- Feb 5, 2002
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When something happens that makes nonbelievers think religion is a con game, how should faithful Catholics respond?
On March 13, the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., announced that their Dead Sea Scroll fragments, one of their most prominent exhibits, were forgeries. On March 27, Steve Green, the chairman of the museum’s board and president of Hobby Lobby, announced that he was repatriating 11,500 artifacts to Egypt and Iraq due to their lack of historical sourcing. And on April 12, it was reported that Oxford professor Dirk Obbink, who had given the supposed Dead Sea Scrolls to the Museum, was arrested for theft and fraud.
Sadly, scandals like this lend credence to the belief that religion is, at best, a useful myth. Religion is simply seen as blind faith, akin to children’s belief in the Tooth Fairy.
When religion comes across as a con game, how should Catholics respond?
First, Catholics should remember that the forgeries of the Dead Sea Scrolls show the problems of “Scripture alone.” Scripture, once unmoored from Tradition and natural law, can be reduced to a museum piece, an artifact. The Bible is important to the Catholic spiritual life, but one cannot live on it alone. St. John the Evangelist ends his Gospel saying (John 21:25), “But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” The written word has its limitations, which it admits itself.
Continued below.
The Gospels are the Gospel Truth, Not Myth
On March 13, the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., announced that their Dead Sea Scroll fragments, one of their most prominent exhibits, were forgeries. On March 27, Steve Green, the chairman of the museum’s board and president of Hobby Lobby, announced that he was repatriating 11,500 artifacts to Egypt and Iraq due to their lack of historical sourcing. And on April 12, it was reported that Oxford professor Dirk Obbink, who had given the supposed Dead Sea Scrolls to the Museum, was arrested for theft and fraud.
Sadly, scandals like this lend credence to the belief that religion is, at best, a useful myth. Religion is simply seen as blind faith, akin to children’s belief in the Tooth Fairy.
When religion comes across as a con game, how should Catholics respond?
First, Catholics should remember that the forgeries of the Dead Sea Scrolls show the problems of “Scripture alone.” Scripture, once unmoored from Tradition and natural law, can be reduced to a museum piece, an artifact. The Bible is important to the Catholic spiritual life, but one cannot live on it alone. St. John the Evangelist ends his Gospel saying (John 21:25), “But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” The written word has its limitations, which it admits itself.
Continued below.
The Gospels are the Gospel Truth, Not Myth
