3.

Inspiration
1. The Church considers the Bible with its two testaments as word of God and so as an
infallible norm.
Bible
The word bible comes from the Latin word Biblia or from Greek word Biblos and it means
BOOKS (in the plural ta biblia is singular i.e. book)
The word Bible is indicative of two things:
o That it is 1) the book , 2) the book of books 3) the great book
o The plural form suggests that it is a LIBRARY OF BOOKS

Composition:
In OT 46
In NT 27 Totally 73 books.
Testament
The very word testament come from the Latin Testamentum, which was chosen to translate the
Biblical Idea of Covenant.
The ADJECTIVES Old and New indicate the TIME of composition of the book
What unites OT and NT is the promise and the fulfilment of Jesus
Word of God
How does bilbebecome the word of God?
Firstly, how does bible becomes the word of God? it is the word of God, because it is of
APOSTOLIC ORIGIN and it has to it 3 key elements . i.e. a. revealed b. inspired c. inerrant
REVEALED : As divine revelation it is word of God in the words of humans.
INSPIRED: the Latin word inspiro means to breathe into or blow into. So
inspiration means that God breathes into human minds the ideas to be written down.
Therefore, subjects, humans are called inspired and these humans choose words,
idioms, of the time to verbalize those ideas.
So 2 CONSEQENCES OF INSPIRATION are
o The bible become the word of God
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o It become the source and NORMATIVE for Christian Theology and spiritual
growth
There are 3 NT texts which tell us that the OT texts are important.
o 2 Tim 3, 16-17: all scripture is inspired by God; and is useful for teaching, for
reproof for correction, and for training in righteousness.
o 2 Pet 1, 19-21 so prophecy and scripture is a matter of ones own interpretation . Because
no prophecy ever came by human will, but MEN AND WOMEN MOVED BY THE HOLY
SPIRIT SPOKE FROM GOD.
o 2 Pet 3, 15-16 this refers to the Pauline corpus as being on par with the Jewish scriptures.

Word of God, refers not only to words but also the deeds it refers to Dabar Yahweh mighty
acts of God.
In OT through the mighty acts of God, he liberated the people from Egypt/slavery.

Infalliable Norm = It is normative.

Bible can be looked at from 2 different angles.
a. Dogmatic perspective : What does the community say about the bible.it is teh faith
perspective.
b. Literary Historical perspective ; we read the biblliterature.e like any other
Looking at the bible from the dogmatic / faith perspective we say Bible is normative

2. Yet as literature, the bible is subject to the norms of literary form and redaction
criticism, which govern the interpretation of any literature (ND 236)

Pope Pius XII allowed and in Divine Afflanto Spiritu(1943) - OT

Pope Paul VI allowed in Santa Mater Eccelsia - NT

Method: Techniques
Historical Critical Method is a scientific way of reading any literature
Criticism are techniques used to interpret literature
1. Textual to explore and find authentic text.
2. Redaction how scripture is collected and edited tradition.
3. Literary explores relationship bet the sources. ex. JEDP or MT, Mk, Lk, Jn
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4. Form how text developed during oral tradition.

Form = units. Text developed in units.
3 things to remember about oral tradition

Resurrection

Need of the community

Biblical language historical we go back in time through time we go back to

see which is the original.

3. And so it is subject to the limitations of human authorship and transmission.

Thus the bible is the word of God in the words of humans.
Collected and edited so scripture is subject to the limitation of the human authorship and
transmission.
Here we bring both dogmatic and scientific dimensions together. It is a word of god in the words of
Humans.
Experience o God can be genuine where as its expression might be deficient.
Its infalliable norm because God is teh author.
Vat II says Human author is teh true author. Therefore words of men.
So Vat I &II create a dilemma. how do we come out of this dilemma?
We explain this through 3 theories.
a. Dictatiton theory : God dictated and human wrote. Problem with the dictation theory is
errors (historical and scientific). Ex: book of Joshua.
b. Instrumental theory man is chosen as the instrument. Therefore mist ake can be
explained. Problems -allusive authorship. Here one peron is not writing. Scripture has
community is the author as its collected and edited tradition.
c. Ecclesia Charism Theory of Karl Rahner

He said God calls into being the Church as an eschatological community of salvation by
a special act of Gods will. Therefore, God is its author. [eschatological= definitive/ once
and for all; special act= not merely transcendental]

God will the church as a historical community, and therefore, wills the apostolic Church
as NORMATIVE. [i.e. like a baby which has the constitutive elements of a future adult]

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God will the NT as the constitutive element of the Apostolic Church.( i.e. the apostolic
church becomes the normative through the scriptures)

God wills the OT as the pre-history of the CHRIST EVENT. (in other words the OT is
the living context of Jesus experience)

Inerrancy
Since there is human contribution in the writings of the Bible, there may be limitations of the
knowledge (Ex. Errors with regard to history, geography, science.). BUT THERE IS NO
ERROR WITH REGARD TO THE SALVIFIC TRUTH IN THE BIBLE. This is affirmed in the
Dei Verbum and also in providentissimus Deus.

Being aware of the historical and scientific errors, we say Bible contains truths
concerning salvation without error.

Therefore in this soteriologial sense there is no error- with regard to the salvific truth.
That is with regard to the faith and morls ( DV II).

4. Internal and external pressures led the church to establish and fix the canon in a
process that covered about four centuries.
A. Internal pressures:
Jewish Christians were thrown out of the Synagogue and had lost their identity. Hence they felt the
need to establish a charter which would restore their identity.

B. External pressure:
There was flooding of all sorts of literature; apocryphal, Gnostic literature etc. So the church chose
to close the canon. They took four centuries because they had to arrive at a consensus between east
and the wet. (The OT Canon was accepted much more easily than the NT).

The western church had problems with letter to the Hebrew, because the authorship of
Paul was under question.

The Eastern Church questioned the books of revelation because the Chiliasts heresy
seemed to be based on it.

In general to safeguard the identity of the community they had to come out with the canon.

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Principles for fixing the canon were:

Apostolic origin

Wide liturgical use in the different local churches

Whether the book has as its core the Paschal mystery of Christ

Canon
Literally meant a reed and hence later, metaphorically a measuring rod. And finally it came to
be meaning a norm or also simply a list.
When applies to sacred scripture it means either, a rule or norm for right believing of and right
living or a list of inspired books.

5. Being the constitution and the character of the church, the canon may not be
tampered with by way of additions or excisions (ND 210, 211, 212, 213)

Constitution is one that gives identity.

Moment of birth gives identity. Identity comes at the moment of birth.

Christianity took birth during apostolic church.

It is this apostolic church which is expressed in the form of a scripture gives an identity.
Therefore scripture becomes constitution. It cannot be tampered.

If we do that then the identity changes.

Council of Trent :
ND 210 Written book and unwritten traditions as coming from the mouth of Christ. OR being
inspired by the HS and preserved in the continuous succession in the CR.
ND 211 Canon of Scripture
List of OT books
ND 212 List of NT books
ND 213 - If anyone doesnt accept these books in their entirety with all their parts as they are
being read in the catholic church and are contained in the ancient Latin vulgate editions, as
sacred and canonical and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions anathema
Sit.
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6. Since other religious too have their scriptures, we need to inquire into their nature
and function.

The answer to the question depends on your understanding of inspiration.

Inspiration the quality of the book that makes the book inspired expression of the faith of
the apostolic community. Its domestic definition.

If inspiration is understood in a broad sense i.e. Sacred Scripture as containing Gods self
revelation, then all scriptures are inspired. So the Sacred Scripture of other faiths are the
attempts of their communities to articulate their experience of God.

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