Lesson 6

Other Principles

Synopsis

Several principles can help us better understand what God is saying to us through the Bible. First, we need to read it as one continuous story because the Bible narrates a unified story. It also helps to study the Bible as we study the great works of literature, by analyzing the literary devices that are used in it, such as plot and motif. Finally, it is very important to pay attention to both the textual and historical-cultural contexts when studying a Bible passage.

Learning Objectives

You will have successfully completed this lesson when you understand and can:

Explain why it is important to read the Bible as one continuous story.

Describe how paying attention to literary devices such as plot and motifs can help us better understand the biblical text.

Explain what textual context is and why it is important.

Explain what historical-cultural context is and why it is important.

Introduction

Throughout this course we have emphasized that to understand what God is saying to us, we need to know how to read and interpret the Bible correctly. We have seen how the Church has given us several principles to guide us and ensure that we read it in the same Spirit as it was written. Namely, we should:

take into account the intentions of the human authors;
pay attention to the senses of Scripture, distinguishing between the literal and the spiritual senses of the text;
be attentive to the content and unity of the whole Scripture;
read the Scriptures within the living Tradition of the whole Church; and
be attentive to the analogy of faith.

In this lesson you will learn about four additional principles: (1) read the Bible as one continuous story; (2) apply the tools used to analyze works of literature; (3) and pay attention to the textual context, (4) as well as the historical-cultural context.

Read the Bible as one Continuous Story

The first of these principles is to read the Bible as one continuous story. As the word of man, the Catholic Bible is a collection of 73 different books written by many human authors over the course of centuries. But since God is its principal author, the Bible is also one book which tells one unified story. On this, the Catechism teaches:

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. (CCC 112)

This story is about God and his loving plans for humanity. He created us so that we could share in his divine life. Unfortunately, our first parents rejected this plan by rebelling against God and we do the same by following their example. This sin has alienated us from God and brought suffering and death into our world. Salvation history is the story of how God rescues us from this and brings us back us to himself. We can divide the history of salvation into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The story comes to a climax in the New Testament when God sends his own Son into our world to redeem us and restore his original plan by dying, resurrecting, and ascending into heaven.

Since the Bible tells a continuous story, we should read it like we read novels. Nobody starts to read a novel in the middle; nor would they read just a few chapters over and over again; neither would they read bits and pieces here and there. Anyone who did this would never understand the author’s message. The same is true for the Bible. Of course, anyone who tries to read it from beginning to end will struggle. That is why beginners should start with the gospels. They form the heart of all the Scriptures. But those who want to go deeper should, at some point, read the Bible as one continuous story, that is, from beginning to end.

Apply the Tools of Literary Criticism

The second principle is to apply the same tools scholars use to study the great works of literature. Authors of novels employ literary devices and techniques to communicate their message. There are literally hundreds of them, but some of the most common ones are plot, character development, setting, dialogue, and motifs. We already studied some of these in the first lesson when we looked at the Bible as the word of man.

Plot

Remember, the Bible as a whole, like all good stories, is structured around a plot. A plot is the storyline, that is, the sequence of events that make up the story. After the beginning, which introduces us to the characters and settings, a conflict or problem arises that needs to be resolved. Throughout the story, events build up, creating suspense, interest, and tension. This is called the rising action. When the tension reaches its highest point, the story climaxes. For example, the main character faces his enemy, fear, challenge, or whatever was the cause of the conflict and begins to overcome it. This process of resolution is called the falling action. The story slows down as it moves towards its conclusion, wrapping up any loose ends.

The Bible tells a unified story called the History of Salvation. This story is structured around a plot, as we will see in the next course. Each human author was only trying to write their part of the Bible. The wonder of the Bible is that God, working through them, weaved all the different stories into one.

Motif

Another literary device found in the Bible is motif. A motif is a recurrent image, idea, or symbol that develops or explains the central themes and deeper meaning of a story. It offers clues which help the reader understand the author’s message, but does so in an indirect manner, forcing the reader to pause and ask questions. In this way, authors can get their ideas across more poignantly and in greater depth. Because motifs appear repeatedly throughout a story, they are easy to identify. The barren woman who miraculously conceives a child through divine intervention is a typical motif found throughout the Bible.

Sarah, Abraham’s wife, “was barren; she had no child” (Gn 11:30). Even worse, she was well beyond child-bearing age. But despite this, “the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived, and bore Abraham a son” (Gn 21:1–2).
Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, was barren, so “Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife… and the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived” (Gn 25:21). She had twins.
Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife, was barren. Moreover, this caused a great rivalry between Rachel and her sister Leah, whom Jacob had also married. Leah had given Jacob six sons and a daughter whereas Rachel had none. “When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister” (Gn 30:1), but “God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘God has taken away my reproach’” (Gn 30:22).
Two women, Hannah and Peninnah were married to Elkanah. “Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children… [Hannah‘s] rival used to provoke her sorely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year by year… She used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat… [One day], “Hannah was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly... The Lord remembered her; and in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel” (1 Sm 1:1-20).
The mother of Samson is an unnamed figure identified just as the “woman”. She “was barren and had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, ‘Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son’” (Jgs 13:2-3).

As we come across motifs in the Bible, we should ask ourselves what God wants to tell us through them. For example, this motif reveals God’s power, making it easier for us to believe in Jesus’ virginal conception. If God can make an 90 year old barren woman pregnant, then he should also be able to make a virgin conceive.

Pay Attention to Textual Context

The third principle is that everything in the Bible should be read and understood within its textual context. What is textual context? We can picture it as a series of concentric circles. The center circle contains the passage we are studying. The next circle contains the text that comes right before or after this passage. This is the immediate context. The third circle contains the whole book, and the fourth, the whole Bible. These form the wider context. When studying a passage, all these levels of context need to be considered as they can influence the meaning words and sentences. For example, in the following phrases:

Death by natural causes
“The wages of sin is death” (Rm 6:23)
Death by chocolate

the same word “death” has very different meanings depending on its context. In a previous lesson, we saw how it is the context which helps us determine that Paul is speaking about being spiritually and not physically awake when he writes:

So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake. (1 Thes 5:6)

Paul is exhorting us to be ready for Jesus’ second coming. Here is the whole paragraph:

But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape. But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. (1 Thes 5:1–11)

Pay Attention to the Historical-Cultural Context

Finally, we should also pay attention to the historical-cultural context of a passage. One danger to be avoided when reading the Bible is to interpret it through our own cultural lens. While it is impossible to read Scripture in a vacuum, completely abstracting ourselves from our own cultural background, we should strive to read and interpret the Bible within its own historic and cultural context. As we have seen, the Bible did not come down from heaven untouched by human hands. Just like any book, it was written by real people who lived in real places and had real lives. That is, they had their own specific historic and cultural backgrounds. No written text, be it the Bible, a poem, or a novel, can be fully appreciated or understood outside its historic and cultural context. We can find a good example of this in the Annunciation.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. (Lk 1:26–27)

This passage tells us that Mary was betrothed to Joseph when the angel Gabriel appeared to her. When we read this through our own cultural lens, we could understand it to mean that Joseph and Mary were engaged but not yet married. This idea is wrong. Within the cultural context of first century Judaism, Mary and Joseph were already married. This misconception arises when we apply our own conventions for marriage to the text. In our societies people first meet, after some time they become a couple, then they get engaged and finally marry. It is only after this exchange of vows that they become husband and wife.

The evidence we have suggests that things were done differently in ancient Israel. There was no such thing as an engagement in Jesus’ time. Marriage back then was a two-step process. The first step was the betrothal, which was a contractual agreement to get married. It was definite and binding upon both groom and bride, who were considered as husband and wife in all legal and religious aspects, except that they still did not live together.

The betrothal was an integral component in the process and was not just a preliminary agreement to get married at a future date. A betrothed woman was, in the eyes of everyone, legally married, even though she still did not live with her husband. She could not marry another man unless she first divorced her husband, and, if she became pregnant by someone else, she was subject to the penalty for adultery.

After the betrothal, the husband would go away to prepare a home for his bride. When it was ready, he would come back for her and the wedding feast, the second step, was celebrated. Wedding feasts lasted between five and seven days. During the feast, the couple would consummate their marriage and start to live together.

So, when Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were betrothed, he meant that they were married but still not living together. With this cultural background in mind, we can better understand the dramatic predicament Joseph found himself in. Not knowing about the virginal conception, he would have naturally thought that Mary had committed adultery. According to the law, the penalty for this was death by stoning. That is why Joseph, being a just man, had decided to quietly divorce her. This was to save her life.

Knowing this structure of the marriage ceremony in the culture of ancient Israel can help us understand other passages in the Bible. For example, during the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples:

“Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (Jn 14:1–3)

Jesus’ Passion, which began with the Last Supper is the betrothal between Jesus (the bridegroom) and us, his Church and bride. He then went to heaven to prepare a place for us. When it is ready, he will come back to celebrate the wedding feast with us, as we read in the Book of Revelation.

Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready. (Rev 19:6–7)

Conclusion

We have reached the end of this lesson in which we have presented four additional principles on how to read the Bible.

Read the Bible as one continuous story.
Apply the tools used to analyze the works of literature.
Pay attention to the textual context.
Pay attention to the historical-cultural context.

Make sure that you understand them and are able to explain and apply them. Once you have learned these principles as well as the others we studied in the previous lessons, you will be well equipped to read and study the Bible.

Assignments

Explain in your own words why it is important to read the Bible as one continuous story.

Describe how paying attention to literary devices such as plot and motifs can help us better understand the biblical text.

Explain what the textual context is and why it is important.

Explain what the historical-cultural context is and why it is important.

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