Interpreting The Bible
The Catholic Church teaches that there are four senses of scripture – the literal, the moral, the analogical, and the allegorical. The last three are non-literal. The literal interpretation of scripture is the intention of the human author. But the other three are symbolic, and can be beyond the intention of the human author. All scripture has two authors, the human author and the divine author. The divine author, the Holy Spirit, inspires the human author to write. It makes perfect sense to me that God could inspire the human author to write something that is hidden to the human author, that it was only the intention of the divine author and not the human author.
Protestants for the most part believed in one sense of scripture – and that one sense is the intention of the author. God’s intention is completely bounded to the human author’s intention. Only what is explicitly taught in scripture is to be believed. Traditionally, Protestants believed that the human intention was to be taken literally. Modern Protestants also believe in one meaning, but they believe the human authors intended to be taken symbolically. So the resurrection of Christ did not literally happen; it was only a myth to symbolize our victory in the Christian life.
To a Catholic like me the problem with both views is that both see only one meaning in scripture. So a Fundementalist sees the Bible literally but not symbolically. The liberal Protestant sees it symbolic so it cannot be taken literally.
How the New Testament interprets the Old Testament
If we look at the New Testament writings, we can see that they interpreted the Old Testament both literally and symbolically. They saw the explicit teaching of OT scripture, but they also saw its hidden meaning that may not have been understood by the OT authors.
In one way, they did see the Bible literally. Paul saw Adam as someone who actually existed, by comparing him with the historical Jesus, the last Adam. Jesus referred to Moses as an actual person. Paul once wrote that if Jesus did not rise from the dead we were still in our sins. Peter wrote that they did not follow cleverly devised myths, but were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ wonders. All these point to the fact that these events actually did happen in history, they did not merely symbolize something. The apostles were often criticized for not taking Jesus literally enough. He constantly told them that He would suffer and rise from the dead. They must not have taken him literally, because once these things happened they were very shocked.
But even though the New Testament took events literally, especially in the Old Testament, they also took these events as symbolic. Here are some examples:
22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the freewoman.
23 Howbeit the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh; but the son by the freewoman is born through promise.
24 Which things contain an allegory: for these women are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar.
Gal 4:22-24
Here Paul says that this OT is an allegory, which is one of the fours senses of scripture defined by the Catholic Church. Not only that, but if you to read Genesis, I doubt you get any impression that Moses intended that Abraham’s sons were to symbolize the Old and New Covenants. It seems that this idea was totally hidden, even from Moses. But although Moses did not that intend that, God did.
20who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,
21and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
1 Peter 3
Peter is saying that Noah in the ark symbolized what happens when we are baptized. Just as Noah and the other eight people were saved through water, so does baptism now saves us (BTW, this is also a strong verse for baptismal regeneration). This does not mean that Noah did not exist, that he was just a symbol. Noah was an actual person, who built an actual ark, and historically God did send a flood. But God is so powerful that He can order actual events to happen in history in order to teach us a spiritual lesson.
The way the New Testament uses the Old is especially evident in the way the New Testament sees how Jesus Christ fulfilled Old Testament prophesy. We need to understand that sometimes when the NT writers wrote that Jesus Christ fulfilled an OT prophesy, it does not mean that our Lord fulfilled it literally. Instead, He at times fulfilled the hidden meaning of prophesies, which was beyond the intention of the human authors. Here are some examples:
and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt did I call my son
Matthew 2:15
I doubt many Christians looked up the actual verse in the Old Testament. Here it is:
When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt
Hosea 11:1
Hosea was not intending this to be about the Messiah at all. He intended this to be about Israel. God called Israel out of Egypt, and God called Israel His son. This is why I believe that Protestantism leads to atheism and other forms of skepticism. According to traditional Protestantism, the Bible should be interpreted literally, limited to the intentions of the human author. If that is the case, I do not see how one can see it as anything other than Matthew completely misunderstanding Hosea. Looking at the context of the Old Testament passage, it is obvious that Hosea did not intend this to be prophesy concerning the future Messiah. But that is how Matthew reads it. So according to the Protestant method of interpretation of scripture, that would be a blatant contradiction! And if this is a contradiction, then the Bible cannot be the infallible Word of God.
Atheists have a field day with verses such as this. They think they have proved that Christianity is false – that even its Bible contradicts itself. But this is not the case at all, once you realize that the New Testament writers did not hold to the Protestant view of interpreting scripture. To the New Testament writers, the Old Testament is filled with people and events that foreshadowed symbolically the person and work of Christ. Noah, Moses, and David were a type of Christ. The events in their lives symbolized what happened to Christ. This does not mean that the OT writers intentionally wrote these things with the idea that they pointed to the coming Messiah. This was God’s plan, not necessarily theirs. So when Matthew saw the OT passage referring to Israel being called out of Egypt by God as His Son, Matthew saw a far deeper meaning than what Hosea intended. In a sense Israel was God’s son, but Jesus was the only begotten Son of God - God from God, one in being with God! If God called His son Israel out of Egypt, and the Son of God was also called out of Egypt by His Father, then how much more must this verse be intended for Jesus from God's perspective, even if Hosea never intended it.
Another example is Matthew 1:23
"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" - which means, "God with us."
The problem with this verse is that when Isaiah says this in Isaiah 7:14, it does not seem the he intended at all that this should be a prophecy concerning the coming Messiah. If you look at the context of the Old Testament passage, you will see that the king Ahaz was worried about an impending invasion. To this worry, Isaiah invited Ahaz to ask for a sign that God would protect him and his country from the invaders. Feigning false piety, Ahaz refused to ask for a sign. Then Isaiah gave the sign that a woman would give birth to a child. If this was referring to Jesus’ birth 1,000 years later, how could this be a sign to Ahaz that God would protect him from his enemies? The sign would have to be far more immediate than that! Ahaz was long dead by the time Jesus was born! No, most scholars see this as referring to Ahaz’ wife giving birth to a child.
So does this mean that Mathew misinterpreted the Bible? Not really. He just did not interpret the ways that Protestants interpret the Bible. Matthew saw the Bible as a supernatural, mystical book. God caused all the events to occur to foreshadow the coming of Christ, even when the human author had no idea of it. So although Isaiah intended this as an immediate sign to Ahaz, God intended something much deeper. Although “almah” means young woman, most young women in that culture were virgins. When the Greek Septuagint was written, God providentially caused this to be translated as “virgin”. So when Matthew quoted from Isaiah, he used the Greek translation, which translated this verse as saying “A virgin will be with child”.
The New Testament looked at the whole Old Testament and saw Jesus Christ. All the events and people were prototypes of the person and work of Christ. Matthew was not denying the literal meaning of Isaiah 7:14, that it was referring to an immediate sign to Ahaz. But Matthew saw a deeper meaning in this passage, referring to the virgin birth of Christ.
There are countless other times that the New Testament interpreted an Old Testament passage being fulfilled by Jesus Christ, but when the passage is looked at in its context, many of these Old Testament passages were not even intending to be about the Messiah. That does not mean that the New Testament was in error. It merely means that that the New Testament writers saw more than one meaning to the text. They saw that since God was the ultimate author, that God could intend a meaning that was hidden even to the human author.
Conclusion
Most conservative Protestants feel a little nervous about this. If hidden meanings could be drawn from the Bible, then anything goes! A heretic or cult leader could find any hidden meaning to justify his teaching. The Bible would then be open to thousands of different interpretations (actually, though, even with the literal interpretation of the Bible, there are still thousands of Protestant denominations who interpret the Bible literally but come up with different doctrines). So they fear chaos would happen if they accept these hidden senses of scripture.
This is not a problem for the Catholic. The Catholic has the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The Church sets the boundaries on what we can believe. So for 2,000 years we have held to the multiple senses of scripture without it causing chaos.
I can sympathize how the Protestants feel. But as long as Protestants holds onto the one literal sense of scripture, they will be open prey to atheists. You can check the internet. Google “Bible contradictions”, and see how many web sites are there by atheists who cite verse after verse to show that the Bible is full of contradictions. There is a pattern to all their examples. They assume that the Bible is to be interpreted literally, and only literally. In fact, these atheists take the Bible more literally than the most militant fundamentalists. But they do not take the Bible literally to obey, only to mock it. And as long as Protestants agree with this one sense of scripture, they are very vulnerable to their arguments.
I once listened to an atheist rant about the errors in the Bible. I just smiled. As a Catholic, the arguments just seemed so superficial and childish. What he does not understand is that, assuming for the sake of argument that there is a God and that the Bible is His Word, then the Bible cannot be dissected like any other book. The one who truly wants to understand God’s Word must study it on his knees. 2 Cor 3:6 says “for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life”. It is not enough to know the letter of God’s Word. The letter is the literal interpretation of the Bible. Anyone who is willing to study Greek and Hebrew can find the literal interpretation. But to find the deeper, spiritual meaning, one must rely on the Holy Spirit. The atheist cannot do this. He is reading God’s Word in his own power, daring God to prove Himself to him. God has hidden from the arrogant and the proud and has revealed it to those who are humble before him.
As a Catholic, I cherish the Bible more than ever. By understanding the four senses of scripture, I see how deep the Bible is. The Bible is a book of recorded history, but it is so much more than that. The Bible is a supernatural, mystical book, and can only be understood by one dependant on the Holy Spirit, but still being guided by the Church (without the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, this could easily degenerate into New Age gobblygook). I can read the same passage every day and get some new pearls of wisdom from God.
