“The task of an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether
written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living
teaching office [Magisterium] of the Church alone. Its authority in
this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.”
12
It is the Magisterium that has declared consistently from Vatican I to
Vatican II that all the books of Scripture were “written under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit…have God as their author, and have been
handed on as such to the Church herself.”
13
With regard to the book of
Genesis, the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC)––as an organ of the
teaching Magisterium––declared in 1909 that the first three chapters were
not legend or mythology, even if the sacred writer did not intend to write
with scientific exactitude. Rather, the three chapters are a narrative of
events that truly occurred and can be understood in a literal, historical
sense, though certain passages are to be understood in a figurative sense.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses similar language in upholding
the historicity of Genesis in our days:
“The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative
language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took
place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation
gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human
history is marked by the original fault freely committed
by our first parents.”
14
Earlier, the PBC declared, in 1906, that Moses was the principal and
substantial human author of the Pentateuch and hence of Genesis, though
he may have been inspired to use and edit earlier manuscripts and/or oral
traditions. In 1950, Pope Pius XII stated that the first eleven chapters of
Genesis “do nevertheless come under the heading of history.” He went on
to say that “the same chapters, in simple and metaphorical language
adapted to the mentality of a primitive people, both state principal truths
12
Dei Verbum, ibid., # 10.
13
Ibid., # 7; cf. CCC # 105.
14
CCC # 390.
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