Wolf in Calfskin: The Rampant Liberalism of the NAB

I. Introduction
II. How Not to Read Your Bible

I. Introduction

Holy Mother Church understands that false doctrine is the more dangerous to the extent that it is presented under "a form of godliness" (cf. 2 Tim 3:5). This is why, for instance, every Pope who reigned during the 19^th century condemned Protestant "biblical societies." The putative aim of these societies was to promote knowledge of the Word of God by publishing and circulating free copies of the Bible in the various vernacular languages: certainly, in itself, a noble cause. Yet, under the godly bound form of a volume of the Sacred Scriptures, they delivered to unsuspecting Catholics erroneous translations of the sacred page which might harm their Catholic faith. Leo XII warned, "There are good reasons for fear that (as has already happened in some of their commentaries and in other respects by a distorted interpretation of Christ's gospel) they will produce a gospel of men, or what is worse, a gospel of the devil!"¹ Pius VIII said of these societies that, "They skillfully distort the meaning by their own interpretation... Furthermore, the Bibles are rarely without perverse little inserts to insure that the reader imbibes their lethal poison instead of the saving water of salvation."² Gregory XVI, with perhaps more charity, stated, "In the many translations from the biblical societies, serious errors are easily inserted by the great number of translators, either through ignorance or deception."³ Bl. Pope Pius IX accused the societies of "perverse explanations."⁴ In their versions, the biblical text was "subverted and most daringly twisted to yield a vile meaning."⁵ Lastly, Leo XIII confirmed that the versions published by the biblical societies were dangerous and forbidden to Catholics.⁶

It is the thesis of this article that the above papal condemnations apply in spades to one particular biblical society, and one particular biblical version, which are flourishing in our day: namely, The Catholic Biblical Association of America and its New American Bible, or NAB.⁷ J'accuse: the NAB, in many places, daringly redacts, rearranges, or otherwise mistranslates the sacred text, and it does so in the service of the modernist critical hermeneutic which is revealed in its "perverse" introductions and commentary. These comments repeatedly contradict or call into question the Catholic dogma of the plenary inspiration and inerrancy of Sacred Scripture⁸ as also the Catholic dogmas of Christology and Mariology. This Bible is a danger to the faith of Catholics; it is a near occasion for sin.⁹

And, tragically, the New American Bible is clothed in a form of godliness far more convincing than anything that a Protestant biblical society could ever hope to weave. Indeed, it possesses all the trappings of a faithfully Catholic Bible. It boasts three imprimaturs,¹⁰ an apostolic blessing from Pope Paul VI,¹¹ and the approval of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The NAB is, in fact, the translation which must be used in all English language lectionaries in Catholic Churches in America (although there are differences between the printed NAB and the lectionary NAB). The NAB is hosted on the Vatican's website.¹² And as icing on the cake, the St. Joseph Edition even contains a smattering of attractive and traditional Catholic art: David slaying Goliath, Elijah ascending into heaven, the fifteen original mysteries of the Holy Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, etc. For a cherry on top, it dutifully informs the reader he may earn a plenary indulgence by reading Sacred Scripture for one half hour.

In sum, every external appearance leads the reader, Catholic or non-Catholic, to assume that this Bible represents authentic Catholic teaching. This being the case, Catholics will give this Bible to their children, trusting that their Church guarantees that it is safe, and inquiring Protestants, Jews, and Atheists will take its commentary as representative of how the Catholic Church understands Sacred Scripture. How tragic, then, when the Catholic child loses his faith, when the Protestant discovers that the Catholic Church believes the Bible is full of errors, when the Jew realizes that the largest Christian denomination admits that the New Testament misrepresents the Old, when the Atheist is confirmed in his suspicion that scholarly Christians do not mean what they say when they call the Bible the Word of God, and when all of them reject the mystical body of Christ.

The purpose of this study is to prevent such loss of souls by exposing the wolf beneath the calfskin of the NAB, and by sounding the alarm against it.¹³ This Bible does not represent authentic Catholicism. It is not "the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints" (Jude 1:3). It is poison. To Catholics I say, "do not trust this Bible"; to non-Catholics, "please do not reject the Catholic Church on its account"; to the bishops, "protect your flock from this thing."

With loving confidence in their intercession, I place this study under the patronage of St. Joseph, St. Paul, St. Jerome, St. Pius X, and Mary, Destroyer of Heresies.

II. How Not to Read Your Bible

The Catholic Books Publishing Company has added a guide entitled "How to Read your Bible" to the front matter of the St. Joseph Edition of the NAB. This guide, it is acknowledged,¹⁴ "has been adapted by John Kersten, S.V.D., from his book Understanding Hebrew Literature." While this guide is not part of the NAB proper, and hence not the object of any official episcopal approbation, it is nevertheless integrated seamlessly with such "official" front matter as the apostolic blessing of Paul VI and the Preface to the Old Testament, thus creating the appearance that all those imposing statements of ecclesiastical approbation to be found just inside the front cover apply in fact to it.¹⁵ For this reason, as well as its wide dissemination among the simple faithful and the sheer audacity with which it deconstructs the traditional Catholic doctrine of biblical inspiration, "How to Read Your Bible" merits to be vigorously refuted.

As with currency, so with doctrine: the best way to learn to recognize fraud is to familiarize oneself with the genuine article. As such, before proceeding to critique "How to Read Your Bible," it will be helpful to briefly review the Catholic doctrine of biblical inspiration as it is expounded in the authentic sources.

St. Paul declares in 1 Timothy 3:16 that "all Scripture is inspired by God," or, in Greek (partially), "all Scripture is theopneustos": literally, God-breathed. Scripture is the breath or speech of God in human form. This being the case, God's action in biblical inspiration is analogous to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. "For as the substantial Word of God became like to men in all things, 'except sin' (Heb 4:15), so the words of God, expressed in human language, are made like to human speech in every respect, except error."¹⁶ Therefore, the First Vatican Council properly (and dogmatically) defines inspiration as divine "dictation."¹⁷ Leo XIII elaborates on the First Vatican Council's decree:

This supernatural revelation, according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, "being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author and as such have been delivered to the Church." This belief has been perpetually held and professed by the Church in regard to the Books of both Testaments; and there are well-known documents of the gravest kind, coming down to us from the earliest times, which proclaim that God, Who spoke first by the Prophets, then by His own mouth, and lastly by the Apostles, composed also the Canonical Scriptures, and that these are His own oracles and words - a Letter, written by our heavenly Father, and transmitted by the sacred writers to the human race in its pilgrimage so far from its heavenly country... [S]uch and so great is the excellence and the dignity of the Scriptures, that God Himself has composed them.¹⁸

The Pope goes on to describe the mechanism of biblical inspiration, the process by which God caused the sacred authors to write His words:

[B]y supernatural power, [The Holy Ghost] so moved and impelled [the sacred authors] to write - He was so present to them - that the things which He ordered, and those only, they first rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. "Therefore," says St. Augustine, "since they wrote the things which He showed and uttered to them, it cannot be pretended that He is not the writer; for His members executed what their Head dictated." And St. Gregory the Great thus pronounces: "Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things-we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it Who dictated it for writing; He wrote it Who inspired its execution."¹⁹

Needless to say, the doctrine expounded by Kersten in "How to Read Your Bible" is a far cry from this doctrine of the Church. Kersten relates inspiration to a process of mutual influence whereby cultural sensitivities "inspire" gifted members of that culture to create, who thereby render those cultural sensitivities more acute still. He draws an analogy from the production of jazz music: the Negro communities are especially sensitive to music and rhythm, leading them to produce such august figures as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Ray Charles, and these in turn have further heightened the musical and rhythmic sensitivities of the Negro community and indeed of the entire world. "More or less by this same process of mutual influence Hebrew literature came into being," Kersten declares.

We see in the Hebrew people a highly developed sensitivity for God's presence in their lives. From these pious Hebrew communities we see arise prophets, preachers, writers, who offered their (first spoken) reflections on that shared experience of God's presence with His people. In turn these prophets, preachers and writers heightened that religious sensitivity in their people.²⁰

Operating under such a sub-Catholic definition of inspiration, Kersten has difficulty distinguishing the inspiration of Scripture from the inspiration of jazz.²¹ To be sure, he insists that Hebrew literature "is inspired (breathed upon) in a very special way by almighty God." But, before he can proceed to define what exactly is "special" about biblical inspiration as opposed to ordinary artistic inspiration, he must first insist at length upon what biblical inspiration is not:

This does not mean that God dictated His message as a businessman dictates a letter to a secretary. God takes the author as he is and leaves him free to choose his own means of communication. Isaiah was a great poet and composed beautiful poems to convey his message. Ezekiel was not well-versed in letters and his language is rather poor. Some authors chose existing folktales and even beast fables to bring out their point.²²

It is true that God did not dictate His message to the sacred authors in the same manner that a businessman dictates a letter to a secretary. "God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted."²³ Nevertheless, God's method of communication is properly described as dictation, as seen above. Anyway, Kersten finally gets around to positively defining his own position with the laconic statement, "Inspiration is guidance." He fleshes out this statement in the next section:

God Himself guided (inspired) the Hebrew genius in its searching out of the mysteries of the human condition... When this restless searching for truth and meaning culminates in unfolding one of God's mysteries, we speak of divine revelation. This means that God reveals some aspect of Himself or the human condition in and through man's endeavors to find out. Hence, "everything in the Bible is inspired, but not everything is revealed" (Pierre Benoit).²⁴

So it seems that, for Kersten, that which distinguishes biblical inspiration from ordinary artistic inspiration (apart from subject matter) is simply the occasional tap on the shoulder or tug on the wrist from God. The composition of Scripture is, then, in this view, an essentially human activity, with God merely coaxing it along like a parent teaching a child to ride a bicycle.

This position is thoroughly unacceptable. In order to consistently maintain this view, one must deny that God is the primary author of any part of Scripture, and moreover must deny that God is in any sense the author of those parts of Scripture where the Hebrews got things quite wrong, as Kersten will soon assert they did (after all, if a parent is coaxing a child properly, he is not responsible when the child falls off the bicycle anyway). This in spite of the solemn insistence of both Vatican Councils that God is the primary author of the books of Scripture "in their entirety, with all their parts."²⁵

Furthermore, this guide fails to recognize that much of revealed truth is wholly inaccessible to human searching, even searching which is performed in a spirit of prayer and in docility to the ordinary operations of grace. As such, human searching for truth and meaning can never "culminate in unfolding one of God's mysteries." God does not reveal supernatural truths "in and through man's endeavors to find out," if this is understood in the sense that God merely directs a properly human activity until this activity attains to revealed truth. This is a Pelagian and Rationalist conception of revelation. On the contrary, man receives revelation passively, ex auditu, that is, by hearing (cf. Rom 10:17).

Finally, while Kersten's definition may suffice to distinguish biblical inspiration from the inspiration of jazz, it fails to adequately distinguish between Sacred Scripture and any pious work of literature composed in a spirit of prayer and inquisitiveness. If "inspiration is guidance," as Kersten asserts, why is it then that Zephaniah is in the Bible whereas St. Thomas' Summa is not? Let's move on.

Sometimes inspired searching for meaning leads to conclusions which cannot be qualified as revelation from God. Think of the "holy wars" of total destruction, fought by the Hebrews when they invaded Palestine. The search for meaning in those wars centuries later was inspired, but the conclusions which attributed all those atrocities to the command of God were imperfect and provisional. See Judges 1:1-8.²⁶

While I understand Kersten's "sensitivity," his solution to the difficulty of biblical violence is, like his definition of inspiration, thoroughly unacceptable. Not only does it stand condemned by the Magisterium, which has condemned the position that the Bible contains errors except as regards faith and morals,²⁷ and thus has condemned a fortiori the position that the Bible contains errors even as regards faith and morals. Simply on a rational level, this position creates far more problems than it solves. Kersten would have us believe that the wars which the Bible plainly states were commanded by God were not in fact commanded by God, but rather were crimes against humanity perpetrated by Hebrew murderers. Then, centuries later, their descendants attempted to justify the crimes of their forefathers by ascribing said wars to the command of a deity. Perhaps it did not dawn on John Kersten, S.V.D., that justifying murder by ascribing it to the command of a deity is a moral abomination. Indeed, it is the moral equivalent of Nazi apologetics. This being the case, it is difficult to see how anyone could maintain that a holy God could have any part whatsoever in "inspiring" this activity. No, logic and conscience will not admit this possibility. It would be far more consistent and moral to simply deny biblical inspiration outright.

An additional difficulty with this position is that it opens the pandora's box of enabling men to distinguish within Scripture, on the one hand, divine revelation, and on the other hand, immoral human inventions. If this principle be admitted, what is to stop men from rejecting the Bible's condemnation of, say, homosexuality, as Luke Timothy Johnson does, for example?²⁸ Indeed, once one relativizes the authority of Scripture in principle, one turns the Bible into a cafeteria from whose various offerings one is free to pick and choose, based on some subjective criterion, to believe or not to believe. Hence, one may accept that part of the Bible where it says that God is love and the nice story where Jesus forgives the woman at the well, but reject the biblical teachings that sodomy and fornication are sins and that wives must be obedient to their husbands. Immense numbers of souls have surely been lost because they have done exactly that. The Catholic doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy, on the other hand, is a firm foundation: it safeguards the totality of revelation from those who would like to do away with its less than popular teachings.

Finally, Catholic tradition has already (long since, in fact) supplied us with a simple and satisfying solution to the problem of biblical violence which obviates Kersten's attempted solution. Murder is the unjust slaying of a man. Not all killing, however, is unjust. A soldier may justly kill enemy soldiers in a just war, and a state may justly execute criminals, for example. Similarly, no one kills unjustly who kills at the explicit command of God, who is Justice itself.²⁹ God is the sovereign Lord of life and death, Who ordains both the time and the means of death for every living man, good or evil. He inflicts His universal sentence of death by whatever means should suit His purposes; and indeed, as the Bible records, He has on occasion chosen the ministrations of His angels or the armies of His chosen people. As St. Thomas Aquinas taught, God "inflicts the punishment of death on all men, both godly and ungodly, on account of the sin of our first parent, and if a man be the executor of that sentence by Divine authority, he will be no murderer any more than God would be."³⁰

Moving on, in the next section, Kersten offers us a piece of advice with which, in other contexts, I would wholeheartedly agree: "Therefore read the introductions to the Bible books and pay attention to the footnotes!"³¹ In the present context, however, this advice is suited only to knowledgeable Catholics who are unlikely to be scandalized and who intend a proportionate good.

Next, Kersten makes a number of highly objectionable statements concerning the story of the Garden of Eden. These insinuate, at best, that the narrative surrounding Adam and Eve is fictitious, and at worst, that Adam and Eve are fictitious themselves. To be sure, true to Modernist form he does not assert his position plainly; he conveys his meaning rather through the techniques of the English gentlewoman:

Lady Marchmain was not diffuse, but she took hold of her subject in a feminine, flirtatious way, circling, approaching, retreating, feinting; she hovered over it like a butterfly; she played 'grandmother's steps' with it, getting nearer the real point imperceptibly while one's back was turned, standing rooted when she was observed.³²

Nevertheless, I think I have succeeded in catching his meaning. He states the following in the section of the guide on literary forms:

b) The Allegory: A figure story with a veiled meaning. Read Genesis 2, 3, 4:1-16, 6-8, 11, 19. For centuries these chapters have been misunderstood as inspired lessons in science. The Bible does not teach science; it teaches religious values. It uses these folktales to teach a lesson. Again, the point of the allegory (not the details) is God's message to you.³³

Later, he adds:

Most scientists hold that the human species has developed somehow from lower kinds of life. This knowledge helped Christians to understand that Genesis 2 and 3 is not a lesson in Anthropology, but an allegory, teaching us the lesson that sin is the root of all evil... You may hear interpreters of the Bible who are literalists or fundamentalists. They explain the Bible according to the letter: Eve really ate from the apple...³⁴

The mere fact that Kersten has identified the Garden of Eden as an allegory is cause for alarm. An allegory, in the technical sense, is a purely metaphorical narrative.³⁵ This definition is conformable to Kersten's, if not coextensive, and it implies that the whole story of the Garden is fictional. Furthermore, the reason Kersten stresses the word "veiled" in his definition of allegory is because this is what distinguishes it from the first genre which he defines, namely, the parable, "A short fictitious narrative from which a moral or spiritual truth is drawn."³⁶ If, then, a parable is a fictitious narrative from which a lesson is explicitly drawn, an allegory is a fictitious narrative which contains a lesson for the discerning reader.

Next, if, as Kersten says, Genesis 2 and 3 do not teach Anthropology, then they do not teach the origin of the first man and first woman. Thus the story is divested of one of its fundamental truths. And if the lesson of the story is merely that sin is the root of all evil, generically speaking, rather than that one specific, historical sin, is the root of all evil, then the story is further divested of the dogma of Original Sin. I submit therefore that Kersten's position stands condemned by the Council of Trent:

If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of god, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse, let him be anathema.³⁷

Clearly, the Catholic dogma of Original Sin depends wholly and completely on the substantial historicity of the story of the Garden of Eden, and it was in terms of this story that the dogma was defined. If the Garden of Eden is a mere allegory then this dogma is a house built on sand.

Because of this, the Magisterium has, twice during the last century, solemnly reaffirmed that the Garden of Eden is historical. First, in 1909 the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which St. Pius X had invested with papal authority,³⁸ decreed that it could not be taught that the first three chapters of Genesis were not true in the literal historical sense. Moreover, the Commission emphasized especially that the literal historical sense could not be impugned regarding Adam's transgression of the divine commandment "through the devil's persuasion under the guise of a serpent," their motivation for doing so being to protect the integrity of the dogma of Original Sin.³⁹ Second, in 1950 Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical entitled Humani Generis which denounces the ideas that Adam and Eve were not real, individual people, that there has ever existed any true human who was not descended from them, and that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are not history in a true sense.⁴⁰ He, likewise, saw the historicity of the Garden of Eden as being essential to the integrity of the dogma of Original Sin.

With that, let us return to Kersten. Does he confess that "Adam... transgressed the commandment of God in paradise"? At the very least, he does not confess that Eve ate from the apple, and he assigns the whole story to a fictitious literary genre. Because of this, I am under the impression that he does not.

In the next section, Kersten charges Genesis with scientific error. He states, "The ancient Hebrews saw the earth as a large plate with a huge vault over it. Above the vault is God's place. This outlook conditioned Genesis 1.⁴¹ This assertion is erroneous on both a doctrinal and an exegetical level.

Doctrinally, it is one thing to say, with Pope Leo XIII, that the Bible was not written for the purpose of teaching science;⁴² it is entirely another to say that when it touches on issues of science it positively errs, as would be the case if in fact the Bible portrayed the world as a flat plate surmounted by a vault. Obviously, the former position is acceptable but the latter is not.⁴³ For Catholic exegetes have been bound by Leo XIII to follow St. Augustine's rule: "Whatever [scientists] can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."⁴⁴

It may be admitted that the sacred authors employed language and imagery derived from erroneous cosmologies, provided that they deliberately intended this language as metaphorical. On the other hand, it may not be admitted that they ever, in the course of writing Scripture, enunciated a single proposition concerning cosmology which they believed to be true but which in fact was false.⁴⁵ In consequence of this, Catholic exegetes have two options with respect to Genesis 1: they may argue that it is metaphorical, and was intended as such, or they may search for a literal interpretation which harmonizes the Scripture with the findings of modern physics. Contrariwise, to claim that it attributes to God the creation of a fictitious concept of primitive cosmology is incompatible with the divine authorship of Scripture.

Kersten's conception of biblical cosmology is on shaky exegetical ground as well. However, I will reserve my comments on this topic for my critique of the NAB proper.

In section 8, "The Bible on God", Kersten informs us that "the Bible does not offer a philosophy on who the 'Ultimate Reality' is in Himself; it is mainly concerned about who God is for us."⁴⁶ I was not aware of this distinction. Kersten adds, "Clouds, angels (blasting trumpets!), smoke, fire, earthquake, lightning, thunder, war, calamities, lies and persecution are biblical figures of speech to describe the awe-inspiring greatness of God."⁴⁷ I doubt the angels appreciate being told they are "figures of speech." And on the odder side, how can "lies" be figures of speech to describe the greatness of God? This sentence is simply bizarre.

Kersten concludes the section: "As a Jew, who was addressing Jews, Jesus of Nazareth adapted Himself to this biblical way of speaking. Read Matthew 25."⁴⁸ Are we to understand, then, that all that talk of weeping and gnashing of teeth and the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels is just figures of speech to describe the greatness of God? Or is it perhaps the talk of entering the joy of the Lord and inheriting a kingdom that is figurative? Or is it just the talk of Jesus sitting on a throne with all His angels? In any case, such confusing assertions have no place in a putative introduction to Scripture for the simple lay faithful.

Kersten moves on to the subject of biblical poetry:

[B]iblical poems in particular can easily be misunderstood. Read them as poems and not as scientific or historical reports, in which one tries to explain every detail as a revelation from God. See [the commentary on inspiration and revelation quoted above] and read Psalm 137: "Ballad of the Exiles," paying special attention to verses 8 and 9. The feeling, the thought, the total poem is inspired (guided) by God, though it is not necessarily revealed truth! Read some psalms!⁴⁹

As demonstrated above, this definition of inspiration is utterly devoid both of merit and foundation. The Catholic Church teaches that God is the author of Sacred Scripture such that each and every word in it is written primarily by Him. Everything in the Bible is a revelation from God, including Psalm 137:8-9. As for how we deal with the difficulty presented by these verses, it is possible to read the Psalm as merely describing, but not approving, of the conduct of those who would conquer Babylon.⁵⁰

In the next section, Kersten treats us to a naturalistic description of Israel's early prophets. "Like other nations in the Middle East, Israel had its nabis or prophets. These were groups of ecstatic persons, somehow related to a sanctuary. Music and dance heightened their exotic and vaguely religious activities."⁵¹ Groovy. Kersten goes on to provide a similarly naturalistic description of Hebrew philosophy:

Like all peoples, the Hebrews had their sages or philosophers. In the Bible we find their thoughts mainly in the Wisdom Books. This ancient wisdom is a remarkable mixture of philosophy and poetry. Read it as an inspired search for meaning in life. Do not expect too many ready-made answers. See this literature more as a challenge to a faithful searching for meaning in your own human condition!⁵²

Here we continue to see the fruits of Kersten's view of biblical inspiration as an essentially human and fallible process whereby the ancient Hebrews searched for meaning in their own social and cultural contexts. Because the Hebrews were mere men and fallible, they were incapable of producing many "ready made answers," that is, eternally and universally valid truths which speak to the men of today as powerfully as they spoke to the men of ancient Israel. This being the case, we cannot read the Bible simply as teaching truth (its conclusions, recall, may be "imperfect and provisional"); we are rather to read it more as an exemplar of the sort of processes by which we ought to search for truth (which remains ever elusive).

It cannot be stressed enough that this view of Scripture is utterly alien to the patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church receives revelation as from the mouth of God Himself; the teachings of Scripture are eternally and immutably true, reaching across temporal, social, cultural, and linguistic boundaries to pierce the souls (cf. Heb 4:12) of men of every age and nation. Scripture's answers to life's questions most certainly are definitive, even in our modern "human condition."

Next, Kersten proceeds to deconstruct the Gospels:

A remarkable fact is that for a long time Christians misunderstood the literary genre of the four Gospels. Until recently they thought that the Gospel writers wanted to present us with a biography of Jesus. After much research, Bible scholars agree that the Gospel writers wanted to write catechisms or digests of Christian teaching concerning the risen Lord Jesus... The writers took [oral traditions] and frequently even remolded and refashioned them to bring out the lesson they wanted to teach... In the conflict stories of the Gospels it is usually Jesus who is in conflict with His opponents... Was Jesus involved in these conversations? Did He answer exactly as related in the Bible? It is not certain... Bible scholars tell us that a horoscope of the expected Messiah circulated during the time of Jesus’ birth. Astrologers (wise men from the East) were watching the sky for the appearance of the Messiah's star. King Herod, superstitious and upset by these people, killing children of two years and under, is extremely probable... People leaving Bethlehem to escape the massacre, is equally probable. This would be the historical background to this tradition. The rest is interpretation... Since we do not possess a biography of Jesus, it is difficult to know whether the words or sayings attributed to him are written exactly as He spoke them. True, the Gospels are based on sound historical facts as related by eyewitnesses, but both deeds and words of Jesus are offered to us in the framework of theological interpretation... Can we discover at least some words of Jesus that have escaped such elaboration? Bible scholars point to the very short sayings of Jesus... Another question is: Did Jesus sit on a hill and recite this list of sayings on the kingdom of heaven? It is the same question as: Did Moses sit on Mount Sinai writing the law? This composition is figurative... [T]he New Testament writers chose theological interpretation to teach what the risen Lord means to believers. Jesus' death, His resurrection, His ascension and the communication of the Spirit are actually one Christ event, that of his glorification... Remember the golden rule: keep historical facts distinct from their theological interpretation.⁵³

This section is so fraught with error that one hardly knows where to begin. Kersten finds it "remarkable" that Christians have misunderstood the literary genre of the four Gospels. Instead, I find it remarkable that he thinks he is right and all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have been wrong.⁵⁴ St. Jerome was a fundamentalist.⁵⁵ St. Augustine was a fundamentalist.⁵⁶ And so on. All the Fathers had it wrong and it was not until the glorious dawning of those mystical lights of Germany: Schmidt, Dibelius, Bultmann, that Christians finally understood that the Gospels are theological elaborations and not literal history. All praise and all thanksgiving be to that Promethean nation which has transferred us out of darkness and into the kingdom of blessed Reason.

Well, this caveman, for one, is content to stay in his cave. St. Luke expressly states at the beginning of his Gospel (vv 1:1-4) that he intends to write history in the scientific sense: he investigated everything carefully and interviewed eyewitnesses with the intention of producing an account of the life of Christ which teaches the exact truth of what happened. What is this if not a "biography" or a work of "scientific history"?⁵⁷ Contrariwise, what compelling argument has Kersten presented us with which would convince us to abandon the literal-historical reading of the Gospels which is our patrimony?

Well, however many arguments Kersten possesses, he only presents us with one argument here: authority, specifically the authority of the ivory tower. He alleges a consensus of Bible scholars. But no such consensus exists. The field of Biblical scholarship is far from monolithic; Bible scholars span the entire theological spectrum and as such believe a myriad of contradictory ideas. Does Kersten include, within his supposed consensus of Bible scholars, Bauckham, Bruce, Carson, Metzger, Miguens, Wallace, or the Opus Dei scholars at Navarre?

Again, it is just baffling that Kersten refuses to see St. Matthew's infancy narrative as history. He here explains that the story is entirely plausible, even likely. Yet he still refers to the Gospel narrative as "theological interpretation" which he repeatedly contrasts with, and sets in opposition to, historical fact. Why? What grounds has he for doing so? How does reason make untenable reading this passage in the literal and obvious sense?⁵⁸

Again, how can Kersten possibly know that "Jesus' death, His resurrection, His ascension and the communication of the Spirit," which the evangelists narrate as distinct historical events, are "actually one Christ event"? Is he an eyewitness? Does he possess superior testimony to the testimony of the evangelists themselves?

Finally, exactly how is one to distinguish theological interpretation from historical fact? According to Kersten the two are so woven together (the evangelists having concocted a great deal of their material on their own, and having drawn on traditions and sources whose authors had probably done the same), that they are practically impossible to pull apart.⁵⁹ According to him we cannot even know whether Jesus actually said the things that the Gospels say that He said! Thus any attempt to distinguish the two is an exercise in futility. 2000 years removed from the events, we simply cannot know; at best we can only guess that some of the shorter sayings of Jesus which the Gospels attribute to Him are truly His. Of course, there is a perfect remedy for this sorry state of affairs: like Christians have always done, take the Gospels at face value. Reject the reprobated ideas of the modernists⁶⁰ and fully embrace the teachings of the eternal Church. Yet, Kersten continues:

How does one know whether one deals with history or some form of figurative speech? To begin with, we should always be disposed to follow the teaching authority of the Church. We should also consult renowned Bible scholars who are experts in Hebrew literature... The signature of a bishop in your Bible assures you that opinions, expressed in footnotes and introductions, reflect what is generally accepted as sound doctrine in the Catholic tradition.⁶¹

Given everything that Kersten has said so far, this assertion is quite amazing. He actually has the chutzpah to claim that he is faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church while simultaneously he directly dissents from Providentissimus Deus, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Lamentabili Sane, Spiritus Paraclitus, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Humani Generis, Trent, Vatican I, every magisterial decree ever produced by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and even Vatican II, properly interpreted. Liberal Scripture scholars are like little children who need to be reminded of their boundaries every day. A few years pass without a papal injunction in their activities and they take that as license to ignore all the previous. A few years pass without a papal reiteration of the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church on biblical inerrancy and they take that to mean that the perennial teaching has been rescinded. They seem to think that if the current Pope does not condemn their positions as heresy, that mitigates the fact that previous Popes, as recently as 50 years ago, have, and in no uncertain terms. The eternal Church truly is a fickle institution in their eyes!

Once again, it cannot be stressed enough that this view of Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church is utterly alien to Catholic Tradition. It accomplishes nothing save to drive souls away from Christ. It renders Catholicism indefensible vis-a-vis Protestant critiques.⁶² Indeed, this doctrine exhibits, not Newman's "chronic vigour,"⁶³ but chronic sterility, as of a mutant or mongrel creature.

Kersten rounds out "How to Read Your Bible" by informing us that the first Christians mistakenly expected Christ's second coming during their lifetimes, and closes with some mumbo-jumbo about sharing an "existential understanding" with Moses because, in a way, we're captives too.

Ben Douglass
July 4, Anno Domini MMVIII

[1] Leo XII, Ubi Primum (May 5, 1824), 17, in Claudia Carlen, IHM, ed., The Papal Encyclicals, Vol. I (Ann Arbor, MI: The Pierian Press, 1990) pp. 199-203.

[2] Pius VIII, Traditi Humilitati (May 24, 1829), 5, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 221-224.

[3] Gregory XVI, Inter Praecipuas (May 8, 1844), 2, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 267-271. In this encyclical, Gregory also references letters of Pope Pius VII to the archbishops of Gniezno (June 1, 1816) and Mohilev (September 4, 1816)

[4] Bl. Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus (November 9, 1846), 14, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 277-284.

[5] Bl. Pope Pius IX, Nostis et Nobiscum (December 8, 1849), 14, in Carlen, op. cit., pp. 295-303.

[6] Leo XIII, Officiorum ac Munerum (January 25, 1897), III, 7-8, in The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, 1903) pp. 407-421.

[7] All quotations in this article, unless otherwise indicated, will be from the Saint Joseph Edition of the New American Bible (New York, NY: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1992), hereafter, The St. Joseph NAB.

[8] Cf. Vatican I Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Filius, Ch. 2 (De Revelatione); Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 20-21; St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, 11; Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, 13, 19, 21; Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, 3; Pius XII, Humani Generis, 22. St. Irenaeus beautifully sums up the faith of the Church when he states, simply, "the Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit" (Against Heresies, Book II, Ch. 28, Par. 2, in Philip Shaff, ed., Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001) p. 399). Shaff's Ante-Nicene Fathers will hereafter be cited as ANF.

[9] As Leo XIII warned, "[T]he young, if they lose their reverence for the Holy Scripture on one or more points, are easily led to give up believing in it altogether" (Providentissimus Deus, 18).

[10] The NAB boasts one imprimatur for the original translation of the whole Bible (1970), one for the revised New Testament (1986), and one for the revised Psalms (1991).

[11] It must be noted that Paul VI's blessing applies only to the original version of the NAB, not to the revised New Testament and Psalms, which were completed after his death. Furthermore, it is unclear to what extent Pope Paul VI personally examined the text and commentary of the NAB before granting it his blessing. English was not his strongest language. Paul VI himself taught the orthodox, Catholic doctrine of Scripture. Cf. Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., The Teaching of Pope Paul VI on Sacred Scripture (Rome: Pontificium Athenaeum Sanctae Crucis, 1997).

[12] "The New American Bible," http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM, 11/11/2002.

[13] Cf. St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1994) p. 208.

[14] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [42]. The St. Joseph NAB, for some reason, paginates the front matter with numbers in brackets, rather than with the standard Roman numerals. This author is tempted to speculate that the cause is to be traced to the anti-Roman attitude.

[15] The St. Joseph NAB has given prominent Muslim apologist Shabir Ally this false impression ("Confessions of the New American Bible," http://www3.sympatico.ca/shabir.ally/new_page_19.htm). Ally, as is his custom, seizes upon this product of liberal "Christian" scholarship in order to attack the Bible.

[16] Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, 37. This analogy is particularly useful because it contains within itself the refutation of all attempts to limit or circumscribe Scripture's inerrancy. Some, for instance, will argue that Scripture is only inerrant when it treats of certain subject matters such as faith or morals; others will argue that Scripture is only inerrant as regards its overall salvific purpose, not as regards particular details; still others will argue that Scripture is only inerrant in what it asserts, i.e., in what it says with deliberate reflection and with explicit intention to teach, as opposed to what it merely states, casually, carelessly, and in passing (obiter dicta). I pose the following questions to proponents of these theories. Is Christ only sinless with respect to certain categories of sin? Is Christ only sinless as regards His overall purpose to redeem the human race, as opposed to being free of all particular sins? Is Christ only sinless when He acts with full knowledge and deliberate consent, such that it is possible to impute to Him involuntary, venial faults? I submit that each proposition described above is equally heretical.

[17] Vatican I Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Filius, Ch. 2 (De Revelatione), Par. 5. The description of biblical inspiration as divine "dictation" is well attested in the patristic, conciliar, and papal sources. Cf. St. Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels, Book I, Ch. 35; St. Gregory the Great, Moralia, or Commentary on the Book of Blessed Job, Preface, 2; The Council of Trent, Session 4, Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures; Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 5, 20; Benedict XV, In Praeclara Summorum, 5; Spiritus Paraclitus, 8; Pius XII, Menti Nostrae, 42.

[18] Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 1.

[19] Ibid., 20. Benedict XV says much the same thing in Spiritus Paraclitus, 8-9: "You will not find a page in [St. Jerome's] writings which does not show clearly that he, in common with the whole Catholic Church, firmly and consistently held that the Sacred Books - written as they were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - have God for their Author, and as such were delivered to the Church. Thus he asserts that the Books of the Bible were composed at the inspiration, or suggestion, or even at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; even that they were written and edited by Him. If we ask how we are to explain this power and action of God, the principal cause, on the sacred writers we shall find that St. Jerome in no wise differs from the common teaching of the Catholic Church. For he holds that God, through His grace, illumines the writer's mind regarding the particular truth which, 'in the person of God,' he is to set before men; he holds, moreover, that God moves the writer's will - nay, even impels it - to write; finally, that God abides with him unceasingly, in unique fashion, until his task is accomplished." St. Pius X condemns the contrary proposition in Lamentabili Sane, 9: "They display excessive simplicity or ignorance who believe that God is really the author of the Sacred Scriptures."

[20] The Saint Joseph NAB, p. [18].

[21] Cf. St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 22.

[22] The Saint Joseph NAB, p. [18].

[23] Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Verbum (On Divine Revelation), Ch. 3, Par. 11.

[24] The Saint Joseph NAB, p. [18].

[25] Dei Filius, Ch. 2, Pars. 6-7; Dei Verbum, Ch. 3, Par. 11.

[26] The Saint Joseph NAB, p. [18].

[27] Pius XII, Humani Generis, 22. Cf. Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, 19: "For while conceding that inspiration extends to every phrase - and, indeed, to every single word of Scripture - yet, by endeavoring to distinguish between what they [the modernists] style the primary or religious and the secondary or profane element in the Bible, they claim that the effect of inspiration - namely, absolute truth and immunity from error - are to be restricted to that primary or religious element. Their notion is that only what concerns religion is intended and taught by God in Scripture, and that all the rest - things concerning ‘profane knowledge,’ the garments in which Divine truth is presented - God merely permits, and even leaves to the individual author's greater or less knowledge. Small wonder, then, that in their view a considerable number of things occur in the Bible touching physical science, history and the like, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress in science!"

[28] Cf. Luke Timothy Johnson, "The Bible's Authority for and in the Church" in William P. Brown, ed., Engaging Biblical Authority (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) pp. 62-72.

[29] Since God is simple, His attributes are identical with His essence. Therefore the statements "God is justice" and "God is love" (1 John 4:8) are equally true.

[30] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 100, Art. 8, ad 3 (New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, Inc.: 1947). For a helpful, if incomplete, explanation of God's purposes in ordering the Jews to destroy the pagan nations of Canaan, see Roy Schoeman, Salvation is from the Jews (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003) pp. 46-51. See also Bishop Richard Challoner's comment on 1 Samuel 15:3, cited infra, footnote 93.

[31] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [19].

[32] Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (New York, NY: Knopf, 1993) pp. 122-123.

[33] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [19].

[34] Ibid., p. [24]. Cf. Lamentabili Sane, condemned proposition 64: "Scientific progress demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption be re-adjusted." Emphasis mine.

[35] Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is a famous example of this genre.

[36] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [19].

[37] Council of Trent, Sess. V, Canon 1.

[38] St. Pius X, Motu Proprio Praestantia Scripturae (Acta Sanctae Sedis [1907] 724ff; Enchiridion Biblicum 278f; Denzinger 2113f): "We now declare and expressly enjoin that all without exception are bound by an obligation of conscience to submit to the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, whether already issued or to be issued hereafter, exactly as to the decrees of the Sacred Congregations which are on matters of doctrine and approved by the Pope; nor can anyone who by word or writing attacks the said decrees avoid the note both of disobedience and of rashness or be therefore without grave fault" (in Dom Bernard Orchard, O.S.B., ed., A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953), p. 67).

[39] Decree "Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis" (Acta Sanctae Sedis 1 [1909] 567ff; Enchiridion Biblicum 332ff; Denzinger 2121ff): "II: Notwithstanding the historical character and form of Genesis, the special connection of the first three chapters with one another and with the following chapters, the manifold testimonies of the Scriptures both of the Old and of the New Testaments, the almost unanimous opinion of the holy Fathers and the traditional view which the people of Israel also has handed on and the Church has always held, may it be taught that: the aforesaid three chapters of Genesis Contain not accounts of actual events, accounts, that is, which correspond to objective reality and historical truth, but, either fables derived from the mythologies and cosmogonies of ancient peoples and accommodated by the sacred writer to monotheistic doctrine after the expurgation of any polytheistic error; or allegories and symbols without any foundation in objective reality proposed under the form of history to inculcate religious and philosophical truths; or finally legends in part historical and in part fictitious freely composed with a view to instruction and edification? Answer: In the negative to both parts. III: In particular may the literal historical sense be called in doubt in the case of facts narrated in the same chapters which touch the foundations of the Christian religion: as are, among others, the creation of all things by God in the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man; the unity of the human race; the original felicity of our first parents in the state of justice, integrity, and immortality; the command given by God to man to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine command at the instigation of the devil under the form of a serpent; the degradation of our first parents from that primeval state of innocence; and the promise of a future Redeemer? Answer: In the negative" (in Orchard, op. cit., pp. 68-69).

[40] "When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own... [T]he first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters... in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents" (Pius XII, Humani Generis, 37-38).

[41] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [20].

[42] Providentissimus Deus, 18.

[43] St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis 36, condemned the following modernist error: "In the Sacred Books there are many passages referring to science or history where manifest errors are to be found. But the subject of these books is not science or history but religion and morals. In them history and science serve only as a species of covering to enable the religious and moral experiences wrapped up in them to penetrate more readily among the masses. The masses understood science and history as they are expressed in these books, and it is clear that had science and history been expressed in a more perfect form this would have proved rather a hindrance than a help." He had this to say about the modernist position: "We, Venerable Brethren, for whom there is but one and only truth, and who hold that the Sacred Books, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, have God for their author (Conc. Vat., De Revel., c. 2) declare that this is equivalent to attributing to God Himself the lie of utility or officious lie, and We say with St. Augustine: In an authority so high, admit but one officious lie, and there will not remain a single passage of those apparently difficult to practice or to believe, which on the same most pernicious rule may not be explained as a lie uttered by the author willfully and to serve a purpose (Epist. 28)" (ibid., 37, italics his; cf. Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, 19).

[44] The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book I, Ch. 21, Par. 41, quoted in Providentissimus Deus, 18.

[45] Some have attempted to distinguish between the sacred authors' "assertions" and their mere "statements", such that the former are guaranteed to be immune from all error, whereas the latter are not. Such persons argue that the author of Genesis 1 made a number of erroneous statements about cosmology in passing, which he assumed were true but which he did not explicitly intend to teach. Thus, he stated, but did not assert, that God created the earth in six days, for example.

This is a fatuous distinction. There is no sound, objective criterion by which one might determine which statements the Biblical authors truly "affirmed," and as such this distinction leads to exegetical anarchy. Furthermore, in addition to being unworkable, this distinction is theologically impossible as well. Humans may enunciate careless obiter dicta which, upon reflection, we realize that we do not stand behind; God, however, does not, and He is the author of the entire Scripture. Finally, Holy Mother Church has rejected this distinction, and when she did so, she certainly did intend to teach. According to "the Catholic dogma of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Sacred Scriptures... everything affirmed, stated, or implied by the sacred writers must be held as affirmed, stated or implied by the Holy Spirit" [...dogmate item catholico de inspiratione et inerrantia sacrarum Scripturarum, quo omne id, quod hagiographus asserit, enuntiat, insinuat, retineri debet assertum, enuntiatum, insinuatum a Spiritu Sancto]. Vatican II's Constitution Dei Verbum, in its first footnote to Article 11, cites two documents which make this statement: Biblical Commission, Decree of June 18, 1915: Denzinger 2180 (3629): EB [Enchiridion Biblicum] 420; Holy Office, Epistle of Dec. 22, 1923: EB 499. The translation quoted above is from Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., "The Truth and Salvific Purpose of Sacred Scripture according to Dei Verbum, Article 11," Living Tradition, No. 59 (1995).

St. Gregory of Nazianzus likewise refutes the contention that Scripture contains unaffirmed obiter dicta when he states, "We however, who extend the accuracy of the Spirit to the merest stroke and tittle, will never admit the impious assertion that even the smallest matters were dealt with haphazard by those who have recorded them" ("Oration II," par. 105, in Philip Shaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. VII (New York, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893) p. 225). Shaff's Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers will hereafter be cited as NPNF.

[46] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [20].

[47] Ibid.

[48] Ibid.

[49] Ibid.

[50] "The Psalmist contrasts the felicity of the conqueror, with the misery of the citizens, without approving of his conduct" (W. F. Berthier, in Fr. George Haydock, The Douay-Rheims Old Testament (Monrovia, CA: Catholic Treasures, 1992) p. 794).

[51] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [20].

[52] The St. Joseph NAB, p. [21].

[53] Ibid., pp. [21]-[24].

[54] "To hear [the modernists] talk about their works on the Sacred Books, in which they have been able to discover so much that is defective, one would imagine that before them nobody ever even glanced through the pages of Scripture, whereas the truth is that a whole multitude of Doctors, infinitely superior to them in genius, in erudition, in sanctity, have sifted the Sacred Books in every way, and so far from finding imperfections in them, have thanked God more and more the deeper they have gone into them, for His divine bounty in having vouchsafed to speak thus to men. Unfortunately, these great Doctors did not enjoy the same aids to study that are possessed by the Modernists for their guide and rule, - a philosophy borrowed from the negation of God, and a criterion which consists of themselves" (St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 34).

[55] "Jerome maintains that belief in the Biblical narrative is as necessary to salvation as is belief in the doctrines of the faith; thus in his Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon he says: ‘What I mean is this: Does any man believe in God the Creator? He cannot do so unless he first believe that the things written of God's Saints are true.’ He then gives examples from the Old Testament, and adds: ‘Now unless a man believes all these and other things too which are written of the Saints he cannot believe in the God of the Saints’ (S. Jerome, In Philem., 4)" (Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, 24).

[56] "As to Enoch and Elias and Moses, our belief is determined not by Faustus’ suppositions, but by the declarations of Scripture, resting as they do on foundations of the strongest and surest evidence... To give you in a word, without argument, the true reason of our faith, as regards Elias having been caught up to heaven from the earth, though only a man, and as regards Christ being truly born of a virgin, and truly dying on the cross, our belief in both cases is grounded on the declaration of Holy Scripture, which it is piety to believe, and impiety to disbelieve... The reason of our believing Him to have been born of the Virgin Mary, is not that He could not otherwise have appeared among men in a true body, but because it is so written in the Scripture, which we must believe in order to be Christians, or to be saved" (St. Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XXVI, Pars. 3, 6, and 7, in NPNF, Ser. I, Vol. IV, pp. 321, 323).

[57] Greek historians often introduced their works with a brief note on their methodology and intentions, much like Luke 1:1-4. One wonders if Arrian intended to write a catechism of Alexander the Great, or Thucydides a catechism of the Peloponnesian War (cf. The Campaigns of Alexander, 1:1; History of the Peloponnesian War, 1:22).

[58] This is the only possible justification for departing from a literal hermeneutic, according to the rule laid down by St. Augustine and confirmed by Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus, 15.

[59] "What can we say of men who in expounding the very Gospels so whittle away the human trust we should repose in it as to overturn Divine faith in it? They refuse to allow that the things which Christ said or did have come down to us unchanged and entire through witnesses who carefully committed to writing what they themselves had seen or heard. They maintain - and particularly in their treatment of the Fourth Gospel - that much is due of course to the Evangelists - who, however, added much from their own imaginations; but much, too, is due to narratives compiled by the faithful at other periods, the result, of course, being that the twin streams now flowing in the same channel cannot be distinguished from one another" (Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, 27).

[60] St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane, condemned the following propositions: "13. The Evangelists themselves, as well as the Christians of the second and third generation, artificially arranged the evangelical parables. In such a way they explained the scanty fruit of the preaching of Christ among the Jews. 14. In many narrations the Evangelists recorded, not so much things that are true, as things which, even though false, they judged to be more profitable for their readers. 15. Until the time the canon was defined and constituted, the Gospels were increased by additions and corrections. Therefore there remained in them only a faint and uncertain trace of the doctrine of Christ." In Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 34, he directly attacked the notion of the Gospels having been created by transfiguring actual history with theological interpretation: "The result of this dismembering of the Sacred Books and this partition of them throughout the centuries is naturally that the Scriptures can no longer be attributed to the authors whose names they bear. The Modernists have no hesitation in affirming commonly that these books, and especially the Pentateuch and the first three Gospels, have been gradually formed by additions to a primitive brief narration - by interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretation, by transitions, by joining different passages together."

[61] The St. Joseph NAB, pp. [24]-[25].

[62] Protestants have often alleged that (a) the teachings of the Catholic Church cannot be infallible because they are not consistent over time, and (b) the Church's claim to be under the authority of the Word of God is disingenuous. If Kersten's description of Catholicism were accurate, both of these criticisms would be true, for in his view, (a) the Church's teaching on Scripture has changed, and (b) the Church can correct what is erroneous in Scripture.

[63] John Henry Cardinal Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1878) pp. 203ff.