scripture study p.4 // the Bible is God's Divine Word

Revelation may be defined as the communication of some truth by God to a rational creature through means which are beyond the ordinary course of nature. Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason (DF 2). In other words, God reveals Himself to us through creation and the natural law impressed in our hearts. This is called natural revelation.

But God also reveals Himself to us in a more intimate way, more than the knowledge that He exists--starting with Abraham, when He started to reveal His plan to make us part of His family. The culmination of this revelation has come when, in the fullness of time, the Word became flesh, and the Holy Spirit descended upon us. This is called the supernatural or divine revelation.


Divine Revelation through Sacred Tradition

This supernatural revelation, through actions and words, was entrusted initially to the care of the people of Israel and then that of the Church of Jesus Christ (NV). This was conserved and handed on to all of God's people through oral tradition, with the Apostles leaving bishops as their successors together with their teaching authority.

As part of God's plan, He inspired men to put into writing these revelation, not merely as memoirs of teachings but as a manifestation of Himself. Thus, the Bible is the true Word of God (DV 14).


primary and secondary authorship

God is the primary author of this Sacred Writing, but He did so through secondary human authors. This does not mean that God dicated each word to His disciple, since that would not mean that the human is also an author. Most words in the Bible, especially in the New Testament epistles, are spoken in the first person. This would not fit the dictation theory. So how are the books in the Bible authored?

To this, Fr. William Most says, "we again appeal to His transcendence when we say He is the Chief Author, and the human author is a real author too, with his own style, but yet God causes the human to write all that He wills, and to do so without any error whatsoever."


Next in this series...
Why do we have 73 books in the Bible? What are the deuterocanonicals and why do some Bibles not have it?