The Bible is a library of only 73 books penned by different authors. Though Catholics believe that God is the author behind all human authors, it takes a lot of their efforts to harmonize the apparent inconsistencies, inaccuracies and sometimes even contradictions found in the sacred texts which provide the foundation for the faith and beliefs of all Christians.
First of all, God is truthful. He cannot tell lies or contradict Himself and the truth. The message He gives us must be the truth.
Secondly, God must guarantee that His truth is correctly conveyed to us. He must protect the earthly authors from making mistakes or misrepresentations of His truth.
Lastly, God must make sure that the readers anywhere in space and time will read and understand His truth correctly. He gives them the Holy Spirit to guarantee the correct reading of His will.
Therefore, the first inaccuracy which all modern Christians must answer is the six-day creation story recorded in Genesis 1.
Here comes the first lesson of Biblical Interpretation --- the genre of a piece of text. We do not expect a love poem to be scientifcally accurate. Since the creation story in Genesis 1 is a celebration hymn and not a scientific report, we do not expect it to meet the criteria of peer review of papers submitted to Lancet or Nature. It is a hymn because there are a lot of repetitions and refrains such as "God saw that xxx was good" and "And there was evening and there was morning, day nn" etc.
What is a day? What did a day mean before the creation of our sun? If you insist on a 24-hour definition of a day, you cannot be correct.
Other inconsistencies require greater understanding and a broader attitude to resolve. In the readings today, we come face to face with yet another kind of inconsistenc which is a harder nut to crack.
In the second reading, we heard of the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians. He told husbands to love their wives.
For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it (Ephesians 5:29)
Immediately afterwards, we heard in the gospel of John Jesus' words which seem to despise our flesh.
It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail (John 6:63).
So, should we follow Paul's advice to cherish our flesh or Jesus' to despise it? Both versions come from the same God who does not contradict Himself. So, how are we to harmonize them?
I think such a dilemma arises because we stubbornly want to seek an absolute and universal truth, a sort of theory for everything that is applicable in all contexts. Even today when all of us are enjoying the convenience provided by quantum mechanics, people are still puzzled by the duality of light. How can such a common phenomenon be both a wave and a bunndle of particles at the same time? Human beings dislike ambiguity and try their best to resolve it. It takes a lot of effort for us to accommodate diametrically opposite ideas and to put them together in our heads. However, if we work very hard to come up with the truth which is abstract and universal, have we sacrificed the richness of it? Can truth be so embracing and universal that people can only see one of its many facets?
The Bible is just such an encyclopedia. You will find it praises the goodness of wine and on the next page, warns people of its evil; or advises you to do good for people to see so that they may praise God in heaven and several paragraphs below, exhorts you to do good in secret. How do you harmonize both?
I will leave it as an exercise for my beloved readers. But I will drop you a hint. The teachings of the Bible is NOT situational ethics. Got it?
Dear Lord, Your teaching is richer than gold and sweeter than honey. To quote St. Peter today, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68). Amen.
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