradictions in the Scripture to have the same mind as I have" -St. Justin, Dial. C. Triph., 65

  "If in these Scriptures I meet something that seems contrary to truth, without any hesitation, I would think that either the text which I am reading is defective, or that the translator was not capable to render the thinking of the original faithfully, or that I do not understand anything" -Letter of Saint Augustine to Saint Jerome (Epist. 82, 1, 3: PL 33, 277)

  "Anything in the Sacred Scripture is true" -St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 171, a6
• In reality, these are not "errors" or "cracks," they are simply read wrongly. Though we do not concede that there could be "mistakes" in the Bible, such as grammatical, historical or geographical references, we do not subscribe to the idea that the Bible is absolutely inerrant.
• Books of the Old Testament

  • The Pentateuch

  The Historical Books

  The Wisdom Books

  The Prophetic Books
• Books of the New Testament

  • The Gospels

  The New Testament Letters

  The Catholic Letters