As most of you know, I've been involved in a lot of debates here about scripture.  I think my criticism of this group's ideas can be summed up with a challenge:

Can you apply this teaching to a concrete situation?  

From Divino Afflante Spiritu of Pius XII:

32. There are, in fine, other books or texts, which contain difficulties brought to light only in quite recent times, since a more profound knowledge of antiquity has given rise to new questions, on the basis of which the point at issue may be more appropriately examined. Quite wrongly therefore do some pretend, not rightly understanding the conditions of biblical study, that nothing remains to be added by the Catholic exegete of our time to what Christian antiquity has produced; since, on the contrary, these our times have brought to light so many things, which call for a fresh investigation, and which stimulate not a little the practical zest of the present-day interpreter.

33. As in our age, indeed new questions and new difficulties are multiplied, so, by God's favor, new means and aids to exegesis are also provided. Among these it is worthy of special mention that Catholic theologians, following the teaching of the Holy Fathers and especially of the Angelic and Common Doctor, have examined and explained the nature and effects of biblical inspiration more exactly and more fully than was wont to be done in previous ages. For having begun by expounding minutely the principle that the inspired writer, in composing the sacred book, is the living and reasonable instrument of the Holy Spirit, they rightly observe that, impelled by the divine motion, he so uses his faculties and powers, that from the book composed by him all may easily infer "the special character of each one and, as it were, his personal traits."[28] Let the interpreter then, with all care and without neglecting any light derived from recent research, endeavor to determine the peculiar character and circuмstances of the sacred writer, the age in which he lived, the sources written or oral to which he had recourse and the forms of expression he employed.

34. Thus can he the better understand who was the inspired author, and what he wishes to express by his writings. There is no one indeed but knows that the supreme rule of interpretation is to discover and define what the writer intended to express, as St. Athanasius excellently observes: "Here, as indeed is expedient in all other passages of Sacred Scripture, it should be noted, on what occasion the Apostle spoke; we should carefully and faithfully observe to whom and why he wrote, lest, being ignorant of these points, or confounding one with another, we miss the real meaning of the author."[29]

35. What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of our own time. For what they wished to express is not to be determined by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context; the interpreter must, as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history, archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of writing, so to speak, the authors of that ancient period would be likely to use, and in fact did use.

36. For the ancient peoples of the East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech which we use today; but rather those used by the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East. The investigation, carried out, on this point, during the past forty or fifty years with greater care and diligence than ever before, has more clearly shown what forms of expression were used in those far off times, whether in poetic description or in the formulation of laws and rules of life or in recording the facts and events of history. The same inquiry has also shown the special preeminence of the people of Israel among all the other ancient nations of the East in their mode of compiling history, both by reason of its antiquity and by reasons of the faithful record of the events; qualities which may well be attributed to the gift of divine inspiration and to the peculiar religious purpose of biblical history.

37. Nevertheless no one, who has a correct idea of biblical inspiration, will be surprised to find, even in the Sacred Writers, as in other ancient authors, certain fixed ways of expounding and narrating, certain definite idioms, especially of a kind peculiar to the Semitic tongues, so-called approximations, and certain hyperbolical modes of expression, nay, at times, even paradoxical, which even help to impress the ideas more deeply on the mind. For of the modes of expression which, among ancient peoples, and especially those of the East, human language used to express its thought, none is excluded from the Sacred Books, provided the way of speaking adopted in no wise contradicts the holiness and truth of God, as, with his customary wisdom, the Angelic Doctor already observed in these words: "In Scripture divine things are presented to us in the manner which is in common use amongst men."[30] For as the substantial Word of God became like to men in all things, "except sin,"[31] so the words of God, expressed in human language, are made like to human speech in every respect, except error. In this consists that "condescension" of the God of providence, which St. John Chrysostom extolled with the highest praise and repeatedly declared to be found in the Sacred Books.[32]

38. Hence the Catholic commentator, in order to comply with the present needs of biblical studies, in explaining the Sacred Scripture and in demonstrating and proving its immunity from all error, should also make a prudent use of this means, determine, that is, to what extent the manner of expression or the literary mode adopted by the sacred writer may lead to a correct and genuine interpretation; and let him be convinced that this part of his office cannot be neglected without serious detriment to Catholic exegesis. Not infrequently -- to mention only one instance -- when some persons reproachfully charge the Sacred Writers with some historical error or inaccuracy in the recording of facts, on closer examination it turns out to be nothing else than those customary modes of expression and narration peculiar to the ancients, which used to be employed in the mutual dealings of social life and which in fact were sanctioned by common usage.

39. When then such modes of expression are met within the sacred text, which, being meant for men, is couched in human language, justice demands that they be no more taxed with error than when they occur in the ordinary intercourse of daily life. By this knowledge and exact appreciation of the modes of speaking and writing in use among the ancients can be solved many difficulties, which are raised against the veracity and historical value of the Divine Scriptures, and no less efficaciously does this study contribute to a fuller and more luminous understanding of the mind of the Sacred Writer.

Can you point to any scriptural passages that fit what the Pope is describing?

Can you explain why he says that Catholic exegetes of the 20th century have much to add to our understanding of the Bible?

Can you explain why he says exegetes need to know the other literature of the East in order to properly interpret scripture?

Can you point to any scripture that use what the Pope calls hyperbole?

For me, dozens of passages spring immediately to mind.  This is the continuation of the teaching, 50 years before, in Providentissimus Deus, about scripture using figurative language in the Old Testament.  

#39 lays it out so clearly.  To find an idiom in scripture that comes from common language is NOT to find an error, any more than it would be to find it in everyday common speech today.

'The Sun goes down' is just such an expression.  

So, can you do it?  Can you give an example of what the Pope is here describing?  Can you point out a scripture which uses a popular idiom, or hyperbole?    

Didnt thumb you down btw. Only because I hope to overcome that pride of yours.

...and I guess that's a whole bunch of 'no'.  You can't.

Here's what I think it means:


There is a train of Catholic thought, which is necessary.  It starts officially in Provendentissimus Deus, continues in Divino Afflante Spiritu and Humani Generis.  It also is present in Dei Verbum, but nobody cares about that.  

It is two major things:

1.Catholic scripture study is still capable of progressing in orthodoxy.

2.In order to do so, Catholic scripture study comprehends that to find any of several literary devices or affectations in the text of the Old Testament is not the same as finding error.  

Now, it is comprehensible why a Protestant would not understand this.  He left the party a long time before this teaching was made.  It's not comprehensible why a Traditional Catholic would not understand this, since Leo XIII, at the very least is not considered a modernist pope.  I'm finding out that a lot of you have already given the heave-ho to Pius XII without actually saying so.

So, here's my idea.  Be honest about it.  These are encyclicals that demand obedience from Catholics if they are promulgated by legitimate Popes.  If you think Pascendi was promulgated by a legitimate pope (of course we all do) and you think these encyclicals were too, then the burden is on you to harmonize them.  

You must figure out how scripture can be completely inerrant on the one hand, and use hyperbole, approximation, figurative language and idiom on the other.  

If, however, you will not submit to this (and most of you absolutely will not) then be honest about it.  You are in disobedience to these encyclicals on the study of sacred scripture.  

If so, be a man and admit why.  Here are the possible reasons I see:

1.I pick and choose the Catholic teachings I think were pure from any modernism and I'll do it going back in history as far as I want, thank you.

If you're doing this, own up to it.  You are God's censor and His final cure.  You alone will judge the acts of the Holy Roman Catholic Church for orthodoxy.  You figure that you can do a better job of sniffing out modernism than they did in Rome back then, and you figure you have a better idea how important it is whether scholars engage in criticism or not.  

2.If this trend (which has obvious modernist overtones) was present in the pontificate of Leo XIII (and history records that it was his idea, the cardinals resisted him, and they had some grand fights over it, go read) then he was a modernist and therefore not the pope.  So, Leo was an anti-pope and so was Pius XII.  

This would at least be honest.  It has no more problems than any other aspect of the sedevacantist position.    


For a lot of people, #1 is simply Protestantism.  I think it is.  However, I'd rather someone be an honest Protestant than a dishonest one.

It is on...

Finally.  I was wondering why you've been holding back.

Excellent response, in my opinion, Matthieu.

Those are great examples of hyperbole.

I chose 'the Sun went down' as an example of an idiomatic expression, because so many here take very similar expressions as proof of geocentrism in scripture.  

So, the next obvious challenge, can you find me some in the first 11 chapters of Genesis?  

My basis for proof of what?  I'm wondering if you can find examples of idiom, hyperbole, and figurative language in the first eleven chapters of Genesis.  For the last few months, many on here have been claiming that they don't exist.  I say they do, I say the Popes teach that they do.  

So, the only place where scripture contains no idiom, no hyperbole, and no figurative language is the first eleven chapters of Genesis?

So, I have been talking about encyclicals on the study of all of sacred scripture.

At the risk of just engaging some craziness from you...what are you asking for?