Lesson Objectives To learn how to read the Bible the way the Catholic Church has always read it. To understand the concepts of “salvation history” and “covenant” and their importance for reading the Bible. To learn the key points of the creation story in the Bible’s first book, Genesis..

How Catholics read the Bible There is a single plot and story to the Bible. It’s not just a collection of individual books. All those individual books, when joined together and put in order by the ancient Church Fathers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, now make up a single book. And this book tells only one story. We will be able to follow “the plot” of the Bible, keep track of all the characters, and know what the story is all about.

Divine Revelation: How God Speaks to Us Christianity is a religion of the Word, not of a book! The Word is a Person - Jesus Christ. He is God’s "final word" on everything. Through Jesus, God has revealed everything God wanted to reveal to us about who God is and what God intends for our lives. God’s revelation of Himself comes to us in three ways.

The three ways Scripture (the Bible) Tradition (especially the liturgy of the Church - the Mass and the sacraments) The Magisterium (the Church’s teachings, such as its dogmas and creeds) The Holy Spirit is at work through all three channels - He inspires Scripture, animates the Church’s living Tradition, and guarantees the teaching of the Church’s Magisterium (Catechism, nos. 81-82).

Reading and Interpreting the Scripture: The Three Rules The Content & Unity of Scripture: Though Scripture is made up of different books, we cannot read them as separate books. We have to read each one in light of the rest, keeping in mind that Jesus revealed that there is a unity in God’s plan for the world, as that plan is revealed in Scripture.

The Content & Unity of Scripture: cont’d. “The New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.” –St. Augustine What he meant is that Jesus showed us how the things that God says and does in the Old Testament pointed to what He says and does in the New. In turn, what Jesus says and does in the New Testament sheds light on the promises and events we read about in the Old Testament.

The Church’s Living Tradition We must always read Scripture within the context of the Church’s Tradition. That means that we should always see how the Church interprets certain Scripture passages, especially in the prayers and readings it uses for the Mass and for special feasts in the Church.

Analogy of Faith The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures also safeguards the Church’s teaching authority. This means that if we are going to read and interpret Scripture properly –the way God intends it to be read –we have to make sure our interpretations do not contradict the interpretations found in the Church’s creeds and other statements of doctrine.

Scripture is Divine: Inspiration The Bible truly has God as its divine author. The human authors used their literary skills, ideas and other talents in writing the pages of the Bible. But while they were writing, God was acting in them so that what they wrote was exactly what He wanted them to write. God acting in these human authors is called inspiration –breath of God.

Scripture is Human: The Bible as Religious Literature and History The “divine-human” authorship of Scripture means we have to read the Bible differently than we approach other books. We must remember that the Bible is the Word of God told in human language.

The Bible as Religious Literature and History Literature: The Bible uses literary forms, devices, structures, figures, etc. We must look for the “literary” clues that convey a meaning. Ancient: The Bible is ancient. Its not written like modern literature. It’s meaning is wrapped up with the way the ancients looked at the world and recorded history. History was more than just politic, economics and wars - it had a deeper significance.

Religious People think of religion today in terms of personal piety. The word “religion” comes from the Latin, “religare,” – “to bind together.” For the ancients everything - culture, history, the economy, diplomacy - was bound together by the religion. The Bible gives us history, but it is religious history. It is history from God’s perspective.