in celebration of national bible week, i shall be sharing some of the lessons from my high 1 cle classes at xavier school last year, particularly about the sacred scriptures.
The Bible took centuries to take shape and many groups and individuals were involved in this long process. The contents of the Bible particularly the Old Testament came from stories/events personally or communally experienced by God’s people that were handed on to succeeding generations through oral tradition which was mostly in the form of story telling and later on compiled, edited, and re-edited through written tradition. Some of the content from the oral traditions dated back to 1900 years before the coming of Christ. These included songs, narratives prayers and poems as well speeches and writings of the prophets and codes or laws. Priests and other trained scribes who were employed by Israelite kings gathered these oral and written materials, edited, organized and compiled them into books. Then they had to decide which books will be included in the final list. These process of gathering, writing, editing, selecting and compiling these materials into books and accepting them as inspired or authoritative took many years. The development of the OT alone must have taken more than 1000 years.
On Biblical Inspiration
Biblical inspiration means that God or the Spirit of God is at work in the community of Israel and in the early Christian community to produce through a number of authors, a series of books that witness to God’s revelation of Himself. This means that God worked in and through the human authors in such a way that they use their skills, ideas and other talents in writing what God wanted them to write for the sake of our salvation. With this, we can say that God influenced the entire formation of the Bible. He inspired and guided the preachers, writers, editors and copyist and other people who selected and compiled the Sacred Scriptures.
Vatican II states further, “ Since all Scripture was written, compiled and edited under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of the Scripture firmly, faithfully and without error teach the truth which God for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided in the Sacred Scriptures” (Vat. II Dei Verbum II). Through this, the Church teaches that the religious messages found in the Bible are without error, that the discrepancies and inaccuracies in the details of the narratives do not affect the truths about salvation that teach us who God is and who we are, and God’s ultimate plan for our journey through life.
Tomorrow: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition
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