Reading the Bible: perspectives of interpretation
Church teaching on reading scripture
Biblical texts are the work of human authors inspired by a deep faith in God, who employed their own capacities for expression and the means which their age and social context put at their disposal. Catholic exegesis (critical explanation or interpretation) freely makes use of scientific methods and approaches which allow a better grasp of the meaning of texts in their literary, socio-cultural, religious and historical contexts.
The following documents contain the church’s teaching in regard to Catholic exegesis:
Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum (1965) (see also this summary)
Pontifical Biblical Commission’s The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1994) (see also this commentary)
Both instructions clearly state that the Bible must be read in its social and cultural context and that those who rely on a literal interpretation of the texts are in error.
Perspectives on scripture
People bring a range of personal understandings and experiences to the process of interpreting texts. The study of what the reader brings to the texts or methods and perspectives of interpretation is called hermeneutics.
When Scripture is interpreted in a Catholic context, an overarching perspective is that of the Church itself in its authentic teaching and interpretations of Scripture.
Literary perspective
A literary perspective seeks to understand and interpret a text by focusing on the “world within the text” itself.
Texts create a world within themselves. In seeking understanding of the world within the text, the interpreter identifies and analyses features such as text type and text features. For example, an historical narrative, a poem, a song and a movie could give differing perspectives on an event such as the passion and death of Jesus.
Questions that can aid the process of interpretation from a literary perspective focused on the "world within the text” include:
What text types and text features can I identify in this text?
What meaning can I make from text features such as characterisation, sequence of events, imagery, metaphor, simile, repetition, contrast, symbol, vocabulary, voice, treatment of sources, repetition, grammar and/or style?
What meaning can I make from text types such as narrative, parable, proverb, miracle story, psalm, wise saying, mythological story and/or artistic representation?
Social perspective
A social perspective understands and interprets a text by considering the “world beneath the text” - that is, the original and subsequent social situations in which a text is created, received and interpreted.
Interpretation focuses on how the original social situation of the author and the original receivers of the text shapes the creation and understanding of the text and the ways in which changing social and cultural situations across time exhibit both continuities and discontinuities in the ways a text is understood and interpreted. (In a Three Worlds of the Text approach, the world beneath the text is part of the world BEHIND the text.)
Questions that can assist interpretation of the “world beneath the text” include:
What do the text and other sources tell me about the original and subsequent social contexts, purposes and audiences of this text?
What meaning can I make from considering the author’s social context, purposes and intended audience for this text?
What meaning can I make from considering subsequent and contemporary social contexts, purposes and audiences of this text?
Historical perspective
An historical perspective brings into focus the “world behind the text”. This world includes the oral and written traditions that produced the text and the attendant historical, cultural, political, social and physical realities that influenced the final version of the text.
Questions that assist interpretation from an historical perspective include:
What does the content of this text and other sources indicate about the traditions that produced it?
What does the content of this text indicate about social, cultural, religious, political and physical aspects of the world in which it was produced?
What meanings can I make from reflection on the oral and/or written traditions that produced this text?
What meanings can I make from reflection on the social, cultural, religious, political and physical aspects of the world in which it was produced and in which it is subsequently interpreted?
Community of interpretation perspective
A community of interpretation perspective brings into focus the various ‘communities’ within which a text may be interpreted. This perspective focuses on the “world beyond the text”. (In a Three Worlds of the Text approach, the world beyond the text is part of the world IN FRONT OF the text.) For example, a text such as “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church” may be taken to refer to papal primacy within the ‘Catholic community of interpretation’, but will not be given such a meaning by a community of interpretation such as Evangelical Protestants.
Some common communities of interpretation for Scriptural texts would be: the Catholic community, ecumenical (mainstream Christian) settings, Protestant Christians, Fundamentalist Christians, religions other than Christianity, justice groups and so on. Communities of interpretation may share commonalities of meaning, but there may also be differences.
Questions that assist interpretation from a community of interpretation perspective include:
Spiritual perspective
The spiritual perspective is sometimes referred to as the “world above the text”. (In a Three Worlds of the Text approach, the world above the text is part of the world IN FRONT OF the text.) From this perspective, the text is approached as a potential source of spiritual nourishment and growth. Scriptural texts form the focus of spiritual reading and a source of reflection and contemplation. Scriptural texts become a source for prayer and contemplation. Texts can form personal values, transform the individual and promote action.
Among questions characteristic of this spiritual perspective are the following:
- In what ways does this text challenge my personal values?
- In what ways does this text challenge our community values?
- In what ways does this text provide content for prayer and reflection?
- In what ways does this text challenge my attitudes?
- In what ways does this text challenge me to take action?
Theological or doctrinal perspective
A theological or doctrinal perspective is an interpretation of a text designed specifically to serve the interests of a particular religious community. The aim is to show the relevance of a given text for the faith of contemporary members of a given religious community. The focus of this approach is on the Bible as religious literature.
Fundamentalist perspectives
A fundamentalist perspective focuses on a literal approach to the interpretation of the Bible. The aim is to interpret texts word for word, literally, without considering contextual elements that might influence interpretation.
Difficulties arise for a fundamentalist approach, in that contradictions in different parts of the Bible must be reconciled; for example, the differing accounts of the resurrection, and the disparities between the narration and sequencing of events in each of the Gospels.
Some would also see a certain naïveté in the fundamentalist tendency to think that current complex questions and issues can be resolved by opening the Scriptures and finding the appropriate text to provide a ready-made solution.
Ideological perspectives
Liberationist and feminist perspectives are examples of the emergence of various ways of reading the Bible that draw on particular ideologies (sets of values and ideas to which someone is committed). These ideologies are not explicitly Christian and may or may not be complementary to Christianity.
Proponents of approaches that draw on particular ideologies, assert that all interpreters of scripture bring their own, unacknowledged, ideologies to interpreting a text. For example, they assert that scriptural interpretation is dominated by white male scholars from the affluent industrialised West who, because of their own background and ideologies, tend to neglect the implications of the scriptures for women.
Liberationist and feminist perspectives seek to explicitly acknowledge the sets of values and ideas to which they are committed. In this way, they hope redress what they regard as an imbalance in the field of Scripture scholarship.