Conclusions

Conclusions

The Biblical Scriptures must be examined without being embellished artificially with

qualities one would like them to have. They must be seen objectively as they are. This

implies not only a knowledge of the texts, but also of their history. The latter makes it

possible to form an idea of the circumstances which brought about textual adaptations

over the centuries, the slow formation of the collection that we have today, with its

numerous substractions and additions.

The above makes it quite possible to believe that different versions of the same

description can be found in the Old Testament, as well as contradictions, historical

errors, improbabilities and incompatibilities with firmly established scientific data.

They are quite natural in human works of a very great age. How could one fail to find

them in the books written in the same conditions in which the Biblical text was

composed?

At a time when it was not yet possible to ask scientific questions, and one could only

decide on improbabilities or contradictions, a man of good sense, such as Saint

Augustine, considered that God could not teach man things that did not correspond to

reality. He therefore put forward the principle that it was not possible for an

affirmation contrary to the truth to be of divine origin, and was prepared to exclude

from all the sacred texts anything that appeared to him to merit exclusion on these

grounds.

Later, at a time when the incompatibility of certain passages of the Bible with modern

knowledge has been realized, the same attitude has not been followed. This refusal

has been so insistent that a whole literature has sprung up, aimed at justifying the fact

that, in the face of all opposition, texts have been retained in the Bible that have no

reason to be there.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) has greatly reduced this uncompromising

attitude by introducing reservations about the "Books of the Old Testament" which

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"contain material that is imperfect and obsolete". One wonders if this will remain a

pious wish or if it will be followed by a change in attitude towards material which, in

the Twentieth century, is no longer acceptable in the books of the Bible. In actual fact,

save for any human manipulation, the latter were destined to be the "witness of true

teachings coming from God".