The word bible comes from the Greek word biblia meaning “books”. The Bible is a collection of books rather than a single literary composition. They are considered “canonical” because they are on the list or canon of books which the Church officially regards as inspired. The canon was definitively and solemnly determined by the Council of Trent in 1546.

The bible is divided into the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) and the New Testament. The two testaments have a common focus: the Kingdom of God, i.e. the rule of God that is already present in the world and is destined to be realized in all of its perfection at the end of human history.

Because the Bible is believed to be inspired by God, it has an authority equaled by no other written source. Inspiration signifies the divine origin of the Bible. Already in the Old Testament there was the conviction that certain books were sacred because they were inspired by God. This belief was carried over into the New Testament where the Old Testament is cited some 350 times in such a way as to show that Jesus and the New Testament writers shared the conviction that the Old Testament was indeed inspired by God. “All Scripture is inspired by God as is useful for teaching...” (2 Timothy 3:16) The New Testament does not claim inspiration for itself but the Fathers of the Church from the very beginning included the New Testament along with the Old Testament in the catalog of inspired books.

The classical definition of inspiration: “God so moved the inspired writers by His supernatural operation that he incited them to write, and assisted them in their writing so that they correctly conceived, accurately wrote down and truthfully expressed all that He intended and only what He intended; and only thus can God be the author of the Bible.” (Pope Leo XIII, 1893, Providentissimus Deus)

Closely linked with the belief about inspiration is the belief about inerrancy. If the Bible is of God it cannot be in error since God is the author of truth. The principles of inerrancy are: (1) The words of the Bible are true only in the sense in which the human authors conveyed them. Therefore, we must determine how they thought, what influenced them and so forth. (2) The human author himself was not necessarily without error. Many of his personal opinions and even convictions may have been wrong. Inerrancy means that these opinions and convictions did not affect the message itself. (3) Inerrancy does not rule out the use of common literary devices such as poetry, figures of speech, paradox, approximation, compressed narratives, inexact quotations, folklore, legend, song, etc. (4) The human authors were Oriental not Western. They did not think metaphysically or according the rules of logic. (5) Insofar as the principle of inerrancy applies, it applies to those essential religious affirmations which are made for the sake of salvation. “The books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully and without error the truth which God wanted put into the Sacred Writings for the sake of our salvation.” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Vatican II)

The Catholic Church has always maintained that there is no other criterion except its own traditions. The inspiration of the Bible has been believed from the beginning. One cannot be true to the Catholic and Christian faith without affirming at the inspired and authoritative character of the Bible.

The Church teaches that there is one divine revelation expressed and available in different forms: “It is clear that sacred tradition, sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the only Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Vatican II, number 10)

Tradition refers to the whole process by which the Church “hands on” its faith to each new generation through preaching, teaching, liturgy. “The Church, in her teaching, life and worship perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Vatican II)

Because the Bible is the Word of God there are certain effects unique to the Bible. The first of these is “revelation”. By revelation is meant God showing himself by word and act to his people in the history of Israel in Old Testament times and to all the world through Jesus Christ in New Testament times . God revealed himself in the written Bible so that the history in which God revealed himself would be correctly interpreted. The Bible therefore can be described as an inspired interpretation of God’s self revelation in the history of Israel and in the life and destiny of his Son. The Bible is in other words, the written record of revelation.

The Bible was composed over a period of more than one thousand years. The human authors varied greatly in their background, education, social and cultural insights. Nevertheless the Bible is the Word of God and therefore has a basic unity in these so different writings. The author of Hebrews put it thus: “In times past God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through a son.” (Hebrews 1:1-2)

Every page of the inspired text tells us in some way about God’s will for salvation of all people. That is why Paul could imply that this will for salvation in Christ was present from the very beginning of creation. The author of Ephesians speaks of a mystery or divine plan that God had from the beginning but which he only gradually revealed until the fullness of time when he revealed his Son (Ephesians 1:3-6 & 3:2-6). Because of this underlying and unifying theme of a mystery or divine plan scholars have frequently referred to the Bible as the record of “salvation history”.

We can say that the Bible is complete in its revelation inasmuch as it contains all that God willed to reveal of himself in this inspired form. Yet God continues to reveal himself to the world in the period after the Bible although not in the form of biblical inspiration. He reveals himself in the Church, through the Councils, through what Catholics call the magisterium or “teaching authority of the Popes and Bishops,” and through the live of people. This is what is called in the Catholic faith “Tradition”. It embraces all that long rich history of the Church when God’s Spirit was guiding us to all truth (John 16:13).

Literal - what the words say

Suggested - what is says to me personally

Intended - what the writer had in mind, the critical meaning

Symbolic - the universal meaning for our time

The truth of the Bible has often been grossly misunderstood as giving precise answers to scientific, historical, geographical and other problems. This misunderstanding flows from an excessive concern for the literal meaning of the words. For example when Matthew says that Jesus delivered a sermon on a mountainside (Matthew 5-7) it may be that he simply wishes to present Jesus as a new Moses giving a new Law on a new Sinai, regardless of where the sermon was actually delivered.

The Old Testament was written for the most part in Hebrew. A few sections in Aramaic and some of the later books in Greek. The whole of the Old Testament was translated into Greek about two hundred years before Christ, known as the Septuagint (“seventy” Jewish scholars). The whole of the New Testament was written in Greek. The Latin Vulgate was made by St. Jerome in the latter part of the fourth century. It remained the “authentic” test in the Catholic Church up to the last century. From the Vulgate the Douay-Rheims English translation was made in the last part of the sixteenth century by English Catholic scholars working on the continent.

Among the English-speaking Protestant Christians the most influential translation was the Authorized Version more commonly known in the United States as the King James Version completed in 1611. In 1970 the New American Bible was published, done for the most part by American Catholic scholars. This version was derived from the ancient biblical languages.

Interpreting the Bible, understanding what it has to say, is not a simple task. Even highly trained scholars have difficulty in knowing exactly what the original authors meant to say. (The sacred writers were writing for an audience in their own time in history.) Their manner of thinking and expressing themselves was Semitic, not Western. There are many sections which can be readily grasped by every reader. Surely the Holy Spirit will help our hearts to be open to the message that is read. But this does not mean a miraculous intervention that guarantees the right interpretation every time a difficulty is encountered.

The Church itself is the final interpreter of the meaning of the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit has been promised to the Church: “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name--he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you.” (John 14:26) The Church produced the Scriptures; the Church recognized the extend of the Scriptures; the Church interprets the Scriptures. It is inside the community of faith that we hear the Word of God speaking to us.