11Read more at location 2490
Note: I criteri per interpretare il Libro... Problema: l'antico testamento contiene molte falsità: il mondo nn è stato creato in 6 giorni... La Bibbia è un libro composto da diversi libri di diverso genere: poesia, filosofia, storia, ecc. L'interpretazione del messaggio dipende dal genere del libro... I libri storici, per esempio, vanno intesi alla lettera e sono veri se la descrizione dei fatti data corrisponde con la realtà, tralasciando i particolari poco significativi... Molti libri sono di docufiction: storie inquadrate in una cornice storica credibile con particolari inventati dall'autore per rendere vivido il racconto. Qui la verità del libro non dipende dalla verità dei singoli passaggi ma dalla verità del messaggio veicolato... Ci sono poi i libri con apologhi morali: in qs caso la verità sta nella verità del loro messaggio morale... Ci sono libri che potremmo definire come "favole metafisiche". Si tratta di metafore che ci comunicano qlcs d'importantd circa la condizione umana. Genesi è tra questi: un inno alla dipendenza delle creature dal creatore. Qs libri sono veri se la loro metafora rinvia a verità importanti della ns condizone umana... La Bibbia è vera se i libri che la formano - interpretati secondo il loro genere - sono veri. Problema: noi nn conosciamo il genere di tutti i libri della Bibbia. Alcuni generi potrebbero esserci addirittura estranei... Potremmo rifarci alle intenzooni dell'autore ma anchr quelle spesso co sono estranee. Inoltre, l'interpretazoone storica è la più varia... I 2 problemi: 1) passaggi tra loro contraddittori e 2) cpntraddizioni col sapere moderno anche al netto dell'interpretazione + prob.: che Matusalemme dovesse avere 969 anni sembrerebbe da prendere alla lettera... Soluzione: l'interpretazoone dei libri dovrà essere fatta in modo conforme alla dottrina cristiana della Chiesa: la Persona precede il Libro che in sè dà solo il via alla storia cristiana e xde di senso se nn si adegua all'evoluzione del corpo vivo e presente della persona... AT va interpretato secondo NT che va interpretato secondo la dottrina presente... La Bibbia è sacra nel senso che è il seme da cui è storicamente fiorito l'albero del cristianesimo. Detto qs è all'albero che dobbiamo guardare... La Chiesa assume un ruolo centrale e in qs modo invalida il criterio generale x giudicare la veridicità di un testo. Non conta più sapere se tutte le affermazioni o la maggioranza delle affermazioni sono corrette secondo i vari generi attribuiti... Dire che la Bibbia è frutto di ispirazione divina significa dire che le intenzioni ell'autore nn saranno mai l'ultimo tribunale... Se qualcuno ci dice che "Giovanni ha un cervello acuto" noi consideriamo qs considerazione assurda perchè nn esiste una conformazione acuta del cervello. Ma se crediamo che qs Qualcuno sia onniscente noi rivediamo subito la ns. interpretazione rendendola metaforica... In qs modo i Padri hanno interpretato il libro senza conoscere i generi particolari. Possiamo parlare di interpretazione razionale di un testo polisemico che parla a più generazioni... I protestanti rigettano questo metodo: secondo loro la Bibbia è un libro che può essere letto e compreso... Se tutti i cristiani fossero stato sterminati e i loro scritti bruciati, sarebbe possibile inferire da una Bibbia rinvenuta oggi la dottrina della Trinità? Direi di no. Per qs ha poco senso pensare che possediamo solo la Scrittura x fondare la ns fede... Edit
view that everything in the Bible is true. 11 THE BIBLERead more at location 2491
For, objectors claim, scientists and historians have shown that so much in the Bible is false. The world was not created in six days (as Genesis 1 seems to claim); nor was it created in approximately 4000 BC (which is the conclusion you reach if you take literally all the assertions in the Bible about who was who’s father and how long they lived); there was no flood which covered the whole earth in 3000 BC (as follows from Genesis 7, given the method of dating just mentioned); and so on.Read more at location 2496
These books belong to different genres. By the ‘genre’ of a book I mean whether it is a work of history (purporting to tell us exactly and literally what happened), a moral fable, a philosophical discussion between imagined participants, or whatever.Read more at location 2502
In a modern newspaper report of a battle, or a larger work of history, each sentence is (normally) to be understood in a literal sense and can be assessed as ‘true’ or ‘false’.Read more at location 2505
history, each sentence is (normally) to be understood in a literal senseRead more at location 2506
a literal sense and can be assessed as ‘true’ or ‘false’.Read more at location 2507
we should judge a sentence of an ancient work of history as true in so far as it satisfied the contemporary standards,Read more at location 2510
The Bible contains some works of history, which we can assess for overall truth (if we bear this point in mind). For example, the books of Kings, St Mark’s Gospel, and the Acts of the Apostles belong to this genre.Read more at location 2512
the Bible contains a lot of books which I shall call ‘historical fables’. What I mean by a historical fable is a work of literature purportedly based on some main events which happened to real people, but filled out by all sorts of conversations and incidents which the author has imagined and which he is not intending us to take as literally true history. Examples of historical fables include recent television ‘docudramas’Read more at location 2514
If that message is true, it seems appropriate to call the whole work ‘true’, but its truth does not depend on the truth of most of its individual sentences, which will in fact be false.Read more at location 2519
Many biblical books belong to this genre, for example the book of Judges, the first and second books of Samuel, and (as I suggested in Chapter 7) St John’s Gospel.Read more at location 2523
Then there are moral fables, which are fictional stories with a moral message. In my view the books of Daniel and Jonah are moral fables.Read more at location 2524
The book of Daniel is true if it is good to confess faith in God despite persecution.Read more at location 2529
Then the Bible may contain one or more books or parts of books which are what I call ‘metaphysical fables’. These are fictional stories to be understood as metaphors telling us something very important about the human condition.Read more at location 2530
We saw possible examples of such stories in the Gospels (pp. 95–6). The opening chapters of the book of Genesis may also be like this. Genesis 1 may simply be a hymn expressing the dependence of all things on God by means of a story of God creating this on the first day, that on the second day, and so on. But it is disputed whether the author or authors of Genesis 1–3 were attempting to write a historical work or a metaphysical fable.Read more at location 2532
it is true if the human condition is the way that the story, read metaphorically, is claiming.Read more at location 2535
The Bible also contains hymns (the book of Psalms), personal letters (Paul’s Letter to Philemon), moral instruction (the book of Proverbs), theological dialogues (the book of Job),Read more at location 2537
how are we to understand the claim that the whole Bible is true?Read more at location 2541
each book is true by the criteria of its own genre—thatRead more at location 2542
The first difficulty is that we do not know the genre of some biblical books (and some of them may belong to genres so unfamiliar to us that we do not know what would constitute a book of that genre being ‘true’).Read more at location 2545
know what would constitute a book of that genre being ‘true’).Read more at location 2546
I have implicitly and naturally assumed that the genre of a biblical book is determined by the intentions of its original human authorRead more at location 2547
So whether chapters 1–3 of Genesis are a work of history or a metaphysical fable depends on what the author of these chapters thoughtRead more at location 2549
Even if we think we know the genre of most other biblical books, our views about these matters will sometimes differ from those of most ancient and medieval Christians;Read more at location 2552
two substantial difficulties remain. The first is that there are passages inconsistent with each other, and so with any Christian doctrine based on one of these passages.Read more at location 2556
there remain many passages inconsistent with the results of modern science and history.Read more at location 2558
The Fathers were well aware that there are many passages which are inconsistent with what the Fathers believed to be established Christian doctrine,Read more at location 2567
beginning of the third century the highly influential theologian Origen commentedRead more at location 2572
Who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer ‘planted a paradise eastward in Eden’, and set in it a visible and palpable ‘tree of life’ of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?Read more at location 2573
There are also, as I commented in the previous chapter, passages in the New Testament which, if understood in the most natural literal sense, are inconsistent with what the Fathers believed to be Christian doctrines derived from other New Testament passages. For example, one passage in Paul’s letters which is most naturally understood in a way unfavourable to the doctrine of the Incarnation (that Jesus was God Incarnate) is Paul’s claim in his Letter to the Romans (1: 4) that Jesus was ‘declared to be Son of God … by [his] Resurrection from the dead’.Read more at location 2576
Secondly, there are many biblical passages which seemed inconsistent with the contemporary Greek science,Read more at location 2587
biblical passages which seemed inconsistent with the contemporary Greek science,Read more at location 2587
The need to interpret the Bible in a way compatible with Christian doctrine came to be recognized very widely in the early days of the Church.Read more at location 2595
Just as which books were to form part of the Bible, so how those books were to be interpreted, was to be determined by a prior understanding of Christian doctrine.Read more at location 2598
Irenaeus wrote that ‘every word’ of Scripture ‘shall seem consistent’ to someone ‘if he for his part diligently read the Scriptures, in company with those who are presbyters [elders or priests] in the Church, among whom is the apostolic doctrine’Read more at location 2600
disputes between orthodox and heretics could not be settled by appeal to Scripture,Read more at location 2602
Scripture belongs to the Church. The Church’s teaching must first be identified and that will determine how Scripture is to be interpreted.Read more at location 2603
sometimes and to varying degrees all the Fathers dealt with incompatibilities with Christian doctrine adopting by a radical metaphorical interpretation of the text.Read more at location 2608
Origen’s way of treating the Bible was adopted by Gregory of Nyssa in the next century, and also (rather more cautiously) by Augustine at the beginning of the fifth century; and it became one standard approach to the Bible.Read more at location 2628
Augustine’s basic rule was the same as that of Origen and Gregory: ‘we must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative.Read more at location 2633
way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative.Read more at location 2634
some simply held that the literal interpretation of Scripture took precedence over Greek science. But some of them also interpreted the Bible in the light of Greek science.Read more at location 2637
Even Origen emphasized that most of the Bible (and almost all the New Testament) should be understood in some literal sense.Read more at location 2650
In their view God was the ultimate author of the Bible, inspiring the human authors to write the biblical books in their own style and with their own limited understanding.Read more at location 2658
in their own style and with their own limited understanding. Read more at location 2660
Suppose I say to you about someone that ‘he has a sharp brain’. Since I know and I know that you know that brains are not the sort of thing that have sharp edges, what I say cannot be understood as saying that ‘he’ has a brain with a sharp edge. So I must be understood to be saying something else which the sentence could mean.Read more at location 2666
If I describe some person John, whom we all know to be human, as a ‘dinosaur’, that cannot be understood literally.Read more at location 2673
Bible must be interpreted in the light of what they did know about these matters;Read more at location 2680
from which it follows that the human authors of biblical books (who were often described as ‘prophets’) did not always understand how their works were to be understood.Read more at location 2688
Jesus did not write a book but founded a Church with the task of interpreting doctrinesRead more at location 2692
they lived in a cultural atmosphere where large-scale allegory seemed very natural;Read more at location 2693
The Nicene Creed’s doctrine that God the Holy Spirit ‘spake by the prophets’ clearly entailed the doctrine that God ‘inspired’ the writing of the Old Testament; and it soon naturally enough came to be understood as the doctrine that God inspired the writing of the whole of the Bible.Read more at location 2710
It is plausible to suppose that God inspired the writing of a book some parts of which have a highly inadequate morality which is capable of being understood as time progressed in a far deeper way.Read more at location 2723
God inspired the writing of the Bible, to convey both the very limited message comprehensible at the time a passage was written and the deeper message comprehensible later.Read more at location 2730
These principles of biblical interpretation allowed the Fathers to interpret quite a lot of the Bible without needing to know the genre of the biblical bookRead more at location 2732
Protestant Reformation, however, largely rejected this tradition.Read more at location 2754
they could understand the Bible simply by reading it, and derive all Christian doctrine from it without any prior assumptions about the content of doctrine,Read more at location 2755
If all Christians had been killed and almost all their books burnt in the Roman persecutions, and then a thousand years later a Bible had been discoveredRead more at location 2758
it seems to me immensely unlikely that he would have come up with the doctrine of the Trinity.Read more at location 2760
we must interpret it in a way compatible with modern science (and history) as well as with established Christian doctrine.Read more at location 2765
if we are to follow Church tradition in using the Bible as the authoritative source of doctrine, we must also follow Church tradition in the method by which we interpret it.Read more at location 2785
