Introduction to Sacred Scripture

Below is an outline presentation I will be giving to our Year of Favor Candidates. It is in outline form. Instead of the usually homily reflection I think some of you may find this interesting, please remember it is a presentation so in some of the notes I am talking to myself, being repetitive, and referring to passages I know by heart and not writing out the full text. Anyway I hope I don't bore you too much. Happy reading :)

I. What is Sacred Scripture?

a) Sacred Scripture is the inspired Word of God as contained in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) and the New Testament (Christian Scriptures)

i. Inspired means that the authors, either through direct revelation, visions, interior locutions, dreams, meditative\reflective prayer, the lived experience of the community, put to paper the theological truth God wished to convey to the current community as well as to the future community. “Hence, God is the principal or primary author of all of Scripture while human beings are instrumental authors.” (c.f. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 2^nd Catholic Edition, pp. IX-X, Ignatius Press, 2010)

ii. Inspired does not mean that the authors fell into a trance and God took over, rather, the authors gifts, talents, and personality comes through in their writings. The bible is both a natural product of people’s reflection and a supernatural product of God’s desire to be known and loved. Because there is a “naturalness” to the bible it does not mean it lacks authority, inerrancy, or inspiration, rather, Scripture affirms that it is authoritative and inspired, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” C.f. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NAB)

iii. Theological Truth does not mean that the bible is totally free of historical discrepancies, seeming contradictions, and ambiguities. The bible was not written as a police report or how we would write a history paper. Theological Truth simply refers to the Truths concerning God, grace, salvation, faith, Jesus, etc. For example, the book of Genesis, especially the creation story is theologically true and accurate, man and woman sinned at some point, God dealt out punishment, but God also promised a way to redeem us, that’s Genesis in a nut shell. To start debating whether the earth is 6,000 years old or millions of years old is futile, because Genesis is not concerned with that, it’s concern is the fall of humanity and how it can be redeemed. Nevertheless, there is a historicity to Scripture, it speaks of real people, real times and places, i.e. there was a king David, there was a Jesus, and many others who truly existed and helped shape salvation history. The reasons for there being discrepancies, seeming contradictions, and ambiguities is that the authors did not write every event to the last detail, for example, can two to three books sum up forty years of King David’s life? Three books could not sum up even one year of his kingship of Israel. Can four Gospels sum up the Lord’s ministry? Most certainly not. Even the Apostle tells us that Jesus did many more things, but they are not recorded here and neither can all the books in the world contain that which He did while amongst us. C.f. John 21:25

b) Sacred Scripture, the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament has been compiled by people over a few millennia.

i. The Jewish people remembered many of their Traditions orally and shared them that way, but as time went on they began to write their stories down. Those stories which were central to their history and relationship with God began to be compiled into larger volumes, i.e. The Torah, first five books of the Law, also the Minor Prophets, Major Prophets, etc.

ii. Christians like their Jewish brothers and sisters began to write their own lived experience with Christ, as a community which gathered to break bread and have fellowship, on written record. These writings included letters from certain apostles, Gospels, and books. The writings spanned about 50-60 years from the first letter written to the last book written, Revelation. It would take the Church about 250 more years or so to determine which books belonged in the NT and which did not.

c) Major Covenant Theme\s of the Old Testament

i. A covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties ratified orally and by ritual in order that the agreement is sealed and sacred. Speak on the notion of becoming intimately united, i.e. marriage covenant, blood brothers, i.e. King David and Jonathan, words – oaths very important, think of the police officer, soldier, president, religious, priests, etc.

ii. There are two types of covenants, conditional and unconditional

iii. Conditional – We have to live up to our part of the covenant agreement otherwise God removes his favor or his part of the agreement, i.e. God made a covenant with Moses on Mt. Sinai in the giving of the ten commandments called the Sinai or Mosaic Covenant, c.f. Ex. 19:1-9a, yet the Israelites broke the covenant even before it was ratified and afterwards as well. “Now the question is what becomes of the covenant? They had broken it before it was even completed. If this covenant were based on works or on strict justice alone Israel would be done for. But to show that the covenant is based on grace God renews the covenant and uses words which make this gracious foundation clear. In Ex. 34:1 God tells Moses to make a new set of stone tables and to come up again. In 34:6-7 God reveals himself and the basis of the renewed covenant: "The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper83/121183m.htm

The oral agreement here was that Israel agreed to following the law, the ritual was Moses going up and down the mountain, i.e. meet God, receive the law and bring it to the people. Even though God is gracious, he meets out justice, in this case he punished the Israelites for not holding up their end of the bargain, he is willing to renew it as he does later on in Exodus.

iii. An example of a unconditional covenant in the Old Testament is that between God and Abraham, c.f. Genesis 12, 15, 18, and 21

d) Major Covenant theme in the New Testament

i. Jesus establishes the new Covenant and it is unconditional and eternal, c.f. John chapter 6, Synoptic Gospels on the Last Supper, and 1 Cor. 11. Speak about the new covenant made by Jesus, i.e. he is faithful even though we may sometimes not be.

e) Interpretation of Scripture

i. Scripture can be interpreted in different ways, the two foundational ways are spiritual and literal. (c.f. Ignatius study Bible, pp. xii-xiii.) We are to avoid two extremes, interpreting everything literally or interpreting everything spiritually. To interpret everything literally would be spiritual suicide as the Pontifical Biblical Comission so strongly warns us, but the opposite is true as well, to reduce the bible down to complete allegory, symbolism, and spirituality does harm to a true reality and of real events, once again, Jesus truly died, as recorded by other historians, Josephus and Philo. How then are we to interpret correctly? The Holy Spirit helps us to understand the teachings of God, as well as the Church, 1 Tim 3:15, 2 Peter 1:20, examine a symbolic passage and a literal one, i.e. Genesis chapters 1-3 story with theological truth, but very unlikely to be historical truth, look again at john 6, very literal passage as Jesus repeats himself a half a dozen times so that his listeners understand him to be speaking literally

ii. Fundamentalists-Evangelicals will interpret mostly literally, go beyond just the theological truth and try make it historically infallible, very hard to do if not impossible since much of the writing did not have a historical proof reading in mind when written. Also the bible becomes privately interpreted, something done in isolation from the community, missing the sensus fidelium, also disregards the process, the human process of reflection on Scripture and deciding which books, letters, etc, would become the norm for the Church.

iii. Canon of Scripture is the rule, measurement used by the Church to determine which parts belong in this NT and which do not. In this process one can see that the bible did not fall out of the sky, rather like us who are on journey in both our listening to God and then living out that call, so too with people’s reflection of the Sacred Writings.

The Church looked at its liturgical celebrations as the most important source for determining which Gospels they would keep; those liturgical celebrations included the mass and the celebration of the Hours. The second component was consistency about Jesus’ life, i.e. did books sound wholesome, good, and accurate or did they border on fantasy, magic, or superstition, i.e. Some writings which did not make into the NT contained stories of Jesus sliding down a rainbow to enter into Mary, also has him zapping another young boy to death while walking along the beach, not consistent with the other stories. A third criteria was earlier writings from the other church Fathers, which books did they quote from the most, and finally and not least important they asked for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to finally declare once and for all the NT, which was done by Pope Damasus I in 382 and ratified by previous and subsequent councils, most notably the Councils of Hippo and Carthage which St. Augustine presided over in circa 393 AD. You can see that this very process is ignored by Fundamentalists since one would have to admit, that the Church working through its people, its magisterium, and the Holy Spirit produced the NT. No one book in the bible ever affirms itself as Scripture nor does it affirm other books. Implicitly on two occasions Paul and Peter affirm their own or the other’s writings, but never explicitly nor do they provide us with a list of canonical books.

Fr John