University of Navarra - The Navarre Bible: Catholic Epistles

Rulesfor Biblical Interpretation

THE SPECIAL NATURE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

The books of the Biblehave certain unique features. They are a collection of writings which our faithtells us are not simply man-made: they are the Word of God. They are sacredbooks because, "written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, theyhave God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Churchherself." They were written by individuals in the distant past, whosenames very often we do not know; our faith teaches us that God "acted inand through" these writers ("hagiographers") in such a way that"it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wantedwritten, and no more."

The content of the Bibleas it has come down to the Church from the Jewish people and the Apostles isboth divine and human and can be compared in a way to the mystery of JesusChrist, who is true God and true man. "The words of God, expressed in thewords of men, are like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father,when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness, became like men." Inorder to grasp who Jesus is, we need first to look at Jesus as man; from thiswe are drawn to ask who the Person of Christ is and we discover that he is theSon of God become man. In a parallel way, to obtain a profound understanding ofSacred Scripture we need to go beyond its "human" dimensions(historical, literary, etc.) and, helped by those very dimensions, to discoverwhat God wants to reveal to us in the Bible.

Therefore, to interpretScripture correctly, one needs to approach it with the help of appropriatetools or principles. These principles must be imbued with, and guided by faithin, the human and divine character of these books, in the same way as aspectsof Jesus' life (for example, the way he speaks, the way he relates to others)are only fully appreciated in the light of faith in his being the Son of Godmade man.

That is not to say thata person without faith cannot obtain true knowledge of Jesus or cannot throwlight on literary, linguistic or historical aspects of Holy Scripture. What itdoes mean is that unless one's outlook is guided by faith one cannot fiteverything together to discover the full truth about the Saviour or thetotality of his message: it is not enough just to know biblical languages orunderstand the structure of the texts. For the various principles of correctbiblical interpretation to work properly, they need to be imbued with faith inScripture as being divinely inspired. The study of these principles, thescience of biblical heuristics, is a sub-division of hermeneutics.

TWO KINDS OF PRINCIPLES FOR BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

In a section dealingwith interpretation of Scripture, the Second Vatican Council teaches thatbecause "in Sacred Scripture, God speaks through men in a human fashion,it follows that the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, if he is to ascertain whatGod has wished to communicate to us, should carefully search out the meaningwhich the sacred writers had in mind, that meaning which God had thought wellto manifest through the medium of their words."

The aim, therefore, ofbiblical interpretation is not achieved merely by determining what the human authorsintended to transcribe and how they did so; it also involves discovering whatGod is revealing to us through those words. These two aspects, the divine andthe human, cannot be separated; and yet they are distinct.

When someone writessomething, there is always a certain difference between what he meant to say byexpressing himself as he did and what the reader actually takes the text tomean. A written text does not always manage to express exactly what its authormeant (because language has its limitations) and certainly it is impossible forthe author to know what meaning the reader may take from it.

Moreover, a text that isread long after it was written and after many interpretations have been made ofit may say more than the author intended. For example, a modem reader ofShakespeare might obtain insights into human nature which Shakespeare himselfwas not conscious of conveying; but any interpretation would be invalid if it failed to take account of what Shakespeare intended tosay, that is, if it distorted his original meaning. As St Jerome points out,"it is the function of the commentator not to say what he pleases but toexpound the meaning intended by the author he is interpreting."