Conclusions

The Biblical Scriptures must be examined without beingembellished artificially with qualities one would likethem to have. They must be seen objectively as they are.This implies not only a knowledge of the texts, but alsoof their history. The latter makes it possible to form anidea of the circumstances which brought about textualadaptations over the centuries, the slow formation of thecollection that we have today, with its numerous subtractions and additions.

The above makes it quite possible to believe thatdifferent versions of the same description can be foundin the Old Testament, as well as contradictions,historical errors, improbabilities and incompatibilitieswith firmly established scientific data. They are quitenatural in human works of a very great age. How could onefail to find them in the books written in the sameconditions in which the Biblical text was composed?

At a time when it was not yet possible to askscientific questions, and one could only decide onimprobabilities or contradictions, a man of good sense,such as Saint Augustine, considered that God could notteach man things that did not correspond to reality. Hetherefore put forward the principle that it was notpossible for an affirmation contrary to the truth to beof divine origin, and was prepared to exclude from allthe sacred texts anything that appeared to him to meritexclusion on these grounds.

Later, at a time when the incompatibility of certainpassages of the Bible with modern knowledge has beenrealized, the same attitude has not been followed. Thisrefusal has been so insistent that a whole literature hassprung up, aimed at justifying the fact that, in the faceof all opposition, texts have been retained in the Biblethat have no reason to be there.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) has greatlyreduced this uncompromising attitude by introducingreservations about the “Books of the OldTestament” which “contain material that isimperfect and obsolete”. One wonders if this willremain a pious wish or if it will be followed by a changein attitude towards material which, in the Twentiethcentury, is no longer acceptable in the books of theBible. In actual fact, save for any human manipulation,the latter were destined to be the “witness of trueteachings coming from God”.