I need some Catholic help

[Ester Maria]

I need comparatively teen-friendly, yet academically sound resources:

 

1) which would present the New Testament assuming fairly modest previous knowledge and exposure (i.e. which could serve as a guide / glue for textual work in familiarizing oneself with it);

 

2) which would present the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, from the Catholic perspective, and the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament interpretation;

 

3) which would be a general theological introduction to Christianity, for which I was recommended to take Ratzinger's 1968 introduction, but I would like other suggestions as well, especially because this work contains a whole net of complex philosophical associations which I am not sure I can tackle very well just yet to get them understand the conext. Is there something more... "light", so to speak?

 

Thank you in advance.

Edited November 1, 2011 by Ester Maria

[Sugarfoot]

There's a new series for high school called the Didache Religion Series. Each year focuses on a major part of the faith. One of the years is called Understanding the Scriptures. We're doing Our Moral Life in Christ this year. It's the first year we've used the series.

 

You can read about it at Emmanuel Books' website: http://www.emmanuelbooks.com

[Jane in NC]

May I suggest you contact 8fillthe heart? She rarely ventures over to the General Board.

[ElizaG]

For #3, you might look at the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (available online, as well as in print form). From the introduction:

 

"The Compendium, which I now present to the Universal Church, is a faithful and sure synthesis of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It contains, in concise form, all the essential and fundamental elements of the Church’s faith, thus constituting, as my Predecessor had wished, a kind of vademecum which allows believers and non-believers alike to behold the entire panorama of the Catholic faith."

[CatMomof3]

There's a new series for high school called the Didache Religion Series. Each year focuses on a major part of the faith. One of the years is called Understanding the Scriptures. We're doing Our Moral Life in Christ this year. It's the first year we've used the series.

 

You can read about it at Emmanuel Books' website: http://www.emmanuelbooks.com

:iagree:

 

I have heard some great things about this series.

[Aquinas Academy]

There's a new series for high school called the Didache Religion Series. Each year focuses on a major part of the faith. One of the years is called Understanding the Scriptures. We're doing Our Moral Life in Christ this year. It's the first year we've used the series.

 

You can read about it at Emmanuel Books' website: http://www.emmanuelbooks.com

The Didache textbooks are excellent, but depending how much time EM wants to spend on this, they might be too indepth; each book is a full year's worth of material. If you're wanting this to be a fairly detailed study, then I would highly recommend them.

Would a study Bible work for #1? There's the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament as well as many others.

[ElizaG]

It seems as if most of the recent Catholic books about the Bible are either quite lengthy (e.g. Didache or the various study bibles), or on some specialized topic, or written with more of a popular tone.

 

As a possible alternative or supplement, some kind person has posted these writings by Fr. Hugh Pope, a Dominican professor of New Testament exegesis at the Collegium Angelicum in Rome in the 1920's or so:

 

Catholic Guide to the Bible

 

He doesn't seem to have any published works with this title, so I'm not sure which of his books these come from. If you don't mind the lack of standard citations, though, these pages do seem to cover the questions you've mentioned in #1 and #2.

 

ETA: After looking around a bit, I think these were taken from The Catholic Student's "Aids" to the Bible. This is out of copyright and available from Archive.org and Kobo among other sites. (As it happens, Fr. Pope's books are also recommended by Scott Hahn, one of the main authors of the Didache series. Just in case his suggestion counts for more than mine. ;))

Edited November 2, 2011 by Eleanor

[OrdinaryTime]

For a general introduction to theology, I highly recommend Frank Sheed's "Theology for Beginners" or Peter Kreeft's "Fundamentals of the Faith." Both are more accessible than Ratzinger's "Introduction" but are still very solid.

 

Also, a teen version of the Catholic Catechism was just released. I haven't personally seen i, though.

[Ester Maria]

You guys are awesome. Thank you all. :D

 

Since Catholicism is something that our children get into contact with VERY much, we thought it would be interesting to make some kind of an organized study and tie with working on their NT literacy, which is quite... basic. So we are looking into filling some of the gaps regarding factual and textual knowledge and getting a general theological overview. I will look into your suggestions and see whether something would fit our needs - thank you.

[Tiramisu]

For a general introduction to theology, I highly recommend Frank Sheed's "Theology for Beginners" or Peter Kreeft's "Fundamentals of the Faith." Both are more accessible than Ratzinger's "Introduction" but are still very solid.

 

Also, a teen version of the Catholic Catechism was just released. I haven't personally seen i, though.

 

I was recently forwarded an email that discussed theological errors in the YouthCat, if that's what you're thinking about. I don't have a copy and couldn't check out the points in question.

[Tiramisu]

Have you looked at the stuff by Jeff Cavins? Some of what he's done may really fit your needs.

 

http://www.stgeorgebooks.com/display_results.cfm/category/144/Bible-Studies/