A Framework for Interpreting Scripture

The Bible is the millennia-long story of God’s liberating activity in our world – but we view this story through a human lens. And humans are flawed – especially when the humans in question are (mostly) men living in a patriarchal society surrounded by conquest-loving nations. The texts of the Bible do not claim to be God’s verbatim messages (though some, such as the books of the prophets, do claim to quote God’s messages); they have human authors. And human beings are biased; we all see the world differently, colored by our social location, personal experiences, and so on. 

Throw in the fact that writing techniques, processes, and preservation were totally different then from now, and one realizes how important it is to take a non-literal view of scripture in order to glean the divine Truth carried in a vessel of human words.

The reading guide of the Catholic Study Bible discusses this issue. In one section, it explains why some Christians feel the need for a literal reading:

“Some Christians, particularly fundamentalist Christians, fear that admitting the Bible contains poetry, stories, and other literary forms is somehow an attack on the veracity of the Bible and dilutes its witness to history. They prefer to regard the story of creation in Genesis, or the episode of Jonah’s sojourn in the belly of a great fish, as literally [fact]” (p.5).

In a later section, the reading guide discusses why it’s okay (and makes sense from a scholarly, historically contextualized perspective) to take a non-literal reading of the Bible, explaining how the human writers of the Bible were not primarily historians, even when recounting the past:

“The biblical writers drew upon tales and traditions of Israel’s past in order to communicate an idea to their contemporaries. They were not concerned about whether the tales and traditions were reliable or plausible. Even when some attempt was made to communicate factual information, such as in the books of Kings, the writing of history was secondary to other purposes of the biblical writers” (p.30).

So what does all this mean for us as readers of the Bible?

For one thing, it frees us to approach scripture without certain expectations, and allows us to bring our doubts to the table with us. We don’t need to be afraid of our own thoughts while reading the Bible! If something in the text seems questionable, we don’t need to run from our questions: we can embrace them, and seek the Spirit’s guidance as we strive to analyze God’s Truth hiding behind what may or may not be “fact.”

Some of the non-factual facets of scripture that you can keep an eye out for while reading are discussed below, from basic anachronisms to intentional literary devices. Lastly and most importantly of all, how the Jewish (or, in a few cases, early Christian) viewpoints of the writers color a biblical text and why acknowledging these human authors’ biases matters will be explored.​

• Narratives Masquerading as History: It might surprise you to learn that some books of the Bible were never intended to be viewed as anything but fiction! These include Jonah, Job, and (for Catholics/Orthodox Christians) Tobit, which all fall into the category of narrative. (Jesus’s parables count as well, but most Christians easily recognize those as fiction.) While nowadays writing tends to make its genre clear (a novel will tell you it’s a novel, etc.), in the days of biblical writers it was perfectly normal to tell a story without explicitly mentioning that, oh right, you made it some or all of it up. However, you would leave clues that you’d expect your audience to pick up on.
  
  For one example, Jonah is clearly meant to be fictional for several reasons: 1) Jonah is an antiprophet, who behaves in ways the “real” prophets of the Bible do not (such as running away when God calls him and being upset when his mission actually succeeds); 2) the whole fish thing is intended to be humorous; and 3) the original Jewish audience would have recognized that the city that Jonah convinces to repent of its wickedness, Nineveh, never actually repented – it was the capital of Assyria, whom the Jews of the period despised. Assyria had oppressed the Jewish people for years, and the author’s purpose in picking them for his story is to highlight just how incredible God’s mercy is, forcing its audience to reconsider their stereotypes and realize that God cares for evil Assyrians as much as for Israelites. 

This webpage offers a concise explanation of how the Bible’s messages come from both divine and human sources:

“God never uses people as robots; thus, when God inspired them to write the books of the Bible, God inspired them as people with different outlooks, skills and abilities. This helps to explain the differences in the books of the Bible, sometimes within a particular book itself.

Sometimes the inspired word of God is poorly written Hebrew or Greek because God inspired authors who wrote Hebrew or Greek poorly. If God had dictated God’s message, the inspired word would not have been poorly written.”

Knowing that the perspectives of human writers color the Bible’s messages, it becomes evident that we need to learn a bit about where these writers were coming from, as their cultures – their understanding of the nature of the universe, what they expected from literature, and their relations with genders, customs, and nations beyond their own – can differ vastly from ours.

This all leads to the vital question:

So what do we do about this human tendency towards confirmation bias? How do we read the Bible without misusing it for our own ends? 

The chapter “Who Is a Theologian?” of Shirley Guthrie’s Christian Doctrine lays out advice for how to read the Bible “rightly” rather than using it just as confirmation of our own biases. The following bullet points regarding how to minimize our biases and make a faithful interpretation are based largely on what Guthrie says in that chapter.

• Patient and prayerful reflection, as well as research, are necessary to reading the Bible “rightly”. We should not isolate ourselves when studying scripture, as if we were the first person to ask a certain question of it; rather, we should pray for the Spirit’s guidance and study the interpretations of faithful Christians (note that it is all right to question any Christian’s interpretations, even the famous and celebrated ones! Just don’t immediately discount them without giving them thought first).
   
• Recognize that scripture should be interpreted in the light of its own purpose – that purpose being to teach us who God is and how we may live faithfully. The Bible is not meant to be read like a science or history textbook.
   
• Take things like the humanity of the biblical writers and context into account while reading. “Context” includes the literary, historical, and cultural context of the peoples who wrote the Bible as well as our own cultural context and what we bring from it into our reading.
   
• Recognize that single verses or passages on an issue are rarely the Bible’s only message about that issue (it is a big book, after all, and written by multiple people). When looking at one passage that seems to speak for or against your viewpoint, make sure to consider other passages related to the issue that offer a fuller understanding of the broader biblical message as well.
   
• View all aspects of scripture through the lens of Jesus’s ministry as recorded in the Gospels – seeing Jesus as the clearest revelation of who God is and what God wills is termed the “christological principle.” When there are biblical passages that seem to conflict with each other, the “final say” should go to what Jesus’s words and actions seem to point to.

• Follow the “rule of love” – an interpretation should agree with the fact that “the fundamental expression of God’s will is the twofold commandment to love God and neighbor. If your biblical interpretation causes harm to any living being (including yourself!), it is not of God.

All of us should work towards engaging with scripture in a prayerful manner that seeks not to confirm our own views but God’s truth – even while recognizing that the perspectives we bring based on our own experiences and cultural context will be the lens through which we view scripture, and that’s okay. Finding a balance is what is key.