Lesson 1

Synopsis

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God speaks to us through the Bible because it is the inspired word of God. However, we also know that each of the books of the Bible was written down by one or several human authors. These people put to paper those words they chose using their own intelligence, creativity, and energy in the process. This means that they are also true authors of the Bible, and it is not just the word of God but also the word of man. To understand, therefore, what God is telling us through the Bible, we need to first understand what its human authors wanted to say. 

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Learning Objectives

 

You will have successfully completed this lesson when you can: 

 

• Explain in what way the human authors are true authors of the Bible.

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• Describe how exegetes study the biblical text to understand what its human authors wanted to say.

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God is the Author of the Bible

 

As Christians, we believe that Bible is the word of God. On this, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

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In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, but as what it really is, the word of God. (CCC 104)

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For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. (CCC 105)

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This means that God is the author of the Bible and he speaks to us through it.

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Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely. (CCC 102)

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That is why the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord’s Body (see CCC 103). Yet each of the books of the Bible was written by one or several human authors. We know that David, for example, wrote many of the psalms, Luke wrote one of the gospels, and Paul penned many of the epistles found in the New Testament. Because of this, we can say that the books of the Bible are not just the word of God, they are also the word of man. 

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In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words: “Indeed the words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness, became like men.” (CCC 101)

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What do we mean by saying that the words of God are expressed in human words? We will answer this question throughout this whole course. For now, we want to investigate how the human authors are true authors of the Bible. We also will look at how we should read and study the Bible in order to understand what they wanted to say.

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God Speaks to us through Human Words

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To understand this, it can be useful to compare what Christians believe about the Bible to what Muslims believe about the Koran. Just as we Christians say that God is the author of the Bible, so too do they claim that he wrote the Koran. But our understanding of how this happened is very different. Muslims say that the Koran is the word of God because it came directly from him. That is, God spoke the very words of the Koran to the Archangel Gabriel who then dictated them to Mohammed. All Mohammed did was memorize them and then eventually put them to writing exactly as he had received them, being careful not to add or take out anything. Mohammed’s role was similar to that of a good secretary who faithfully transcribes a dictated message, without adding or changing anything.

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As Christians, we don’t believe God wrote the Bible this way. Just like we believe that Jesus is both truly God and truly man, so too do we believe that the Bible is the both the word of God and the word of man. We say that the Bible is the word of God because he wrote it. In the next lesson, we will explain what we mean by this. But we also consider the Bible to be a human book, that is, a book written by human authors.

 

The Bible is both a single book and a collection of books. As a single book, it tells a unified story to which each of the individual books contributes something. These books were written over a timespan of more than a thousand years. Each had one or several human authors who, while they were working to write down what they wanted to write, using their own intelligence, creativity, and energy in the process, were at the same time being inspired by God to write down what he wanted. But they did not just put to paper words that were dictated to them by God. They personally investigated the facts, organized the data according to a structure they devised, and chose what to include and what to ignore. They also chose the specific words they used. What they wrote down was influenced by their interests, their writing skills, their style, and their culture. Because of this, we can truly say that they authored their books.

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This process is especially evident in the Gospel according to Luke, as we can see in its opening verses.

 

Since, indeed, many have attempted to set in order a narrative of the things that have been completed among us, just as they have been handed on to those of us who from the beginning saw the same and were ministers of the word, so it seemed good to me also, having diligently followed everything from the beginning, to write to you, in an orderly manner, most excellent Theophilus, so that you might know the truthfulness of those words by which you have been instructed. (Luke 1:1-4)

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Luke was certainly inspired by God, but he freely chose to write to Theophilus. It was his decision. God didn’t appear to him and say: “Luke, I want you to write another gospel.” He came up with the idea. And once he had decided to do it, he then made a diligent effort to investigate the facts, speak with eyewitnesses, and write an orderly account of what he had learned. He could have done things differently, but he didn’t. He chose to do them this way.

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For example, his is the only gospel that tells us that Jesus sweat blood in Gethsemane. We know that Luke was a doctor and so he would have been interested in these types of facts. Because he was its author, he chose what to include in his gospel, and he chose those things that interested him. About this, the Catechism says:

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God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. “To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more.” (CCC 106)

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Be Attentive to What the Human Authors Wanted to Say

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Even though God worked though the biblical authors, they are still true authors of their books and letters. They didn’t know that God was working through them. They just put to paper whatever they wanted to write down. How then does God speak to us through their writings? The Church teaches us that everything “the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit” (CCC 107). The first step, therefore, to understand what God is telling us through the Bible is to try to determine what the human authors intended to say. On this subject, the Catechism affirms:

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In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words. (CCC 109)

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For some parts of the Bible, knowing what the human authors wanted to affirm can be quite simple, but this can be tricky in other parts because the meaning of the text is not clear. If the authors were still alive, we could ask them what they meant, but unfortunately, they have been dead for hundreds, even thousands of years. They just left us their writings, which we analyze to try to determine what they wanted to say. This requires much effort and study and biblical scholars often disagree with each other.

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Exegesis is that part of theology which studies the meaning of the biblical text. That is why biblical scholars are sometimes called exegetes. They must learn Hebrew and Greek, to be able to read the Bible in its original languages. But languages change over time. That is why we find it challenging, for example, to read works written in Middle English. The differences in spelling, vocabulary, and grammar make it difficult for us to understand what the author is saying. 

 

The same is true for Hebrew and Greek. They have changed so much over time that there are words and expressions in the biblical text which we simply don’t understand. Neither do we have ancient dictionaries to help us translate them. Their interpretation is often a matter of conjecture.

 

In addition, the books of the Bible were written in cultures completely different to ours. So, to understand the Bible, exegetes must study these cultures. For example, they have to understand the way people spoke and wrote back then and know the idioms they used. They must also study the literary genres found in the Bible. A message can be expressed in different ways. What did the authors want to say? Were they describing an historical event? Were they making a point using an image? Were they expressing feelings in a poem? This all makes a difference when trying to understand the meaning of the words.

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There are many ways to do exegesis, but two things are essential if it is to be thorough:

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1. Faith – the Christian exegete should believe that God exists and can act in our lives and communicate with us in a human way.  

2. Reason – since the biblical books were written by human authors, we can and should analyze them just like we study any other written text.

 

Literary criticism (or literary studies) is an academic discipline which gives us tools to study, evaluate, and interpret works of literature. Since the Bible is a human book, because it was written by human authors, we should be able to apply these tools to our study, but, as we already mentioned, we should always do so within the context of faith. The Bible is, after all, a divine book as well, as we will see in the next lesson.

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Assignments

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• To complete your study of this theme, please watch the following videos produced by the BibleProject. BibleProject is a non-profit animation studio that produces short-form, fully animated videos to make the biblical story accessible to everyone, everywhere. Their mission is to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. They have produced a series on how to read the Bible that is excellent and free. These videos explain how the study of literary devices used by the biblical authors—such as plot, setting, and style—can help us better understand the text. As you watch them, ask yourself how these ideas can help us better understand the Bible. ​

  • What is the Bible?

  • The Story of the Bible

  • Literary Styles in the Bible

  • Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature

  • Plot in Biblical Narrative

  • Character in Biblical Narrative

  • Setting in Biblical Narrative

  • Design Patterns in Biblical Narrative

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• Study numbers 101 to 104 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

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• What do we mean when we say that God speaks to us in a human way?

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• When reading the Bible, why is it important to try to understand what its human authors wanted to affirm? How do exegetes go about doing this?

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• Since we can also consider the Bible to be one book that tells a unified story, describe the basic plot of this story.