Excerpt from Practical Handbook for the Study of the Bible and of Bible Literature: Including Biblical Geography, Antiquties, Introduction to the Old and the New Testament, and Hermeneutics The treatment in the book itself, however, will be found amply sufficient for dealing with that ever-increasing number of souls who pick up rationalist conclusions anywhere and everywhere, and are thus, somewhat needlessly, disturbed in their faith. The editor would beg, ' with all deference, to call attention to a theological distinction which would seem to have come into prominence since the author first wrote his book, and which does not appear to have been made sufficiently clear even in the latest edition. It is the distinction between inspiration and revelation. All the Bible is inspired, but not all the Bible is revealed. A sacred writer, for instance, might write down an account of an event as he had seen it or heard it from an eye-witness. The source of his information is purely natural. In writing it down, however, he does so under the influence Of that supernatural charism which is known as inspiration. On the other hand, he might have the knowledge infused into his mind directly by God. Such was the way in which St. Paul received the information for his classical passage on the Holy Eucharist. That was a reve lation. And, since he was moved by the Holy Spirit to embody it in one of his epistles, it was also a part of inspiration. The distinction is necessary, if one is to understand the difference between Catholic plenary inspiration and Protestant literal inspiration. The Douay version of Scripture has been generally adopted, but there are about three or four places where this did not liter ally agree with the German version used by the author. These cases have been rendered by a literal translation of the German. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.