On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 05:55:50 -0700, Jeanne Douglas
<hlwd...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
>In article <
qeg4l8hamqoehnpie...@4ax.com>,
> Patrick <
pbark...@woh.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> SkyEyes <
skye...@cox.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >Read Numbers 5:11-27 for the prescription for giving a woman suspected
>> >of infidelity an abortifacient drink.
>>
>> When was this written?
>> Who wrote it?
>> And isn't it a fact it was written for bitches like you who aren't
>> deemed fit to be mothers?
>
>It's in the Bible, the book that you consider holy.
Yes, the book as a Whole is revered and considered sacred.
>So who wrote Numbers? Was it God?
>
>Are you actually trying to pretend that something in the OT is some kind
>of modern forgery? Because that's what it sounds like.
I am merely asking you who you think was the author of the Book of
Numbers in the Old Testament. Do you actually think that God sat down
and penned it? Of course it is not a forgery. It is an actual book.
I just want to know who you think wrote it...
If this is too tough for you, or if you can't think of a clever
response, then fine... I understand.
>I remember posting it a few weeks ago and you refused to even read it.
>Do you really have to work that hard to avoid things you don't like in
>your holy book?
Back to the holy book.
We have a difference in opinion about this holy book. You seem to
want to have me accept it as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth according to God almighty.
The Church does not have an "official" position on the literal
historicity of Bible stories. Whether they are not has no bearing on
whether the lesson they impart is true. Catholics are free to
understand them as literal or not. The Church only insists that the
Bible is inspired and inerrant and that what it teaches is the truth.
Numbers is considered more of a history book than a legislative tool
to judge others. I simply cannot understand why an atheist has it in
his mind otherwise. If you NEED to discuss this with a literalist,
find a fundy. But, don't look in the Catholic newsgroup.
-----------------
Do Catholics believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible?
## Two points - "literal" is liable to cause misunderstanding, because
it can mean either of two things:
1. The linguistic meaning of the text - Greek theos means "god", no
matter what the context; it never means "elephant" or "sun", for
example. In that sense, theos has "god" or "God" as its "literal
meaning"
2. Words can also be used in a transferred sense: Our Lord, Peter, the
other Apostles, & and Christians in general, are all called "stones"
or "rocks" in the NT.
But, does this mean Our Lord is a chunk of granite or limestone, for a
geologist to study ? Of course not. The word "rock" keeps its
dictionary meaning - but, "Be built up like living stones" is an
encouragement to Christians to have the sort of durability and
strength & firmness associated with rock and stone; it's a transferred
use of the word "stone"; because stones, obviously, are not living.
So the "dictionary meaning" of a word, is sometimes present only for
the sake of the transferred. "non-proper", meaning.
As for Noah: there are several flood-stories, and several possible
floods - it's not easy to match the Genesis flood to any one of them
as "the" Flood. The point of the story is more important than trying
to identify which one is meant; the point being, that God is faithful.
the Genesis story may well owe something to older stories of the same
sort - but it differs from them greatly, because it has one holy God,
as against their many rather changeable and non-ethical gods. (We
can't assume that the Biblical authors were interested in the stories
they wrote for the same reasons that we might be interested in them.)
None of the Bible is "just stories" - everything has a meaning; a lot
looks like mythology or make-believe, only because the Bible grew up
in a culture very different from our own.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=19520