The Why's? of Catholicism

This book is filled with over a hundred different questions and answers about the Catholic faith and the basis for its beliefs. Here is one example!

If some parts of the Bible are stories, then how can we fully
believe it? When stories are passed down from generation to
generation aren’t they going to be changed little by little
each time they are passed down, so they aren’t going to be the
same as they were originally told.

So, if, I told a fictional (made-up) story but in a historically accurate setting, would it make the historically accurate part of my “story” any less believable? Conversely, if I told a true (non-fictional) story about an event in my life but changed some of the names or places referenced or some irrelevant facts to protect the privacy of myself or others in the story, would that make my story any less true or believable? Would the message I intended by my story be any less accurate, authentic or credible?

So, you make two good points. One is that a portion of the bible has stories (or parables in it, mostly in the New Testament) and that much of the Bible was handed down verbally from one generation to the next (mostly the Old Testament) before it was eventually written down. This is known as the “oral tradition”.

Let me take your last point first. You are correct! Many of the details in the verbal multi-generational transmission of biblical accounts probably did change by accident or even design over the course of time, of telling and re-telling. However, one should not equate this oral tradition from an accuracy point of view, with today’s “telephone game” as some critics of biblical Christianity have done. The oral tradition of handing down scripture was taken extremely seriously by the early Jewish people. Furthermore, the Bible is not intended to be 100% factual but it is intended to be 100% accurate in terms of conveying the “message God intended” us to hear and understand. The Bible is more like a library than a book, it has a mix of literary styles, reflective of the various times, intentions, backgrounds, knowledge, etc of the various authors that contributed to the Bible as we Catholics know it (remember the Jewish Bible differs from the Catholic Bible and the Catholic Bible differs from some other Christian versions).

Catholics and many Christian faiths believe the following three things about the Bible:

1. It is an inspired work. That is, it was inspired by God but written by men in the words of men. These men included and excluded events, acts or teachings as God inspired them and they all wrote within the limits of their abilities and knowledge.
2. It is an infallible work. The Bible is infallible in terms of telling me the truth when it comes to matters of faith and practice. It is 100% accurate in terms of delivering the message that God intended.
3. It is inerrant. The Bible is inerrant in terms of what it “teaches” but this does not mean that it is 100% factually accurate.

So yes, the “facts” may not be 100% historically accurate but the intended message is fully accurate and without error. This is important to remember when we now cover your concerns about the believability of the “stories” in the Bible. So, if your issue is whether or not you should believe all of the details or “facts” in the stories are 100% historically accurate, no you should not believe this. The Catholic Church does not and in some cases even the original biblical authors may not have been sure of all the facts. Remember, I explained the number forty is used in the bible quite often. Many biblical scholars believed that using the number forty was used intentionally to imply a “relatively” long time (depending on whether they were referencing forty days, weeks, years, etc) but used this number when they were not sure just how long the time period actually was.

Some whole books of the bible are poetic in style such as Genesis and Psalms. The key in poetic books, even more so then in other books of the Bible, is to focus on the message not the “facts” or details. As I mentioned earlier, Genesis has two accounts of creation. The Catholic Church does not take a position on whether there actually was “Garden of Eden” nor whether that the first human form was a man named Adam and woman named Eve that were of a particular color or race. The point of the story was that God created or caused man (and women) to be created and men ultimately sinned against God) requiring God to sacrifice his Son to free us from the pain and suffering of our sins.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we hear of a man who gets beaten and robbed and several ignore the beaten man but then a hated Samaritan takes pity on him. The message was that all men are our “brothers” and those that are more fortunate have an obligation to help those less fortunate. This was a story Jesus told to deliver his intended message.

Focus on the meaning or intended message of the Bible, not on the literary styles or historical accuracy of the details used in the bible.