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How To Read The Bible
Make Sense Out of Scripture
Ever find something in the Bible that just doesn't seem to make sense? Or, even worse, have you ever had a verse of Scripture pointed out to you that seemed contrary to your beliefs and not been able to explain it?
The Bible is the most read book in all of history. So why is there so much confusion floating around about what various passages of Scripture even mean anyway? When you read the Bible, should you interpret every story literally? Or should some stories be taken literally and others have more of a spiritual meaning? Before basing your beliefs around what you read in the Scriptures, one of the most important, and most overlooked, things to do is to learn how to read the Bible in the first place.
Misinterpretations
First, let's take a look at the problem. The problem is that there are tens of thousands of branches of Christianity, many of which rely heavily (or even solely) on the Bible as the basis for their doctrines and teachings. If every branch of Christianity agreed with every other branch, there would be one agreed-upon interpretation of every passage and, as a result, no conflicting doctrines stemming from groups not knowing how to read the Bible.
However, that is simply not the case. There are hundreds, even thousands, or different interpretations for various Scripture passages between the denominations of Christianity. Reading these passages differently leads to different doctrines which causes mass confusion for the average person trying to find out which branch of Christianity to follow.
Some Christian denominations read the entire Bible in a literalist sense, that is to say, they take every word of Scripture right off the page as matter of fact, true statements. These groups (commonly referred to as Fundamentalists) believe that the universe was created in a literal 6 days consisting of 24 hours each. Other groups disagree and interpret the creation event as more poetic, describing "why" God created the universe more than "how" He created it. The terms "literal" and "literalist" are commonly confused in relation to the study of Scripture.
The Catholic Church spells out the guidelines for how to read the Bible in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). Let's take a look at these guidelines before we go into the details.
The Different Senses of Scripture
Let's start off with the basic guidelines of interpreting Scripture from a Catholic perspective from the CCC:
- CCC 105: God is the author of Sacred Scripture.
- CCC 107: The inspired books teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.
- CCC 111: Since [it] is inspired... Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.
- CCC 113: Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church."
- CCC 115: One can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.
While Fundamentalists believe in a literalist interpretation of Scripture, Catholics believe in a literal interpretation (note the subtle difference in the words). As mentioned earlier, a literalist interpretation is one by which each word is taken literally for its individual meaning without regard for what the author is attempting to convey through those words. A literal interpretation is one by which the reader attempts to discover what the original author intended to convey (or, rather, what the Holy Spirit is trying to convey through that author). Let's look at this with a quick example.
"It was raining cats and dogs outside."
Literalist interpretation: Cats and dogs were falling from the sky like rain.
Literal interpretation: It was raining really hard.
Now this might sound ridiculous as first but if this phrase is written in a book and then 2,000 years from now someone picks up that book, is it possible that the meaning of this commonly-known phrase of today's culture will no longer be known? If a reader in 2,000 years doesn't know what the phrase "it's raining cats and dogs" means, the literalist interpretation is just that - cats and dogs falling from the sky like rain. The literal interpretation takes some research - he/she would have to go back to the time the book was written and study the culture, the idioms, the phrases of speech, etc. in order to discover what the original author intended to convey. Similarly, we must do this if we want to know how to read the Bible accurately.
So, when studying Scripture we should always keep the following things in mind:
- The conditions of the culture when it was written including idioms, literary genres, language use, historical background, etc.
- The original language the book was written in and how it was translated.
- An understanding of the passage in context of the passages around it, the whole book, the whole testament, and the whole Bible.
Don't cut off your hand!
A humorous but serious lesson
In Matthew 5:30, Jesus says, "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away."
Pop quiz: What is the literalist interpretation of this verse and what is the literal interpretation?
Answer: The literalist (Fundamentalist) interpretation is that if your right hand causes you to sin, you should actually, literally, get something sharp, cut it off, and throw it in your garbage can. The literal (what the author intended to convey) interpretation is that nothing in this world is worth possibly losing your eternal salvation over; that you should be ready to sacrifice any worldly things instead of being led away from the heavenly goal.
Now, if we all took this passage in a literalist interpretation, let's be honest, we would all be sitting around limbless, eyeless, and tongue-less. Clearly this is not what Jesus intended! That alone is just one great reason for us to know how to read the Bible!
Cafeteria Bible Reader
Picking and Choosing
Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical "Providentissimus Deus" laid down a guideline that is obvious, but very important and somewhat difficult at times to adhere to. He stated that "it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred...all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can coexist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true." PD #20
What does this mean? It means that we cannot pick and choose passages of Scripture that we like or that agree with our current theology and ignore others that stand in the way of it. There are those in Christianity who focus their attention on certain passages or verses because they interpret them to fit their (at times incorrect) theologies but ignore or otherwise discredit other verses that seem to contradict it. I call those people "cafeteria bible readers," picking what they want and leaving the rest.
Literal Sense of Scripture
A simple Medieval couplet accurately summarizes the four different senses of Scripture as defined by the Church Fathers: "The literal speaks of deeds; allegory to faith; the moral how to act; anagogy our destiny." These are the important distinguished ways in which we can determine how to read the Bible.
CCC 116 defines the literal sense of Scripture as "the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation." The literal sense always has precedence over the other senses of Scripture. Hermeneutics is a term that involves taking the historical time period, the culture, and context of the text into consideration.
Taking these things into consideration with careful exegesis, one can come to understand what the writer of the Gospel, and moreover, what the Holy Spirit who is inspiring him, is trying to convey through the words on the page.
The Spiritual Sense of Scripture
Allegorical, Moral, and Anagogical
In God's infinite wisdom and foresight, there can be multiple meanings to a passage of Scripture. Therefore, the spiritual sense of Scripture is further divided into three subcategories that we should keep in mind when learning how to read the Bible:
1. The allegorical sense of Scripture is one in which we try to discover a deeper, more profound meaning of Scripture keeping in mind the revelation of Christ. For example, looking at just the Old Testament we see the story of Abraham and Isaac with Isaac carrying wood up the mountain on which he will be sacrificed. The literal sense of this passage is a literal story of a boy Isaac carrying some wood up a hill. The allegorical sense of this passage, looking at it in light of the revelation of Jesus Christ, shows us that Isaac is a type, or prefigure, of Christ Himself. Jesus carried the wood for His sacrifice up a mountain just like Isaac did. As St. Augustine said, "the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New." 2. The moral sense of Scripture enables us to see the result of sin due to God's infinite holiness and justice. For example, in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah we see the punishment they face as the result of their sin. We see this also in the story of Pharaoh when he and all his men and chariots were drowned in the Red Sea. Conversely, we also see the blessings of doing good in Scripture. From reading the text, we should see some simple guidelines of how to live our lives in a moral way; the 10 commandments provide such a guide. We should not just read the story of the 10 commandments as a story with Moses and the Israelites, but also in a moral sense where we see the ways in which we should live our lives. 3. The anagogical sense of Scripture (also known as the eschatological sense) is looking at Scripture in light of their significance to the final judgment, the end of time. For example, when Christ talks about the sun and the stars falling from heaven, He is talking literally about the destruction of the Temple. But in the anagogical sense, He is also referring to the end of time.The Plenary Sense of Scripture
Putting It All Together
What can sometimes be referred to as the "plenary" sense of Scripture, we need to take all of the senses of Scripture to determine the meaning of each verse, each passage, each book, each testament, and the Bible as a whole book. The literal interpretation (which we now know is the meaning the author intended to convey through his written words) always takes precedence over the spiritual interpretation. But, we can also come to a more profound understanding of Scripture by looking at the spiritual sense of Scripture too from allegorical, moral, and anagogical perspectives.
This, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more to know about how to read the Bible such as symbolism, the use of types or prefigures, the significance of numbers, hyperboles, irony, poetry, patterns, repetition, and much more. All of these things can provide great assistance to us in trying to better our understanding of the Holy Word of God.
About the Author
Michael Over is a lay Roman Catholic in Buffalo, NY. An alumni of Franciscan University of Steubenville, he operates a website promoting the Lighthouse Catholic Media CD of the Month Club.
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