The Interpretation of Sacred Scripture (Chapter 4)

Theological reflection considers inspiration and truth as two key concepts for an ecclesial hermeneutic of the Sacred Scriptures.
The Church maintains that the Bible is true in all of its affirmations and does not contain error (inerrant).
Teaching of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum): Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach the truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.”
Dei Verbum no.11: Inerrancy could be understood in conflicting ways, so they opted to insert a footnote to help clarify the proper meaning of the passage.
- This footnote, which bears the same magisterial weight as the document itself, cites the following five authorities: St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Council of Trent, Pope Leo XIII, and Pope Pius XII.
Suggesting that there is human error in the bible, also suggests there is error in God’s authorship due to the fact the Bible is of Dual Authorship. God is without error and inspired the human authors to write inerrantly and therefore there is no error in the bible. (We cannot claim human authorship apart from Divine authorship).

First Principle: The Canonical Approach
- To interpret the bible as a unified whole rather than dissociated parts.
- To apply this approach you must be mindful of three things:
  1. The passage’s remote context- refers to others passages or books that speak of the same issue or shed greater light upon it.
  2. The passages proximate context- refers to thematically connected verses and chapters that come immediately before or after the passage being studied.
  3. The passage’s immediate context- makes up the words and sayings in the passage being studied.
- Use Birthday Cake analogy: remote= candles, icing= proximate, cake= immediate
Second Principle
- Interpret the Bible within the living tradition of the church
- Tradition is the sacred memory of the church
- “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 scripture.” CCC 113
Third Principle
- Attention to the Analogy of Faith
- The interpretation of scripture must be guided by the doctrines already professed by the church.
- Since faith and reason properly understood both come from God, it is impossible that they could contradict.

The phrase “Senses of Scripture” pertains to the meanings that scriptural passages relay to us.
The human author did not recognize the allegorical sense of the pericope.
Sense: A way of illustrating the depth of meaning of a particular biblical passage
The Two main sense of scripture:
Literal Sense: the meaning known and intended by the human author.

Spiritual Sense: the meaning intended by God, but not the sacred author , often categorized into three subtypes:

allegorical (faith) (Past): The allegorical sense whereby the passage finds its ultimate fulfillment in the context of Christ and the Church.
- Typology is related to the allegorical sense. Typology is defined as a real person, place, or thing in the OT that foreshadows something greater in the NT
- Typology relations are not a coincidence, but intended by God as the allegorical sense of scripture.
- The “type” (in typology) is the Old Testament prefigurement of the “antitype” in the New Testament. Moses (type) prefigures Jesus (antitype)
- Looks back to the Old Testament and foreshadows the New Testament
- moral (live) (present): whereby the biblical passage teaches us how to properly act in the light of Christ.
- and anagogical (hope) (future): This sense reminds us and give us hope of eternal life.
In order to understand the intention of the human author, one most consider the literary form of the passage. Is the literary form of history, prophecy, poetry, etc.