[CS-FSLUG] NI: Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible

Wed Oct 5 11:43:19 CDT 2005

I can only pray that the current Pope will look at this document that is written by men and call it for the blatant heresy that it is. I would hope that the persons involved in writing this would also review it themselves and take a little more time and care to review all the evidence. There are a great many things they seem to have ignored that would refute thier assertions. They would do well to check out http://www.icr.org or http://www.gennet.org as these will certainly refute much of what they claim is untrue.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred A. Miller" <fmiller at lightlink.com>
To: "CS-LUG" <Christiansource at ofb.biz>
Subject: [CS-FSLUG] NI: Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the	Bible
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 11:45:33 -0400

> 
> I just rec'd this from someone here in the US. I've not had time yet to check
> it out, but here it is for all to review.
> 
> Fred
> ____________________
> 
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C13509-1811332%2C00.html
> 
> Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible
> By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
> 
> THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching
> document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not
> actually true.
> 
> The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their
> five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of
> scripture, that they should not expect "total accuracy" from the Bible.
> 
> "We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or
> complete historical precision," they say in The Gift of Scripture.
> 
> The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious
> Right, in particular in the US.
> 
> Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation,
> as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin's theory of evolution in
> schools, believing "intelligent design" to be an equally plausible theory
> of how the world began.
> 
> But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times
> conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this
> country's Catholic bishops insist cannot be "historical". At most, they
> say, they may contain "historical traces".
> 
> The document shows how far the Catholic Church has come since the 17th
> century, when Galileo was condemned as a heretic for flouting a
> near-universal belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible by
> advocating the Copernican view of the solar system. Only a century ago,
> Pope Pius X condemned Modernist Catholic scholars who adapted
> historical-critical methods of analysing ancient literature to the Bible.
> 
> In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars.
> They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is "God's
> word expressed in human language" and that proper acknowledgement should
> be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.
> 
> They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways "appropriate to
> changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries".
> 
> The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but
> continue: "We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other,
> secular matters."
> 
> They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its "intransigent intolerance"
> and to warn of "significant dangers" involved in a fundamentalist
> approach.
> 
> "Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or
> group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even
> consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against
> others."
> 
> Of the notorious anti-Jewish curse in Matthew 27:25, "His blood be on us
> and on our children", a passage used to justify centuries of
> anti-Semitism, the bishops say these and other words must never be used
> again as a pretext to treat Jewish people with contempt. Describing this
> passage as an example of dramatic exaggeration, the bishops say they have
> had "tragic consequences" in encouraging hatred and persecution. "The
> attitudes and language of first-century quarrels between Jews and Jewish
> Christians should never again be emulated in relations between Jews and
> Christians."
> 
> As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the
> early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends
> from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it
> is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide
> religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical
> writing.
> 
> Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last
> book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of
> the risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ
> the Lamb.
> 
> The bishops say: "Such symbolic language must be respected for what it
> is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to
> discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many
> will be saved and about when the end will come."
> 
> In their foreword to the teaching document, the two most senior Catholics
> of the land, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster,
> and Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrew's and Edinburgh,
> explain its context.
> 
> They say people today are searching for what is worthwhile, what has real
> value, what can be trusted and what is really true.
> 
> The new teaching has been issued as part of the 40th anniversary
> celebrations of Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council document
> explaining the place of Scripture in revelation. In the past 40 years,
> Catholics have learnt more than ever before to cherish the Bible. "We
> have rediscovered the Bible as a precious treasure, both ancient and ever
> new."
> 
> A Christian charity is sending a film about the Christmas story to every
> primary school in Britain after hearing of a young boy who asked his
> teacher why Mary and Joseph had named their baby after a swear word. The
> Breakout Trust raised £200,000 to make the 30-minute animated film, It's
> a Boy. Steve Legg, head of the charity, said: "There are over 12 million
> children in the UK and only 756,000 of them go to church regularly.
> 
> That leaves a staggering number who are probably not receiving basic
> Christian teaching."
> 
> BELIEVE IT OR NOT
> 
> UNTRUE
> 
> Genesis ii, 21-22
> 
> So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he
> slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the
> rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and
> brought her to the man
> 
> Genesis iii, 16
> 
> God said to the woman [after she was beguiled by the serpent]: "I will
> greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth
> children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule
> over you."
> 
> 
> Matthew xxvii, 25
> 
> The words of the crowd: "His blood be on us and on our children."
> 
> 
> Revelation xix,20
> 
> And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its
> presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received
> the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image. These two were
> thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone."
> 
> 
> TRUE
> 
> Exodus iii, 14
> 
> God reveals himself to Moses as: "I am who I am."
> 
> 
> Leviticus xxvi,12
> 
> "I will be your God, and you shall be my people."
> 
> 
> Exodus xx,1-17
> 
> The Ten Commandments
> 
> Matthew v,7
> 
> The Sermon on the Mount
> 
> Mark viii,29
> 
> Peter declares Jesus to be the Christ
> 
> Luke i
> 
> The Virgin Birth
> 
> John xx,28
> 
> Proof of bodily resurrection
> 
> JOIN THE DEBATE
> www.timesonline.co.uk/debate
> 
> --
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