1 / 8

Interpreting the bible

In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to us in a human way. This article discusses how Catholics interpret the Bible, emphasizing the importance of understanding the intentions of the human authors as well as what God intended to reveal through their words. It explores methods such as historical and literary criticism, and offers guidance on how to approach biblical interpretation.

timothybradley
Download Presentation

Interpreting the bible

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Interpreting the bible How Catholics Do It

  2. Why Bother? In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to us in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation 12 Interpreting the Bible

  3. How do we?... Pay attention to: • What the human authors truly wanted to affirm. • What God wanted to reveal to us by the authors’ words. By using an accepted Method of biblical interpretation Interpreting the Bible

  4. Historical Criticism • Reconstructs the historical situation. • Works to identify what the author actually meant to say. • Is basic to all other forms of interpretation. • Source criticism is a sub-discipline. Interpreting the Bible

  5. Types of Questions In order to interpret a passage using historical criticism the following types of questions are asked of the text. • What were the historic, social, cultural, political contexts? • When & where was it written? • By whom was it written? • Who were the audiences? • What sources were used? Interpreting the Bible

  6. Literary Criticism • Examines text as a finished piece of literature. • Analyses language use, style, genres etc. • Focus what can be learnt from text itself. • Narrative criticism is a specialised branch. Interpreting the Bible

  7. Types of Questions In order to interpret a passage using literary criticism the following types of questions are asked of the text. • What use is made of language, style & genre in the text. • How are characters portrayed? • How are relationships presented? • What audiences are addressed? • Who was the passage written for? Interpreting the Bible

  8. Using a method • Carefully read the Scripture passage. • Answer the questions. • Continually ask yourself • How does this affect the meaning of the text? • What is this telling me that helps me understand what the passage is saying? Interpreting the Bible

More Related