What Does Biblical Inerrancy Extend To? Books and Subject Matters

I answer the books it extends to and the Vatican II sectarian Francis Marsden misanswers, I correct, what matters in extends to.

Q / A I

HGL on Christians say that the Bible is infallible. The Catholic Bible has 73 books; the Protestant 66 books. Which version is the infallible version?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Christians-say-that-the-Bible-is-infallible-The-Catholic-Bible-has-73-books-the-Protestant-66-books-Which-version-is-5

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

21.XII.2021

The Catholic Bible is inerrant in all of its books. And book parts.

What Protestants sometimes count as “14 Apocrypha” is not just 7 books that are in Catholic Bibles, but at least five of the other ones are book parts, for instance in Daniel.

The problem with diverse Protestant Bibles (yes, Luther Bible and King James are not identical) is not just lack of these books and book parts, but also in places mistranslations of the parts both parties agree on belong to the Bible.

I was answered twice

a and b.

a

John Raymond

22.XII.2021

Protestant religion is false, as 8s Vatican II Robber Church of JP II , Francis etc.

73 books, Duoay Rheims all the way.

Burn anything else. I burn with leaves…quite relaxing

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

I’ll sometimes use a Protestant Bible for details of Biblical history - but not for doctrine.

b

Scott Dowell

22.XII.2021

I will tell you all this,theirs not 1 religion in the holy bible.religion was man made,god never told you to be Catholic or baptist,or Mormon or what ever.theirs over 4,500 religions in the world and non of them are right,gods said this from the start be ye holy as I am holy!that's all he told you to be

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

He also told Christians to stay faithful to the apostles - not just their doctrine, but also their leadership.

That’s where the Church comes in.

Q / A II

Marsden on Christians say that the Bible is infallible. The Catholic Bible has 73 books; the Protestant 66 books. Which version is the infallible version?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Christians-say-that-the-Bible-is-infallible-The-Catholic-Bible-has-73-books-the-Protestant-66-books-Which-version-is-4

Francis Marsden

37 yrs priest with Cambridge chemistry doctorate

21.XII.2021

Catholics say that the Bible is inerrant (without error) in all that pertains to our salvation.

The more extreme fundamentalists maintain that every word of the Bible is literally true about astronomy, geology and every bit of history.

This reveals a serious misunderstanding of the Biblical mindset and ancient Near Eastern literature.

It sets up a totally unnecessary clash between science and Christianity, which tends to discredit Christianity in popular secular opinion. It blocks many people from investigating Christianity seriously and accepting it.

I answered twice

first immediately below about the subject matter, and then once more, which is about Francis Marsden's tactics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

21.XII.2021

“Catholics say that the Bible is inerrant (without error) in all that pertains to our salvation.”

That the Vulgate is so.

In the matter of original autographs, Catholics say that the Bible is inerrant in all things.

E. g. Vulgate and LXX disagree on timeline in Genesis 11. The Vulgate agrees with Ussher and the LXX (without the second Cainan) with the Roman Martyrology. This disagreement does not pertain to our salvation, therefore, even if LXX chronology is correct, the Vulgate is still inerrant in matters pertaining to the salvation.

“The more extreme fundamentalists maintain that every word of the Bible is literally true about astronomy, geology and every bit of history.”

You have just counted St. Robert Bellarmine and the Council Fathers of April 1546 as “more extreme fundamentalist” (I’m referring to Session IV).

Namely, if you take seriously “every word of the Bible” and therefore imply “whenever it touches on these subjects” which is not all of their subject matter.

“This reveals a serious misunderstanding …”

Oh, the Council of Trent seriously misunderstood things? When was the last general council YOU count as infallible, then? For me it was 1869–70 …. but you might consider people who are content with 2 or 3 councils more to your taste? I mean, Ephesus I fathers very certainly agreed with those of Trent as to their faith, speaking as to cultural history, but they had no occasion to make a shout out with anathemas on it!

“of the Biblical mindset and ancient Near Eastern literature.”

I’m waiting for details … St. James considered book of Job sufficiently historical to use the phrase “you have seen” about what one could read in the final chapters of it.

“It sets up a totally unnecessary clash between science and Christianity,”

I’d say it is Evolution belief that sets up an unnecessary clash with science rightly so called, along with its precursor Heliocentrism …

“which tends to discredit Christianity in popular secular opinion.”

There is a time - here or coming, but it will have been here before Doomsday - when not taking the mark of the beast will discredit Christians in popular secular opinion.

“It blocks many people from investigating Christianity seriously and accepting it.”

The culprits in their life are school compulsion and evolutionary indoctrination.

Answered twice

a and b.

a

Charles Kramer

21.XII.2021

Why does something have to be historical fact in order to be true?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

21.XII.2021

It doesn’t. That God is Three Persons is not historical, but unchanging, and still true.

However, Genesis 11 is not about eternals, it is, like Genesis in general, about historicals. Hence, due to its genre, it has to be historical fact and not historical falsehood to be true.

Charles Kramer

21.XII.2021

Let’s look at a bit differently and come from it through Shakespeare.

Why do we read or see Othello performed? It is to learn about how Venice governed its colonies in the late Renaissance? Or it is about racism, jealousy, and innocence?

Why do we read or see Macbeth performed? Is it to learn about inter-dynastic succession in late dark age Scotland? Or is Macbeth about ambition, power, corruption and guilt?

If no such person as Othello ever existed, would the play of bearing his name be any less true?

If Macbeth never existed or never actually did the things he is depicted doing in the play, would the play be any less true?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

21.XII.2021

First, Shakespear is, and is known to be, fiction. It was accepted by earliest audience as fictional in connexions like Twelfth Night.

Second, Shakespear made a lot of docufiction (more like Lanzmann’s Shoa or Wajda’s Katyn than like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings). He took more than one tragedy from Holinshed (which features a version of Hamlet slightly different from the one in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum - Fenge has become Claudius). This is certainly true for Macbeth, and it is half of my answer on Shakespear. Duncan actually was succeeded by Macbeth in Scotland. The persons did exist.

He arguably spent lots of time at a Jesuit college or different ones in Italy. This means many of his plays set in Italy may be based on news stories from these small Italian towns. This seems however not to be the case with Othello, since the storyline was mainly from Un Capitano Moro in Hecatommithi by Cinthio, pseudonym for Giovanni Battista Giraldi (- see Wikipedia).

In plays like Othello, unlike Macbeth or Hamlet, you do seek moral truth, but not historic truth.

Now, the point is, the genre of Macbeth and Othello is “tragedy” and since sceptics have disputed the historicity of Greek tragedy characters like Hercules, this genre was understood to be partly fiction, partly docufiction, unlike the oldest Greek view in which it was only docufiction.

With Genesis we do not have the genre of tragedy. We have, both as to obvious things like you don’t put excessively boring detail in pure fiction, and as to reception over the centuries, and this means also in the New Testament, a genre assignment as “historic book”. I mentioned Genesis 11 because of the timeline it implies, but it also serves to give an example of the kind of boring detail you don’t put into works of fictional entertainment (after the initial story of Babel, that is).

One book which more often has been considered as a work of fiction, and in the Jewish community certainly has a solid reputation as such among the very recent faction of liberals, is Job. Now, in the New Testament, St. James treats Job as history. Fast forward to Pope St. Gregory I, the Great or the Dialogist. I’ll cite all of the first paragraph or chapter:

1. There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. [Job 1, 1] It is for this reason that we are told where the holy man dwelt, that the meritoriousness of his virtue might be expressed; for who knows not that Uz is a land of the Gentiles? and the Gentile world came under the dominion of wickedness, in the same proportion that its eyes were shut to the knowledge of its Creator. Let us be told then where he dwelt, that this circumstance may be reckoned to his praise, that he was good among bad men; for it is no very great praise to be good in company with the good, but to be good with the bad; for as it is a greater offence not to be good among good men, so it is immeasurably high testimony for any one to have shewn himself good even among the wicked. Hence it is that the same blessed Job bears witness to himself, saying, I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. [Job 30, 29] Hence it was that Peter extolled Lot with high commendation, because he found him to be good among a reprobate people; saying, And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked; for he was righteous in seeing and hearing [so Vulg.], dwelling with them who vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. [2 Pet. 2, 7.8.] Now he evidently could not have been vexed unless he had both heard and witnessed the wicked deeds of his neighbours, and yet he is called righteous both in seeing and in hearing, because their wicked lives affected the ears and eyes of the Saint not with a pleasant sensation, but with the pain of a blow. Hence it is that Paul says to his disciples, In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine like lights in the world. [Phil. 2, 15] Hence it is said to the Angel of the Church of Pergamos, I know thy works,and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is; and thou holdest fast My name, and hast not denied My faith. [Rev. 2, 13] Hence the Holy Church is commended by the voice of the Spouse, where He says to her in the Song of love, As the lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters. [Cant. 2, 2] Well then is the blessed Job described, (by the mention of a gentile land,) as having dwelt among the wicked, that according to the testimony borne by the Spouse, be might be shewn to have grown up a lily among thorns, for which reason it is well subjoined immediately after,

And that man was simple [so Vulg.] and upright.

Gregory the Great - Moralia in Job (Morals on the Book of Job) - Book I (Book 1) - online
http://www.lectionarycentral.com/GregoryMoralia/Book01.html

In other words, to us Christians it is forbidden to take even Job as fiction. How much more so then Genesis.

In other words, your obviously upcoming argument is based on mis-assignment of genre.

EDIT : a mis-assignment of genre that I knew from the Swedish Lutheran modernists I converted from, and absolutely not from the Polish priest I converted for, back when I converted in 87–88. It is sad if the Vatican II Sect imitates the modernism of the Porvoo Communion.

b

John Becknell

21.XII.2021

Not so. Genesis is general is not purely historical in nature. You are disagreeing with Augustine on this point. There are two creation stories in Genesis. One where man is created first, and then other, last. God is displaying two different meanings to the narrative whose focus isn't primarily historical.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

21.XII.2021

You haven’t read St. Augustine.

His point about the six days of Genesis chapter 1 does not extend to more than 3 terms : day, evening, morning.

Apart from that, Genesis 1 is a historic fact, and according to St. Augustine about the first one moment rather than the first 168 hours of the world’s history.

He may or may not have brought up apparent discrepancies between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. I haven’t read that far in “De Genesi ad litteram libri XII”. There are more than one solution, and the first one is that Genesis 2:19 uses the pluperfect or a participle of active aorist (which right now I do not find in LXX online) : And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name.

So, God didn’t necessarily create Adam before animals in Genesis 2 either.

That there is more than one sense is current, and that the historical is not ultimately the spiritually most important is also current - but it does not follow that Genesis is not historical. And for Genesis 11, from verse 10 on, it would be very difficult to find any justification other than history for the genealogy.

I was answered twice

and since this is already "b", I'll label the answers b i and b ij.

b i

John Becknell

21.XII.2021

Look at what you're doing Hans-Georg. You are attempting provisos to discount what Augustine explained as allegorical from Genesis to say he wasn't really doing that. That's clearly false even from your answer.

Let me ask you clearly. Do you believe in geocentrism and a six thousand year old creation?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

• 1. I have not pretended there is anything wrong with explaining the Genesis or any other part of OT history as allegorical. Even Antiochus Apiphanes is an allegory of the Antichrist.
• 2. This does not in any way, shape or form mean St. Augustine pretended the Genesis was not literal. You see, John Bunyan or Prudentius could write allegories in fictions arranged for that purpose, but God almighty can write allegories into a series of real events.
• 3. I am therefore not discounting what St. Augustine does, you are misconstruing it. Again, you have not read him. Case in point : if you had read City of God, you would know that from when Creation has taken place, he is very keen on Genesis being factual history.

Now, you posed two questions.

• 1. Yes, I believe in Geocentrism, among other things it solves the Distant Starlight paradox for a young universe (“parallax” being a misnomer for something else, like proper movements performed by angelic movers) AND it is something which St. Augustine very clearly defended in book I of De Genesi ad Litteram Libri XII.
• 2. No, I belive Adam had recently died 6000 years ago, I hold to the chronology of the Roman martyrology which is based on LXX and therefore arguably the one believed by St. Augustine, unless he preferred the longer also LXX based reckoning that has Christ born 5509 instead of 5199 after Creation. I also believe Christ is born 2957 after the Flood, and not 2346, as Ussher would prefer.

John Becknell

22.XII.2021

Oh my. Now of course, Adam and Eve were real people, as Pius XII explained. But who denies history, and real logic here? You might give the most wonderful defense of the faith to a large group as perhaps Sungenis would and someone in the back yells, “Yeah, but you're the one who believes the universe revolves around the earth, right?” And your effectiveness at proclaiming the true faith, or even a false one, is toast. That's what you've done here.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

24.XII.2021

Christmas Eve

Our effectiveness at proclaiming the true faith will be toast anyway when Antichrist gets his way on earth, and trying to back that date off by selling out more and more of the faith is just bringing it on even earlier.

As for me “denying history”, as for me “denying … real logic,” I’d like details. I think once you start giving them, my logic will have a bit more to add …

b ij

Jacqueline Quackenbush

22.XII.2021

Convert To Catholicism Here. Confirmed In July.

I Admit, I'm In Way Over My Head But:

The Fact That God Created Adam Before The Beasts Of The Earth And The Fowls Of The Air Is Evident From How The Sentence Is Structured

PAX

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

Not if it says “having created” …

Jacqueline Quackenbush

22.XII.2021

Convert To Catholicism Here. Confirmed In July.

I See Tha Words Having Formed. I Assume Thatz What Yor Referring To.

However, After Careful Review, I Still Maintain My Position And I Do So From The Appearance Of Tense (As In Past And Present) And On Tha Basis That Itz All One Sentence. Being In The Message Part Of The Question, I Am Unable To View Yor Comment. However, I See It Situated Something Like This:

Having Formed (Past Tense) The Beasts And The Fowl He Brot (Present Tense) Them Before Adam.

Ergo, Adam Already Existed

PAX

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

I am sorry, I think you should learn the tenses a bit better.

He already existed before God brought the beasts and fowl before him, but God had already created them before He brought them before him too.

And therefore the sentence doesn’t say Adam had been formed before they were formed, only that they had been formed before they were brought before him.

Quackenbush answered

but when I try to follow up the notification, I get no sight of the comment. Deleted? Numerically delayed upload? I don't know. Ah, now it appears:

Jacqueline Quackenbush

22.XII.2021

Convert To Catholicism Here. Confirmed In July.

I Disagree. In Fact, All My Senses Rail (sp??) Against Yor Claims. You'll Have To Do Better Than That. Surely I'm Worth A Better Explanation Than That.

It's Understood By The Eyes, The Brain, The Mind And The Heart That What Ive Stated Is True.

As Soon As One Reads The Sentence One Intuitively Understands Its Meaning.

Show The Sentence To Anyone With More Than A High School Education And They Will Say Tha Same.

Btw This Is Nothing Personal. I Enjoy The Odd Quibble About Things Such As These

PAX

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

I happen to have some university education, especially in Latin.

Formatis igitur Dominus Deus de humo cunctis animantibus terrae, et universis volatilibus caeli, adduxit ea ad Adam, ut videret quid vocaret ea : omne enim quod vocavit Adam animae viventis, ipsum est nomen ejus.

The point is, the earth beasts and birds had been formed from soil (de humo), and it had already happened (formatis is a past passive participle) before what follows. It doesn’t say it happened after what preceded.

I answered twice

as said above, and here is the other answer:

Hans-Georg Lundahl

21.XII.2021

Francis Marsden, under your other answer, I had affair with a Joe Smith, no qualifications given, here with Charles Kramer and with John Becknell, whose qualifications are also not given. Are their qualifications simply being Catholic (on your view) laymen you happen to know?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

And, I hope your acquaintance Jacqueline Quackenbush isn’t this one:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-quackenbush-87116870?trk=public_profile_samename-profile

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

Sorry, not … phew …. Québec city …

Hans-Georg Lundahl

22.XII.2021

Or that Charles Kramer isn’t this guy:

https://fr.linkedin.com/in/charles-kramer-062867