the Catholic Church

The Books. The Word. The Truth. English word Bible comes from Latin biblia sacra “holy books”. The plural “biblia” was often improperly interpreted as singular feminine, hence the old Anglo-Latin singular “biblia”.

Here are four reasons why: 1) Nowhere does the Bible claim to be inerrant. Rather, biblical authors wrote in order to be persuasive, hoping that by reading their witness you would come to believe as they did (see John . 2) Reading the Bible literally distorts its witness.

Much of the language of the Bible is obviously metaphorical (e.g., hands, eyes, feet of God, etc.). The Bible has both history and metaphor. Even when describing an actual historical event, the metaphorical meaning of the event is what is important. The truth of the Bible does not depend on historical facutality.

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.

Infallibility and inerrancy refer to the original texts of the Bible. Scholars who are proponents of biblical inerrancy acknowledge the potential for human error in transmission and translation, and therefore only affirm as the Word of God translations that “faithfully represent the original”.

Evangelicals have a somewhat broader interpretation of who Jesus was. Fundamentalists also add some additional doctrines to their beliefs that many evangelicals would not agree with. For instance, many fundamentalists have a dispensational view of the Bible.

Modern scholars find inconsistencies in the Old Testament and Torah and ascribe many of them to the process by which they were created.

In Leviticus 11:27, God forbids Moses and his followers to eat swine “because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud.” Furthermore, the prohibition goes, “Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean to you.” That message is later reinforced in Deuteronomy.

Bible Gateway Leviticus 11 :: NIV. You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.

Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church does not condemn smoking per se, but considers excessive smoking to be sinful, as described in the Catechism (CCC 2290): The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine.