Catholics sometimes confuse God’s Word (Christ) with the “Word of the Lord” they hear proclaimed at Mass. Because the latter comes to us through human intermediaries, interpreting the scriptures quickly gets messy! Some Catholics take literally the Roman Catholic Catechism’s suggestion that “sacred scripture is the speech of God, as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 81). Others recognize that the Bible is a book of theology, not a book of history or science. In this episode, Father Jayme notes the complicated history of the Bible, which didn’t come down from heaven complete, hardbound, and to the singing of angels. No scribes were present in the Garden of Eden or at the birth or crucifixion of Jesus. Instead, human beings penned stories decades—and sometimes centuries—after purported events, employing the limited vocabularies of their ancient languages and worldviews, and sometimes recording errors and contradictions. Other human beings later decided which works to include or exclude in their canons of inspired texts. Inclusive Catholics recognize that human beings interpret everything, often from very diverse perspectives, and they attempt to understand what the ancient authors of inspired scriptures were attempting to communicate about their God, their world, and their beliefs. In contrast to ordinary Catholics and rigid, judgmental Pharisees, Extraordinary Catholics seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth, a loving, merciful, forgiving and inclusive revolutionary who dined with…sinners!

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