Intro to Scriptures- Seminar 1: Hand-outs 1

The Word of God

[from Dei Verbum, The PBC Documents: The Interpretation of the Bible (1993) and The Jewish
People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible(2002)]

I. Introduction. The three documents under study urge every Catholic Christian to realize
the importance of Scriptures in his or her life as well as in the life of the church . Presumptions and
attitudes are also being addressed and the believer is directed upon the proper ways to approach and
esteem the Sacred Scripture. The three documents differ in the teachings of some of the separated
brethren in the Christian faith. One can take note for example these parts in their Chicago Statement
on Biblical Inerrancy: 1

“…2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine
authority in all matters upon which it touches: It is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s
command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.
…
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about
God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to
God’s saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited of disregarded, or made
relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.”

These documents try to take note of these fundamentalist assumptions in one’s regard of the
Scripture, but they go beyond towards an attitude that is more open and more all encompassing.
Thus this paper tries to look at some summaries of the documents and presents some reflections and
comments on these documents.
II. Dei Verbum. The Bible, according to Dei Verbum is the word of God meant for all
peoples, when or wherever they are. Because God continued to speak to his peoples, he needed to
speak in the language human beings understand. And to do meet this, God worked through human
beings. The communicators conveyed the message not to come up with a Bible which would be a
bestseller. They were children of their times and were communicating to a specific group, in
particular time, in a particular place, in a particular setting, in a particular language for a particular

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 http://www.iclnet.org
objective with their particular background and with a particular style to meet all objectives. At first it
was just oral and later would it be written.
Thus there were texts in various literary forms, languages, they use the historical settings
that they found themselves in and using the references, and social conventions of their particular day
for only that way would they be able to deliver the Lord’s message and to have it understood and
accepted by the group that they were writing for. The texts took on various forms such as historical,
prophetic, poetic or other forms of discourse. The writer was using the then contemporary literary
forms.
But all these variations of literary forms and historical and cultural settings present a
problem to us in our historical and cultural settings. Dei Verbum says that the interpreter must
investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and then express it in terms of his
contemporary literary culture of his own time.
Thus one must put himself in the shoes of writer, and try to understand that given particular
time, place, historical and cultural setting, what was the writer saying. The message did not change
just the setting. It is the message that is important. So Dei Verbum is saying that to do that, one must
take the effort to understand the background and objective of the author. For only in that way, can
the reader understand the message being converged. But one must do it with the guidance of the
teaching authority of the church and with prayers for that it is the only possible way of really under
the message of the sacred writer.
Dei Verbum finally says that attention must be given to content and unity of the whole of
Scripture as the Scripture must be read and interpreted in the same spirit as it was written. Thus the
living tradition of the whole Church must also be taken into account. Any one reading of the Bible is
part of a continuous flow with a part to play to bring the total picture into focus. The real meaning
can be learned only in content of the whole. That whole consists of all the books of the Bible along
with Tradition as pass on as part of the teaching authority of the Church.

III. PBC’s The Interpretation of the Bible. This document gives serious consideration
to the various aspects of the present situation as regards the interpretation of the Bible--to attend to
the criticisms and the complaints as also to the hopes and aspirations which are being expressed in
this matter, to assess the possibilities opened up by the new methods and approaches and, finally
determines more precisely the direction which best corresponds to the mission of exegesis in the
Catholic Church. To accomplish this goal, the present document presents: 1) a brief description of
the various Methods and Approaches of Exegesis; 2) Certain questions of a hermeneutical nature.
Mentioned especially are Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, the central
 ideas of their philosophies which have had their impact on the interpretation of biblical texts and
Sense of Interpretation: literal, spiritual and fuller sense; 3.) Reflections upon the aspects which
may be considered characteristic of a Catholic interpretation of the Bible and upon its relationship
with other theological disciplines, 4) And lastly, that the interpretation of the Bible has a place in
the Church.. Actualization, like the way the Bible sheds light on some currents issues:
Inculturation, the mutual enrichments between two world of the bible and the context it is preached
and Use of the Bible in the Liturgy, Lectio Divina. Pastoral Ministry and Ecumenism.

IV.The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Bible. The three basic parts of
the document are:1.The Sacred Scriptures of the Jewish people are a fundamental part of the
Christian Bible. 2.Fundamental themes in the Jewish Scriptures and their reception into faith in
Christ, and 3.The Jews in the New Testament
Roland E. Murphy gives a picture of the document and gives his own criticism on the document.
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This paper just cites some of the parts that summarize the document:
He proceeds, “Part 1 ([subsection] 2-18) affirms that the Jewish Scriptures are a
"fundamental part of the Christian Bible." Part 2 constitutes the major portion of the book,
"fundamental themes." It opens with a dense treatment of "Christian understanding of the
relationships between the Old and New Testaments." It appeals to the well-known phenomenon (not
a method) of re-reading (re-lecture) of the biblical text, found in both Testaments, wherein a later
generation of believers deepens the understanding of their forebears. There is no enthusiasm for the
allegorical approaches of the Fathers. The insistence of Aquinas on the "literal sense" led eventually
to the "supremacy of the historical-critical method" ([section] 20). The PBC wisely insists that the
prophecies are not "photographic anticipations of future events" ([section] 21), and that faith plays
the key role in reading the Old Testament "in the light of Christ" (see 1Cor 3:14 in [section] 19). It
describes the eschatological dimension of faith simply and directly. Like Jews, Christians too live in
expectation: "The difference is that for us the One who is to come will have traits of the Jesus who
has already come, and is already present and active among us" ([section] 21). The PBC appeals to an
"internal dynamism" that finds its goal in Jesus. This is described as "a retrospective perception
whose point of departure is not in the text
as such, but in the events of the New Testament proclaimed by the apostolic preaching"
([section] 21; cf. [section] 86). These are helpful hints for a Christian reading of the Old Testament.

2
 Murphy, Roland E. 2002. The Biblical Commission, the Jews and Scriptures, Biblical Theology Bulletin 
32/3:145­49
 The "fundamental themes" are familiar from past studies of biblical theology, written mainly
by Christian scholars. The topics are: revelation of God (God "speaks"), the human person, God as
liberator and savior, election of Israel, covenant, law, prayer and cult (Jerusalem and Temple), divine
reproaches and condemnations, and finally the promises. They are described on two levels, OT and
NT, with some "progression" between the two being noted. It is misleading, however, to call these
"shared" (French communs). The ancient Israelite and the Jewish tradition does not agree with the
Christian development and meaning of the texts in question, as, for example, those dealing with
election, law, and covenant. The overall perspective is that of Christian fulfillment, an interpretation
of the themes in the light of Christian belief. This will doubtless be of some benefit to those
Christians who are unaware of their Old Testament roots. "Appropriation" of Old Testament text is
what occurs, not "sharing," because of the serious interpretive disagreements between the two
religious bodies.
Part 3 deals expressly with "the various attitudes to the Jews expressed in the New
Testament" ([section] 66) by a brief examination of various books, from Matthew to Revelation.
That would call for volumes, and the extreme brevity of the remarks cannot be avoided.
The conclusions of the document ([subsection] 84-86) are general and also pastoral. The
general conclusion seems overly positive, but it does little more than repeat the continuity of the
"fundamental themes." It concludes that the breaks in the relationship between Jews and Christians
in the past were never complete and should not have occurred, "for a complete break between
Church and Synagogue contradicts Sacred Scripture" ([section] 85.

V. Comments and Reflections. Amy-Jill Levine, the Jewish Biblical scholar who visited the
Philippines as the main speaker of the Annual Convention of the Catholic Biblical Association of the
Philippines in July 2004 held in Tagaytay City shares her comments on the document:
Amy Jill Levine points out 4 outstanding points of this document: a) the acknowledgment of
the Jewish Readings of Scripture are legitimate, b) the insistence that supersessionist readings are
inappropriate, c) the notation that christological interpretations of the Old Testament are made
retrospectively (that is , one cannot be expected to find references to Jesus in the Old Testament
unless one presupposes that those references are there), and d) the assertion that “Christians can
learn much from Jewish exegesis.” However Levine also critiques the document: She says, the
document’s translation of Torah as Law is misleading, more appropriately it should be Instruction,
that even the Judaism not only welcome pagans as both God-fearers and converts, it also speaks of
the Noachide commandments and the righteous gentiles. She also says it is better to doubt the claim
of the document that the NT does not contribute to the hostility towards the Jews and also she cites
that the document takes the gospel polemics as historical and then universalizes the localize
references thus the presentation of Judaism is not really accurate. The major criticism she says about
the document is that the title bears the declaration, “The Jewish People..” but not a Jew is in the
group that articulates the document.
And looking at the two other two documents, it is clear that there is a development in the
Catholic’s understanding on the expanse of the Word of God. In Dei Verbum, there was the teaching
to understand in its proper context and spirit especially in the life of the church, then in PBC’s
Interpreting the Word of God, there was the stress on the reliable method, but other methods and
approaches that enriches the appreciation of the Word of God has to be employed and the document
closes with words on actualization and inculturation of the Word of God with a special mention on
Ecumenism and in this third document of study, a new, carefully nuanced relationship between the
Old and New Testaments; that is, it highlights the inseparability between Christianity and its Bible
and Judaism and its Scriptures is articulated and results to a significant step toward a new theology
of the Christian-Jewish relations. And how interesting that it is in the continuous study of the word
of God that this is brought about. The Word of God does effect change! As 2 Timothy 3:16-17 aptly
puts it: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching for reproof, for correction and for
training its righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every
good work.”
-Bro. Hansel B. Mapayo, SSP

References:

Flannery, Austin OP. Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents. New
revised ed. New York: Costello Publishing Company, 1984; reprint ed., Manila:
Daughters of St. Paul, 1989.

Pontifical Biblical Commision. 1993. The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. Vatican City (the
on-line version is taken from the published version in Origins, January 6, 1994)

Pontifical Biblical Commission. 2002. The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the
Christian Bible. Translated by Maurice Hogan. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Articles:

Levine, Amy-Jill. The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible: A
Jewish Reading of the Document, The Bible Today 41/3, 2003.

Murphy, Roland E. The Biblical Commission, the Jews and Scriptures, Biblical TheologyBulletin
32/3, 2002.