The word “Bible” comes from the Greek word biblia, which is the plural form of the word for “scroll”. The Bible is, in fact, not a single book but a collection of various and disparate texts. The Christian Bible is composed of two major parts, traditionally called the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Catholic version of the Old Testament is very similar to (but not identical with) the Jewish Sacred Scriptures (known as the Tanak, or “the Hebrew Bible”, and which is identical with the Protestant version of the Old Testament). It tells the story of God’s dealings with God’s people Israel. The New Testament is the specifically and uniquely Christian part of the Bible; and it is solely concerned with the person and message of Jesus.

The Bible is an adult book; and should be introduced to children with great care, emphasising to them that it is an adult book they need to grow into understanding in the adult way in which it was intended to be understood. Children need to be alerted to the fact that the Bible is very difficult to understand and very easy to misunderstand.

As adults, teachers need to be aware that the Bible is easily abused, often ambiguous, and even scandalous at times. It touches our humanity at some of its most sensitive places. And it has a great deal to do with life, death, violence, justice, beauty, suffering, meaning, and (of course) love.

Apart from its theological significance, the Bible contains profound anthropological, psychological, cultural and philosophical insights, which have implications for us personally and collectively. It deserves serious engagement at sociological, political, cultural and even aesthetic and artistic levels. Theology takes all of these (and many others) into consideration when it asks, “What does the Bible say about God?—and about us in God?”

In GNFL this understanding of the Scriptures is developed with these theological emphases:

• The Bible is the Church’s book.
• Over the course of many centuries the Church came to recognise that some of the sacred texts of our Jewish ancestors in the faith (the Old Testament) and some of the early Christian texts (especially the Gospels and Epistles) are inspired and inspiring, and revealed and revealing. God’s Spirit (“inspired” = “in-spirited”) breathes life in and through these texts in a unique and lasting way; and they are revealed because they lead us into a truth that is simply beyond our capacity to imagine or come up with on our own.
• The Catholic Church holds the Bible in very high esteem and reads it with great reverence; but it does not teach that God either wrote or dictated it.
• The human writers of the biblical books were fully involved in the work of producing these texts.
• God inspired the biblical authors, and gifted them with the talents of great writers, legislators, poets, liturgists, etc.
• The Scriptures were composed over a long period of time and among a specific people in a specific place—all of which has to be taken into account when interpreting the Scriptures.
• The Bible is not what modern people mean by “history” or “science”.
• The Bible is best described as a kind of “narrative theological anthropology”—that is, the story of humanity in relation to God.
• It tries to say something true, and at a profound level, about the perennial truth about the world and humanity as it is, especially in its relationship to God.

URL link to Theological Conversation chapter (PDF).