October 17 Bible Study

2 Comments

  1. I liked the spitballing fashion.
    The more than indicative cases about the noticeably compound life and manifold practices of the Nation of Israel were really intriguing. I’m yet to catch up with you in a persistent probe into the books of Tanakh, though.
    My relating example is the current Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) about which I’m gonna quote from apostolic letters of the pope.
    CCC is supposed to be a “full, complete” and “authoritative exposition of the one and perennial apostolic faith”. Therefore it requires excerpts or quotations as ‘greatest hits’ of certain “Fathers and the Church’s saints”, meanwhile steering clear of their dissenting ideations even in their “catechetical works”. The Catholic Church even dares to declare an objective of “pursuing the path which the Church has followed for 20 centuries” which seems to be a hell of a self-deception.
    CCC is to summarize the “essential and necessary elements” of “the Christian faith” a.k.a. “the Catholic doctrine” “attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church’s Magisterium”. By the way, the latter description is a candid and decisive one. CCC was being made in 6 years by a teamwork of cardinals and bishops, together with ‘experts’ like “numerous theologians, exegetes and catechists”. They both probably live—or get by—in an ideological illusion that “the Good News” as a “treasure” was “received from the apostles, and has been faithfully guarded by their successors” on a path unwinding.
    I mean, CCC really is a gigantic venture which is worthy of recognition as an intellectual achievement. But do they think that they were able to give a universal blueprint or manual of the ‘true’ cookie-cutter faith for individual believers of their church in about 1000 pages? Actually and interestingly enough, according to their top-down system, CCC is primarily intended for—and addressed to—the pope’s “Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate” as well as “the Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Deacons”, and among the addressees only the last place goes to “all the [other] People of God”… I mean the historical vested interests of the Catholic Church resound through most of their solemn documents. They think they can’t afford to give up the proprietary right and access to the Word of God and all the guiding implications for God-seekers.

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