On Tempura and Incest A Practical Guide to Scriptures By Ray Aguas 1) Do we believe and follow everything written in Scriptures?

To the letter? Let us begin with some examples. Read the following passages (as in open your bibles!): Leviticus 18: 6-18 (on incest); Lev. 18:22 (on homosexual sex); Lev. 11:9-12, Deuteronomy 14:9-10 (some dietary laws) We can cite countless other examples. E.g. slavery in Lev. 25:44-46. So, is incestual sex acceptable? Most, if not all, would say no, it is not acceptable. Why not? Because the bible says so. Seems reasonable enough for a Christian to say, right? A problem arises, however. Some of these people eat shrimp. And the bible uses the exact same term to describe perpetrators of incest and people who eat shellfish: abomination. So, shouldnt we stop eating shrimp? After all, the bible says we shouldnt eat those little things. How is eating shrimp different from incest or homosexual sex? More importantly, how do we begin to adjudicate? 2) We must remember that Scripture is a faith-inspired account of a faith-filled communitys faith experiences (note the repeated use of the word faith). In other words, Scripture is the reflected first expression of revelation as interpreted by the community. It is NOT meant to be read as a history book. E.g. Ex. 14:21-29 (Red Sea) As discussed in class, the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea is explainable entirely as a natural phenomenon of tides and/or winds. And yet, it is acknowledged by both Jews and Christians as the single greatest miracle in the Old Testament. 3) How then do we decide what to believe? Put simply, Church teaching (Tradition) and human experience (sensus fidei). Let us look at what the Church teaches us in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum, hereafter DV) (from the Second Vatican Council). (To save you much of the tedium of reading the full, original text, Ill spend the next few paragraphs summarizing key points. Obviously, feel free to refer to the source material if you so desire.)

2 DV 7 tells us that God wanted the saving truth to be accessible to all future generations. Thus, Christ himself commanded his apostles to preach the saving truth. This the apostles faithfully did. Later on, these apostles and their associates, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, committed these saving truths to writing. DV 8 describes how this apostolic mission is carried out up to today through the continuous line of apostolic succession (bishops). DV 8 further describes how the tradition that comes from the apostles makes progress in the church, with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This progress in the Spirit comes about through two main sources: a) the faithful, through their contemplation and study, and through their intimate sense of spiritual realities, and b) the preaching of the bishops who possess the sure charism of truth. DV 9 and 10 describe in greater detail how Scripture and Tradition are bound closely together (f)lowing from the same divine well-spring DV 9 concludes by stating that: Thus it is that the church does not draw its certainty about all revealed truths from the holy scriptures alone. Hence, both scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal devotion and reverence. DV 10 begins with an even stronger statement. Tradition and scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the word of God, which is entrusted to the church. DV 10 goes on to explain that the task of interpreting scriptures authentically is entrusted to the Churchs magisterium. Thus, DV 10 closes by stating that: sacred tradition, sacred scripture and the magisterium of the church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Lets investigate the relationship between these three: scripture, tradition, and magisterium. Obviously, the believing community came before the scriptures. The scriptures came about as the community wrote down what it believed. Like any text, the scriptures do not interpret themselves. Since it is the community that wrote the book, it reserves the right to definitively interpret the text. Once constituted though, this text becomes foundational to the identity of the future community. Stupid analogy time. Which came first: the Philippines or the constitution? Obviously the nation, right? So in that sense, we can clearly state that the nation comes before the constitution; we define it because we wrote it. Once written, however, the constitution serves as the fundamental law of the land. Subsequent generations are bound by it. In that sense, we can say that the constitution defines the Philippines. And if there is any question as regards interpretation of the constitution who adjudicates? The supreme court. Philippines=church, constitution=scripture, supreme court=magisterium. 4) In my opinion, DV 11 and 12 are at the heart of the matter. Put in another way if we get what DV 11 and 12 are saying, we get scriptures. DV 11 states that the books of the Old and New Testaments have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the church itself. To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made

3 full use of their powers and faculties so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more. Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of scripture, firmly, faithfully, and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred scriptures. DV 12, which I am presenting verbatim almost in its entirety: Seeing that, in sacred scriptures, God speaks through human beings in human fashion, it follows that the interpreters of sacred scripture, if they are to ascertain what God has wished to communicate to us, should carefully search out the meaning which the sacred writers really had in mind, that meaning which God had thought well to manifest through the medium of their words. In determining the intention of the sacred writers, attention must be paid, among other things, to literary genres. The fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression. Hence the exegete must look for that meaning which the sacred writers, in given situations and granted the circumstances of their time and culture, intended to express and did in fact express, through the medium of a contemporary literary form. Rightly to understand what the sacred authors wanted to affirm in their work, due attention must be paid both to the customary and characteristic patterns of perception, speech and narrative which prevailed in their time, and to the conventions which people then observed in their dealings with one another. But since sacred scripture must be read and interpreted with its divine authorship in mind, no less attention must be devoted to the content and unity of the whole of scripture, taking into account the tradition of the entire church and the analogy of faith, if we are to derive their true meaning from the sacred texts. 5) Quite a mouthful, huh? Dont worry, well sort it out. There are a few key concepts to consider: inspiration, inerrancy, and canon. Well discuss each in turn. a) Inspiration Certainly a problematic concept. When you hear the term as applied to scripture, what do you imagine happening? Did God zap Matthew with the Holy Spirit? Thus assuring that everything he wrote was correct? Even if we assume that that is indeed what happened, how do we account for inconsistencies within scripture? Was it really a Sermon on the Mount as Matthew writes, or on the Plain, as Luke describes? Its quite difficult to makes heads or tails of it if we follow the zapping model of inspiration.

Given what we already know about revelation and faith, it becomes so much easier to understand biblical inspiration. In my terms, I view it as a bottom-up experience, as opposed to top-down. Not top-down in the zapping from heaven sense. That is not how revelation works. Rather, think of scriptures as the first reflective expression of the revelation of God as mediated through Jesus of Nazareth. Nothing magical happened. No possession of the biblical authors. Instead, you have a model of the community expressing historically its experience of revelation. Note that there were over 30 gospels written. Why do we have only four in our canon? These are the four which the communities regarded as expressive of their experience of revelation. The others were not. Inspiration as bottom-up the community recognizes these books as inspired, and thus binding on them. b) Inerrancy Flows directly from inspiration. Since the community recognizes these writings as expressive of their experience of revelation as mediated by Jesus of Nazareth, the community considers them free from error insofar as they express the communitys self-identity and belief. Again, think of a constitution. Once ratified, it serves as the fundamental law of the land. All other laws are created, read, and understood in light of this foundational and fundamental document. In other words, the community is saying of scripture: This is a faithful account of what we experienced. We will always be bound to this account. Why is scripture inerrant? Because the community says so. And because what it is an account or expression of cannot and does not change. c) Canon This also flows from the previous two. Canon is a word which means rule or measure. The Church measured which books would make up its scriptures. Once canonized though, the Church subjects itself henceforth to these scriptural books. The bible acts as a norm for measuring the Church. Can the canon change? Can we add to it? No. Not because situations do not change. Not because we do not learn anything new. Not because we are not smarter than the biblical authors. The canon cannot change because the central medium of all Christian revelation is Jesus. And the scriptures, particularly the gospels, are the closest thing we have to a first expression of the interpreted experience of revelation as mediated through Jesus of Nazareth. This revelational encounter with God through Jesus is the original revelation which lies at the head of Christianity, and the scriptures are the privileged first expression of this original revelation. That cannot change or be added to. We can certainly learn new things. We certainly have to theologically discuss new things. For example, the bible says nothing about nuclear weapons, and we certainly have to have a position on those. Thus we have dependent revelation. But we do not create new original revelation. The canon of scripture is closed.