On Oct 4, the Bishops of England and Wales, and of Scotland, released a 60 page teaching document, The Gift of Scripture which unfortunately is not online.
The Times of London reports that it is says "We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision” They say the Genesis creation story cannot be "historical" and should be compared to creation legends of other cultures. The bishops say: “Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come.”
The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.” They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach. “Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”
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