Inspiration and Revelation Flashcards
What is the Bible?
-a library or collection of books written over a period of around 1500 years
-it has a clear 2 part structure: The Old Testament followed by the New Testament
What is the Old Testament?
-The Old Testament is part of the Christian Bible because it reveals God’s love for his people which and prophisies the coming of Jesus
-Jesus was Jewish and so were his followers so they all would have also viewed what we now call the Old Testament as the scriptures that revealed God to them.
-e.g. “do not kill” found in the ten commandments in Exdous
What is the New Testament?
-The second part of the Bible that details the life of Jesus and the work and writings of his early followers, and was written in Greek
-The books in the Bible today were agreed by the Church around the fourth or fifth century.
What is meant by the fact that the Bible was written in “literary forms”?
The Bible is written by many different authors at different times, so in order to read the Bible properly it is important to understand who wrote it, why and when they wrote it e.g. letters, law and history
What is revelation?
-How God makes himself known to human beings
-Catholics believe the Bible is revelation meaning that God reveals messages about himself through his actions and messengers (prophets)
What evidence is there for the Christian belief in the Bible as being revelation ?
-“all scripture is God breathed”- The Bible”
- this reminds Catholics that the Bible is the word of God and should be followed
How does the Catholic belief in revelation influence their lives?
Catholics will try to follow the teachings of Jesus in the Bible in their everyday lives when making a moral decision as they believe since it the Bible is revelation it possess authority.
What is meant by inspiration?
-The belief the Bible continues God’s guidance as God sent the Holy Spirit to the Bible writers, to guide and inspire them them to write down God’s messages so people could know his truth and the right way of living
-e.g. the Bible says “love they neighbour”
Do Catholics believe the Bible/ Genesis is literal?
-No
-Catholic Church teaches that the Bible is a text inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, the authors of the Bible wrote down the things God wanted to be recorded.
-The Church also teaches that as the Bible’s authors were they were limited in their understanding due to the time and place they were living in. For example, they would not have known about scientific explanations of the universe and this would have shown in their writing.
-For Catholics, the truths revealed in the Bible need to be authoritatively interpreted by the Church, which teaches that the creation stories in Genesis should be read in a metaphorical way. This means Catholics can accept scientific theories about creation such as the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution.
Do Creationist Christian’s believe the Bible/ Genesis is literally true?
-yes
-The belief God gave humans the ability to write down exactly what he wanted and so they take a literal view of the Bible.
-They believe that every word in the Bible is true and does not need interpreting e.g. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”
-They reject scientific theories of creation, believing instead that the world was made exactly as it says in Genesis.
