The Interpretation of the Bible (Biblical 'Hermeneutics')

The interpretation of the Bible ( Biblical 'Hermeneutics') L/12 "The study of the Bible is the soul of theology" (Pope Leo XIII). Hence, everything that helps us to understand better the truth taught by the Bible is helpful and worthwhile for theology. "Hermeneutics," is the science and art of interpreting the Bible. Exegesis is the application of hermeneutics which seeks to extract from the Scriptural text its true meaning. Correct biblical interpretation is important for Christian faith, for the life of the Church and for relations between Christians and the faithful of other religions. Hence, each age must, in its own way, newly seek to understand the sacred books. In the history of the interpretation of the Bible, the rise of the historical-critical method opened a new era and brought with it new challenges and dangers. Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical "Divino Afflante Spiritu" of Sept. 30, 1943, was able to provide largely positive encouragement toward making the modern methods of understanding the Bible fruitful. The Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council, "Dei Verbum," of Nov. 18, 1965, adopted all of this. It provided us with a synthesis, which substantially remains, between the lasting insights of patristic theology and the new methodological understanding of the moderns.

The Bible on interpretation : The Bible itself bears witness that its interpretation can be a difficult matter. When reading certain prophecies of Jeremiah, Daniel pondered at length over their meaning (Dn. 9:2). According to the Acts of the Apostles, an Ethiopian of the first century AD found himself in the same situation with respect to a passage from the Book of Isaiah (Is. 53:7-8), and he recognized that he had need of an interpreter (Acts 8:30-35). The Second Letter of Peter insists that "no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation" (2 Pt. 1:20), and it also observes that the letters of the apostle Paul contain "some difficult passages, the meaning of which the ignorant and untrained distort, as they do also in the case of the other Scriptures, to their own ruin" (2 Pt. 3: 16). Thus, the Bible itself bears witness that its interpretation can be a difficult matter. Hence, the claim of the “reformers” that the genuine text of the inspired and canonical books of the Bible is, in itself, both sufficient and clear [from 2 Tim. 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable (useful) (which Martin Luther deliberately translated as “Sufficient”), for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work"] is not acceptable in an making an objective and scientific study of the Bible.

Problems and difficulties: The Scriptural language presents several difficulties peculiar to itself. First, the Bible was not written by one human author. Hence, the style of a different writer shapes almost every book. Secondly, the Bible was 2 not written at a single period. The Old Testament covers the time between Moses and the last Old Testament writer, i.e. more than one thousand years, during which word meanings may, or may not, have changed. Thirdly, Biblical Greek is not the classical language of the Greek authors with whom we are acquainted. Hence, readers today, in order to appropriate the words and deeds of which the Bible speaks, have to project themselves back almost 20 or 30 centuries—a process which always creates difficulty. Furthermore, because of the progress made in the human sciences, questions of interpretation have become more complex in modern times. But the most prevalent scientific method—the "historical-critical method" which is freely practiced in exegesis, including Catholic exegesis – is questioned by many Bible scholars. Hence, they advocate simpler approaches. Some even, turning their backs upon all study, advocate a so-called "spiritual" reading of the Bible, by which they understand a reading guided solely by personal inspiration. Others claim to find in the Bible immediate answers to all kinds of questions touching both their own lives and that of the community. The Pontifical Biblical Commission desires to indicate the paths most appropriate for arriving at an interpretation of the Bible as faithful as possible to its character, both human and divine.

I. Methods and Approaches For Interpretation: A. Historical-Critical Method: The historical-critical method is the indispensable method for the scientific study of the meaning of ancient texts. It is a historical method, not only because it is applied to ancient texts—in this case, those of the Bible—and studies their significance from a historical point of view, but also and above all because it seeks to shed light upon the historical processes which gave rise to Biblical texts. It is a critical method, because in each of its steps it operates with the help of scientific criteria that seek to be as objective as possible. It is an analytical method because it studies the Biblical text in the same fashion as it would study any other ancient text. It does allow the exegete to gain a better grasp of the content of divine revelation.

Steps: At the present stage of its development, the historical-critical method moves through the following steps: Textual criticism: Basing itself on the testimony of the oldest and best manuscripts, as well as of papyri, certain ancient versions and patristic texts, textual-criticism seeks to establish, according to fixed rules, a Biblical text as close as possible to the original. Genre criticism seeks to identify literary genres, the social milieu that gave rise to them, their particular features and the history of their development. Tradition criticism situates texts in the stream of tradition and attempts to describe the development of this tradition 3 over the course of time. Finally, redaction criticism studies the modifications that these texts have undergone before being fixed in their final state.

B. New Methods of Literary Analysis: The historical-critical method cannot claim to be totally sufficient in itself for a complete understanding of the text. Hence, modern biblical exegesis makes use, more and more, of new methods of literary analysis, in particular rhetorical analysis, narrative analysis and semiotic analysis.

C. Approaches Based on Tradition: The "canonical" approach, which originated in the United States some 20 years ago, aims to carry out the theological task of interpretation more successfully by beginning from within an explicit framework of faith: the Bible as a whole.

Roman Catholic principles of hermeneutics: The Catholic Encyclopedia lists a number of principles guiding Roman Catholic hermeneutics in the article on Exegesis written in 1917. But these principles do not reflect the changes set forth by the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu published by Pius XII in 1943, which opened modern Catholic Biblical scholarship. According to the encyclopedia, the interpretation of the Bible should be historico-grammatical and Catholic. 1) Historico-grammatical interpretation - The meaning of the literary expression of the Bible is best learned by a thorough knowledge of the languages in which the original text of Scripture was written, and by acquaintance with the Scriptural way of speaking, including the various customs, laws, habits and national prejudices which influenced the inspired writers as they composed their respective books. 2) Catholic interpretation - Because the Catholic Church is, according to Catholics, the official custodian and interpreter of the Bible, Catholicism's teaching concerning the Sacred Scriptures and their genuine sense must be the supreme guide of the commentator. The Catholic commentator is bound to adhere to the interpretation of texts which the Church has defined either expressly or implicitly. The Holy Fathers of the Church are of supreme authority whenever they all interpret in one and the same manner any text of the Bible, as pertaining to the doctrines of faith or morals; for their unanimity clearly evinces that such interpretation has come down from the Apostles as a matter of Catholic faith. Pope Benedict XVI encourages a “faith-filled interpretation of Sacred Scripture." He emphasizes that this manner of interpretation, “practiced from antiquity within the Church’s Tradition...recognizes the historical value of the Biblical tradition." It "seeks to discover the living meaning of the Sacred Scriptures for the lives of believers today while not ignoring the human mediation of the inspired text and its literary genres" (Verbum Domini #44). 4

Literal sense, allegorical sense, moral sense, and anagogical sense. There are four basic levels of scripture to understand: the literal sense, the allegorical sense, the moral sense, and the anagogical sense. The literal sense is the dictionary sense of the words. It is the place where most people stop when they read the Bible. For example, in the Bible, the literal sense of "Temple" is a big building where everyone goes to worship. This is what the Pharisee thought that Jesus was talking about in John 2 when Jesus said “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in 3 days.” However, Jesus was using the allegorical sense of the word "temple" as a reference to Himself, and the fact that His Body, once He has died on the cross and risen from the dead, will be the new Temple. The moral sense of scripture is the application of the verse to us and our personal morality. Since the Bible says that our bodies are "temples" for the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6: 19), then we should not spend one second desecrating this "temple" by getting drunk, watching impure movies, having an abortion, cursing, etc. The desecration of the Temple of God in Jerusalem is what started the whole Maccabaean revolt in 1 Maccabees. The last method, the anagogical sense, refers to the heavenly sense. We know that after the second coming there will be a new heavenly Temple (Revelation 21), and the old earth and all of its churches and temples will pass away. (http://www.catholicbible101.com/howtoreadthebible.htm)

Fundamentalist versus Catholic Interpretation: Biblical Fundamentalism originated almost 100 years ago at the American Biblical Congress in Niagara, N.Y. It declared five "fundamentals" of Christianity accepted by all evangelical Christians. These five fundamentals were: the verbal inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, his virginal birth, the doctrine of vicarious expiation and the bodily resurrection at the time of the second coming of Christ. The problem is that Biblical "Fundamentalism...tends to interpret the Bible as being always...literally true. For Biblical Fundamentalists, inerrancy extends even to scientific and historical matters." (Pontifical Biblical Commission. Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.holysmoke.org/hs00/fundamen.htm). Both Catholics and Fundamentalists give a response of faith to the revelation of God. Yet, while a Catholic places his faith in God through the Church He founded, a Fundamentalist rests his faith solely in the words of the Bible "sola Scriptura." The object of a Fundamentalist’s faith, in practice, often ends up being his specific pastor’s interpretation of the Scriptures. Thus, for a proper explanation of the Bible, Catholics have faith in the Magisterium, "the living teaching office of the Church. (Dei Verbum, 10). Fundamentalists’ "obedience of faith," on the other hand, relies upon whichever pastor seems to explain the Scriptures the best. One consequence of the Fundamentalist’s belief in sola scriptura is that, since the Bible is the only direct communication of God to men, it must be the 5 only authority that man can follow. Any institution that claims authority is necessarily taking it from God, which would be absurd. Thus Biblical Fundamentalism eliminates from Christianity the Church as the Lord Jesus founded it. Rejecting Sacred Tradition as evil, fundamentalists follow the interpretations of their own previous pastors and well-known fundamentalists. As a result, there are thousands of different institutional interpretations that exist among "believers" in different non-Catholic denominations. Consequently, fundamentalists would reduce every believer to a mini-Magisterium. Catholics realize the importance of retaining the insights of past believers, for it would be arrogance to believe that our age could obtain the secrets of the Bible on its own. (L-12. Sources: 1) http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/pbcinter.htm 2) http://archive.salvationhistory.com/library/scripture/churchandbible/magisterial/princip lesinterp.cfm2.htm 3) http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/misc/eric-scripture.htm