Pontifical Biblical Commission > Quotes

“The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.”
― Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church

“One can say that liberation theology adopts no particular methodology. But starting from its own socio-cultural and political point of view, it practices a reading of the Bible which is oriented to the needs of the people, who seek in the Scriptures nourishment for their faith and their life.”
― Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church

“The benevolence of God leads human beings to conversion and to faith, while the inscrutability of God leads them to recognize the greatness of the Creator and their own limitations, to have the “fear of the Lord” and to observe his commandments.”
― Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture: The Word that Comes from God and Speaks of God for the Salvation of the World

“Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.”
― Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church