Interpreting Scripture

Soon after my conversion, I started reading the Bible with fresh earnestness, eager to find out more about the Lord whom I had given my life to. I remember going through the gospel of Matthew, utterly fascinated by what I was reading, but coming to a shocked stop when I reached the end of Chapter 12 where it spoke about Jesus's mother and brothers.

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” (Matthew 12:46-47)

Brothers? Even though I had been an atheist for most of my life, I had been born a Catholic and the influence of my early years remained with me as did the memories of some of the things I had learned back then, including the virgin birth and Mary's perpetual virginity. What was this, then, about Jesus having brothers?

My confusion increased as I found more refences to the "brothers" of Jesus is the gospels of Mark and John (Mark 6:3, John 7:5) and also in the Book of Acts (Acts 1:14), and my first reaction was that the Church had fed everybody with a lot of fiction about Mary.

But then I thought a little more about it and I wondered how the Church could have possibly fooled millions of people for 2,000 years. Surely there would have been at least a few intelligent men through the years who would have questioned this. The Church must have its reasons to claim what they did.

I figured it might be wise to find out what theose reasons were and what I discovered quite astonished me. In the original text of the Gospel, we find the Greek word adelphos, meaning "brother," used. However, adelphos does not just mean blood brothers born of the same parents, but used to describe a variety of relationships including half-brothers, step-brothers, cousins and even uncles!

While this did not prove that Jesus didn't have brothers, it certainly threw the door wide open for more questions. Like: Why wasn't there any reference to Jesus's brothers in Luke 2:41-42 when Jesus was lost at the temple? Surely, if there was any place where they would have been mentioned it was here. But this was still not very conclusive. I dug deeper and discovered a lot of other things indicating that Jesus may not have brothers, but what sealed it for me was John's narrative of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27)

If Jesus had brothers, he would have left his mother with them, not with John, regardless of how favored a disciple he was. Besides, if they existed, they would have been there while Jesus was being crucified, wouldn't they?

Now that I realized the Church was not as manipulative as I had briefly imagined, I began to look to it for answers to the more difficult questions that I had, not surprised any more than not only did they have them, but in almost every single instance they were very rational, very logical, and very Scriptural!

Take this for an example. After reading the New Testament, I began reading the Old Testament and I had a lot of questions crop up in my mind as I read the book of Genesis. One of them was this: Adam and Eve had a number of children including Cain, Abel and Seth (cf. Genesis 4:1-2; 5:3-4). For these children to have reproduced, they would have had to marry each other. Is this what happened? Might there be another explanation? I thought I got the answer one evening when a preacher I was listening to suggested that after God created Adam and Eve, he may have created other people around the world. It seemed a reasonable explanation that would also account for the different races we find on the earth. There was also nothing in Genesis to contradict this viewpoint, but I decided to check what the Church taught on the subject. A little digging uncovered this from Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis:

... the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own (HG37).

And what did Scripture (the "sources of revealed truth" mentioned above) have to say? I took encouragement from Luke's words in Acts 17:11 where he said that "the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" to verify what the Holy Father said. Here is what is in the Bible:

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. (Acts 17:26)
 
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— (Romans 5:12)
 
Wow! Theories may be interesting, but they need not necessarily be the truth!

The Church also had guidelines to interpreting Scripture that I found remarkably useful and this article hopes to pass on some of what I learnt. Although it cannot possibly be as comprehensive as I might like it to be, I hope the few pointers I share will help you in your own study of Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) offers some sterling advice in paragraphs 112-114..

The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.

1. Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture". Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God's plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover (cf. Luke 24:25-27, 44-46).

2. Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church". According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church").

3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith. By "analogy of faith" we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation (cf. Romans 12:6).

The Senses of Scripture

The CCC also suggests we take into account the two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual. The spiritual sense is further divided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. Don't let the words throw you; it's all simpler than you may think and a few examples will make it all clear. But let me first quote the definitions from the CCC itself.

The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal." (Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text).

The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

- The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.

- The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".

- The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

As I said before, this may sound intimidating, but it isn't really. A couple of illustrations will help us to understand how to interpret Scripture using these four senses.

Next: Interpreting "The Sacrifice of Isaac" and "The Burning Bush"