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It must seem strange to write a book on The Catholic Understanding of the Bible. But, it will not be strange once we realize two things: that every major religion in the world has what it calls its Bible, and that among Christians, the Bible is variously understood.
Not to speak of the Catholic understanding of the Bible would be confusing, to say the least, and even misleading. The Bible is not just the Bible. It is the foundation for Christianity. Everything depends on three things: what books form the contents of the Bible, how the Bible is translated, and most importantly, how the Bible is interpreted.
All the religions have their own scriptures. The Hindus have the Vedas, Buddhists the Tipitaka, Taoists their Tao Teh Ching, and Moslems the Koran. Just what constitutes a sacred writing and how the scriptures are to be understood are so varied and divergent as to defy scientific analysis. Much of the difficulty that a Christian faces in studying other systems of faith arises from this basic difference – between the Bible of Christianity (and Judaism) and the equivalent sacred literature of other living religions. A standard definition of the Bible is to call it a publication that is preeminent especially in authoritativeness.
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