The B - I - B - L - E, Yes That's The Book ...

Until we get the Gloria TV video (below) to keep itself within the bounds of its incredibly important and over-sized message, allow me to offer, gentle reader, a fine essay by fellow convert and apologist Mark Shea, Tools for Thinking Sensibly About Scripture from insidecatholic.com.

For some folks, it takes a lot to dispel the myth of the hyper-controlling Church that only permits Bible study among the faithful after the insertion of the Vatican Orbital Mind Control Laser Platform chip in the frontal lobe of the brain. Indeed, it may come as a shock to such folk to discover that the Church offers us only three measly guidelines when pointing the faithful toward reading Scripture for its literal sense. Dei Verbum tells us:

1. Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture";
2. read the Scripture within "the living tradition of the whole Church"; and
3. be attentive to the analogy of faith.

That's it. That's all the mind control the Church offers when it comes to reading the Bible for its literal sense. What do these guidelines mean? In part, as we saw last week, they mean that when you read the Bible, you need to pay attention to what sort of literature you are reading. But other things come in as well.

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