You know, it just struck me, as someone, I don't remember who, said that the "death penalty is biblical".
Ok.
So "Thou Shalt not Kill" is also Biblical.
Now, these contradictions are impossible to reconcile if one truly takes the Bible IN ITS ENTIRETY as inerrant.
The Catholic Church teaches that the Bible is inerrant, really, only when interpreted by the Church Herself. This brings me comfort, because really and truly? If you got down to the nitty-gritty and really tried to reconcile the entire text? It clearly gets a little nutty. Now, I am not calling the Word of God nutty, so don't jump on me.
I am saying honestly and truly, how in the world can every translation and every version, edition, etc. be inerrant.
It makes my head spin a bit to think about it.
So I was reading up, and found a pretty good explanation that I can live with.
Just food for thought...
Early church fathers: David Bennett, a member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and co-owner of the Ancient and Future Catholics web site comments on the the early church fathers' beliefs about inerrancy.
Bennett writes:
"The early Fathers held that the Bible was inerrant. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches affirm this as well. However, this is the case only when the Bible is properly understood, interpreted by the Church. This is inerrancy by ancient standards and not modern, fundamentalist standards. The early Fathers did not think that minor contradictions rendered the Bible errant, nor did they insist all stories were meant to be interpreted literally. For instance, the creation stories were often allegorized, interpreted in ways so as to prefigure Christ, or interpreted through the lens of the science of the day (or all three!). Thus St. Augustine could say each day in the Genesis creation story was equal to a thousand years, or that the science of the day should shape our understanding of the creation stories, without ever denying the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. So when a Catholic affirms the inerrancy of Scripture, the idea has far less baggage than the fundamentalist understanding."
"For example, many early Christian writers were well aware of minor contradictions within the Scriptures, even in the gospels, and did not seem too bothered by it. Tertullian (AD 200) said, "Never mind if there does occur some variation in the order of the [gospel] narratives. What matters is that there is agreement in the essential doctrine of the Faith" (Against Marcion, IV:2). St. John Chrysostom (AD 390) was even bolder (at least to modern ears) to suggest that contradictions in the gospels actually strengthen the conviction that Christianity is true. If the gospel authors agreed in every small detail, then it was obvious that the stories were forgeries by a group of dishonest early Christians in collusion with one another. He even says, "the discord which seems to be present in little matters shields [the authors] from every suspicion and vindicates the character of the writers" (Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, I:6). Even today, we Christians are far more credible if we admit to minor Biblical contradictions rather than trying come up with absurd, non-realistic stories designed to make the gospel accounts completely harmonize. So without denying the Bible's inspiration or essential accuracy, many Church Fathers recognized minor contradictions and variants in the text."
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