Introduction to Traditional Catholic Bible Catechism Series

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Good Day, All,

I would like to introduce the first series available to paid subscribers of Mere Tradition. With the New Year fast approaching, doubtless, there will be talk of resolutions and disciplines we all would like to adopt for the coming year. In 2019 I embarked on a ‘Bible in a Year’ reading plan, I followed Taylor Marshall’s New Saint Thomas Institute plan, which can be found here. It is my hope that the readers of Mere Tradition will be encouraged to read the Bible in full next year, and perhaps this basic catechism will help with that pursuit.

It was the first time in my life I had read the Bible cover-to-cover, and it was a spiritually enriching experience, and was also intellectually satisfying. I learned a lot about the Bible that year, and became intensely interested in the history of the Scriptures, especially in light of the modernist biblical criticism that is so common today. That same year I took a qualification course during the summer as part of my teacher training. I was already a religion teacher — teaching Catholic theology and catechism to secondary students in a French Immersion program — but I wanted to take the course in order to one day “climb the ladder” and perhaps be a department head and teach religion only. 

Suffice it to say, the Catholic system I worked in was Catholic in name only, and barely that. For years I had fought the administration on the constant barrage of heresy, and I did have some success, at least so far as my own teaching practice was concerned, but my experience in that summer additional qualification course I took was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. To say that the course was heretical would be an understatement. 

The first lesson we did on bible interpretation was a reflection on something from Father Richard Rohr — insert eye-roll — and it only got worse from there. I recall at one point there was some gobbledygook presented about Mary Magdalene and the source material was largely from a protestant female theologian. 

Well, that experience encouraged me to learn as much as I could about the traditional Catholic understanding of the Bible. One thing that caught my eye was the stark difference between questions of dating and authorship. If you have a Douay-Rheims Bible, you may notice that the preliminary notes for each book of the Bible contain information on by whom and when the books were written. Contrary to modern scholarship, the dates of the writing of the Gospels, for example, are much closer to the time of Christ than is presently believed by most “scholars.” In addition, the reality of who authored each book is much clearer and makes a lot more sense in the traditional understanding. Furthermore, the authors of the books are not some unknown figures or a compilation of amorphous groups of “sacred writers,” but individuals that are often known by name. Of course, for some books of the Bible there are multiple authors, or at least a primary author who essentially sources the contents of each book.

At any rate, I have attempted here to put that learning to good use and present to you a six-part series that I believe will be helpful. A new article will be posted every two weeks on Wednesday (except for this article which I have sent out a little earlier as my wife is having her sixth c-section on Friday! Prayers please!)

Each article will also include a voice-over so you can listen to it if you would rather do that.

All right, let’s get into it!