How To Read and Understand The Bible

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aliciar

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I am trying to learn how to read and understand it. I used to read it like a normal book and started with Genesis. Now someone told me not to read it like that. Just open it up and read the first passages the page falls on. I would like to learn how to intepret the bible.
 
You must read scripture as a whole. You must also interpret it as the Church understands and teaches it.
 
I find the best way to read is to start with the gospels. They tell the story of Christ’s life on earth–his birth, passion, death, and resurrection. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are right at the begining of the New Testament. You can read those over and over your whole life because they contain the very words of Christ.

But next I’d read the Acts of the Apostles. it tells the story of what the Apostles did after the resurrection and Ascension. It follows directly from the end of the Gospel of Luke.

After that I’d probably move to the Psalms (in the Old Testament) or the shorter letters in the New Testament (Peter or John).

All of those are pretty straightforward and easy to see how the stories and teachings relate to our lives. We do need to follow the church’s teachings on how to interpret the Holy Bible, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble with these books of the Bible.
 
aliciar said:
I am trying to learn how to read and understand it. I used to read it like a normal book and started with Genesis. Now someone told me not to read it like that. Just open it up and read the first passages the page falls on. I would like to learn how to intepret the bible.
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You need to understand the Old Testament if you wish to understand the New Testament more fully. You’re doing the right thing, but you may want to go through the 14 history books of the Old Testament before you read the New Testament. You can more fully understand the New Israel if you understand Ancient Israel. After that, go through the whole book (OT and NT) from cover to cover.

There are some great commentaries that will help to tie the pieces together so that you can see the whole picture while you’re reading the the minutae of the OT. I highly recommend “A Father Who Keeps His Promises” by Scott Hahn: an easy to read paperback which is an invaluable resource. Jeff Cavins and Scott Hahn have an audio series - I believe its 14 hour long talks on EWTN (FREE!!!) - on this same topic called Our Father’s Plan.

You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll come to understand the Bible if you follow this.
 
Regarding the Psalms and the Prophets, you won’t get the more fuller meaning behind them if you don’t understand the context in which they are written. That’s another reason its important to read and become familiar with the history books of the OT and NT before you tackle them.
 
You should be applauded for taking the bible seriously and beginning to read it. Like you, when I began to read the bible, I started at Genesis and just motored on through to Revelation. The problem with that approach is that it is easy to get discouraged at some of the drier and more difficult parts like Numbers and Leviticus and give up early.

You might try reading one chapter from the Old Testament and one chapter from the New Testament daily. Takes about 10-15 minutes without rushing. You will read the New Testament several times through by the time you finish the Old Testament (in about 3 years). Also, you should learn to meditate on the scriptures, a form of prayer based on a thoughful, attentive reading and consideration of the scripture. Don’t hurry – read for understanding and build a life-long habit.
 
I also like to read the Words of Wisdom. Does anyone read the extra books that the catholic bibles have? My favorite gospel readings are about Jesus feeding a whole group of people and there are others I really love. Does anyone have a favorite verse? I really love the one were a woman gets dragged to him and the men wanted to stone her because she was caught committing adultery. They wanted him to decide to stone her but after doing some drawing in the sand, he said to them, whoever has never sinned, cast the first stone. And then they all left. Then he said to the woman, where are your accusers? She said, they are gone. And he said you are free to go and sin no more.
 
NotWorthy said:
You need to understand the Old Testament if you wish to understand the New Testament more fully. You’re doing the right thing, but you may want to go through the 14 history books of the Old Testament before you read the New Testament. You can more fully understand the New Israel if you understand Ancient Israel. After that, go through the whole book (OT and NT) from cover to cover.

There are some great commentaries that will help to tie the pieces together so that you can see the whole picture while you’re reading the the minutae of the OT. I highly recommend “A Father Who Keeps His Promises” by Scott Hahn: an easy to read paperback which is an invaluable resource. Jeff Cavins and Scott Hahn have an audio series - I believe its 14 hour long talks on EWTN (FREE!!!) - on this same topic called Our Father’s Plan.

You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll come to understand the Bible if you follow this.
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I second this suggestion. To really understand any given passage of Scripture, you need to understand it both in it’s immediate context (try reading 4 or 5 verses right before it and the 4 or 5 right after it), and also have a good grasp of the overall “big picture” of Scripture. You don’t need exhaustive knowledge, but enough that you know what’s going on.

The resources recommended above are excellent, if you have access to them. Also, there is another audio series based on a Catholic textbook called “Understanding the Scriptures.” The textbook is by Dr. Scott Hahn, but the 30 part audio series is by a student of his. It is found here.. You can also find it for free on I-Tunes.

Hope that helps. For more info about Scripture study, please visit my humble website, linked below.
 
Mrs_Sally said:
I find the best way to read is to start with the gospels. They tell the story of Christ’s life on earth–his birth, passion, death, and resurrection. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are right at the begining of the New Testament. You can read those over and over your whole life because they contain the very words of Christ.

But next I’d read the Acts of the Apostles. it tells the story of what the Apostles did after the resurrection and Ascension. It follows directly from the end of the Gospel of Luke.

After that I’d probably move to the Psalms (in the Old Testament) or the shorter letters in the New Testament (Peter or John).

All of those are pretty straightforward and easy to see how the stories and teachings relate to our lives. We do need to follow the church’s teachings on how to interpret the Holy Bible, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble with these books of the Bible.
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This is a good plan for reading. Also, I favor reading Maccabees 1 and 2 to get the immediate historical background and Isaiah/ Psalms to appreciate the typology and fulfillment of prophecy. If you just need some good advice, I recommend Sirach/Eccelsiasticus.
 
aliciar said:
I am trying to learn how to read and understand it. I used to read it like a normal book and started with Genesis. Now someone told me not to read it like that. Just open it up and read the first passages the page falls on. I would like to learn how to intepret the bible.
Click to expand...
The best way to interpret Scripture is not currently well-expressed within the Church, although I am trying to fix that now, with a book I am writing.

The best way to interpret Scripture is something called “Bible typology,” which is the study of Bible types, or symbols.

Almost all here who say, “I understand Bible symbols!!!,” get it wrong. Bible symbology is not a product of culture or custom. Customary interpretations of symbols are fundamentally irrelevant to Bible symbology. Instead, the Holy Spirit imprinted His Own symbols, with Hos Own meanings, into Scripture. The symbols’ meanings of can be induced from Scripture itself, by reviewing each use of the symbolic term wherever it appears in Scripture, using a concordance. There are about 80 basic types, or symbols, in Scripture. In effect they are the vocabulary of Bible symbology. Once these are inculcated, one can easily discern the larger symbolic structures in Scripture made out of types, called “word pictures.”

A quick example…

33 Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing.
34 I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost.”
35 When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat.
36 They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves.
37 In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship.
38 After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea. Acts 27:33-38.

First, allow me to highlight, and then define, the types in the text…

33 Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing.
34 I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost.”
35 When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat.
36 They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves.
37 In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship.
38 After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea.

V. 33: “dawn” = an analog of the Light Type, symbolizing “the Resurrected One,” Christ.

V. 33: “food” = an analopg of the Grain Type, symbolizing “the Eucharist.”

V. 33: “fourteenth” = 7 x 2 = the Seven Type and the Two Type. The Seven Type symbolizes “completion” or “perfection.” The Two Type symbolizes “the Church.”

V. 34: “hair” = the Hair Type v symbolizing “God-ness,” in some way.

V. 35: “bread” = an analog of the Grain Type symbolizing the Eucharist.

V. 37: “276” is a number type I have not been able to interpret, yet.

V. 37: “ship” = an analog of the Boat Type, symbolizing “the Church.”

V. 38: “wheat” = an analog of the Grain Type symbolizing “the Eucharist.”

V. 38: “sea” = an analog of the Abyss Type symbolizing “the Sea of Damnable Souls.”

So-o-o-o-o-o…

In V. 33, Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, "Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing, we see Paul urging his follows to take the Eucharist “food”] for the perfection “7”] of the Church “2”], making it “Christ-time” “dawn”].

In V. 34, *I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost." * Paul assures them that this will help preserve their “God-ness” “hair”].

In V. 35, When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat, we see that Paul does an actual consecration.

In V. 36-37, *They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves. In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship. * we see how this process strengthened the Church “ship”].

In V. 38, After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea, we see a picture of the administrators of God’s Church “ship”], having been strengthened by the Eucharist, begin administering the Eucharist “wheat”] to the damnable souls in need of salvation in the Sea of Damnable Souls “sea”].
 
aliciar said:
Now someone told me not to read it like that. Just open it up and read the first passages the page falls on.
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A very wrong mistake. That’s like taking the bible like if it’s a by chance thing. The Holy Bible does not work that way. They gave us an anecdote/joke about doing that kind of thing.

How Not To Read the Bible:
One day there was a woman and she wanted to read the bible. She remembered what her friends have told her time and time again, that they always just pick it up and read where their finger lands and they go on from there. One day she decided to go for it. Her finger landed on a passage in the bible that said “and Judas hanged himself”. She got scared and closed the bible and said to the Lord, “C’mon Lord, I know Your just playing.” The next day she decided to try it again. She opened the bible and her finger landed on a passage that said “…you do the same.” She got scared again and closed the bible and said to the Lord, “Lord! C’mon! I’m trying to read Your bible!” The next day she said to the Lord, “Okay Lord, I’m going to give You one more chance. Here we go.” She opened up the bible and her finger landed on a passage that said “and what you’re going to do, do it soon.” and she learned her lesson on how NOT to read the bible. 😃

:blessyou:
 
Jeff Cavins: The great Adventure Bible study. Nothing better in my book. The Bible is library no just one book.
 
I started with the Sunday Readings. At Sunday mass, the sermon should reflect on the readings for the day. I would also start with the daily readings but, unable to attend daily mass and often their is no sermon at the daily service.
Perhaps joining a bible Study can help. I know that the interpretations are the opinion of the person and may or may not be ageeable with all.
Happy Reading! :tiphat:
 
aliciar said:
I also like to read the Words of Wisdom. Does anyone read the extra books that the catholic bibles have? My favorite gospel readings are about Jesus feeding a whole group of people and there are others I really love. Does anyone have a favorite verse? I really love the one were a woman gets dragged to him and the men wanted to stone her because she was caught committing adultery. They wanted him to decide to stone her but after doing some drawing in the sand, he said to them, whoever has never sinned, cast the first stone. And then they all left. Then he said to the woman, where are your accusers? She said, they are gone. And he said you are free to go and sin no more.
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It is good that you are reading your scriptures, aliciar. Just a point of order, the Catholic bible does not have “extra books”. The Catholic Church uses the collection of Holy Scriptures used by the Apostles (the Septuagint).

Protestants removed some of the books during the Reformation because they were too “catholic”, and they chose to side with a collection espoused by those who rejected Christ.
 
Peter_Dawson said:
The best way to interpret Scripture is not currently well-expressed within the Church, although I am trying to fix that now, with a book I am writing.

The best way to interpret Scripture is something called “Bible typology,” which is the study of Bible types, or symbols.

Almost all here who say, “I understand Bible symbols!!!,” get it wrong. Bible symbology is not a product of culture or custom. Customary interpretations of symbols are fundamentally irrelevant to Bible symbology. Instead, the Holy Spirit imprinted His Own symbols, with Hos Own meanings, into Scripture. The symbols’ meanings of can be induced from Scripture itself, by reviewing each use of the symbolic term wherever it appears in Scripture, using a concordance. There are about 80 basic types, or symbols, in Scripture. In effect they are the vocabulary of Bible symbology. Once these are inculcated, one can easily discern the larger symbolic structures in Scripture made out of types, called “word pictures.”

A quick example…

33 Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing.
34 I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost.”
35 When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat.
36 They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves.
37 In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship.
38 After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea. Acts 27:33-38.

First, allow me to highlight, and then define, the types in the text…

33 Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing.
34 I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost.”
35 When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat.
36 They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves.
37 In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship.
38 After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea.

V. 33: “dawn” = an analog of the Light Type, symbolizing “the Resurrected One,” Christ.

V. 33: “food” = an analopg of the Grain Type, symbolizing “the Eucharist.”

V. 33: “fourteenth” = 7 x 2 = the Seven Type and the Two Type. The Seven Type symbolizes “completion” or “perfection.” The Two Type symbolizes “the Church.”

V. 34: “hair” = the Hair Type v symbolizing “God-ness,” in some way.

V. 35: “bread” = an analog of the Grain Type symbolizing the Eucharist.

V. 37: “276” is a number type I have not been able to interpret, yet.

V. 37: “ship” = an analog of the Boat Type, symbolizing “the Church.”

V. 38: “wheat” = an analog of the Grain Type symbolizing “the Eucharist.”

V. 38: “sea” = an analog of the Abyss Type symbolizing “the Sea of Damnable Souls.”

So-o-o-o-o-o…

In V. 33, Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, "Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing, we see Paul urging his follows to take the Eucharist “food”] for the perfection “7”] of the Church “2”], making it “Christ-time” “dawn”].

In V. 34, I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost." Paul assures them that this will help preserve their “God-ness” “hair”].

In V. 35, When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat, we see that Paul does an actual consecration.

In V. 36-37, *They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves. In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship. * we see how this process strengthened the Church “ship”].

In V. 38, After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea, we see a picture of the administrators of God’s Church “ship”], having been strengthened by the Eucharist, begin administering the Eucharist “wheat”] to the damnable souls in need of salvation in the Sea of Damnable Souls “sea”].
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aliciar, I too have been wondering how to read and understand the Bible. I’ve started, and stopped, in the past. Recently, however, I found a wonderful tool on www.chnetwork.org
which is the Coming Home Network website. It is found under the “library” and is a downloadable schedule. The title of it is “Read the Bible and the Catechism in a Year.” So far, I’ve been following this particular schedule for 35 days, and find it very easy to stick with. It has you read an OT passage, Psalm, NT and then part of the catechism. It’s broken down by day, so you can actually see what you will be reading for 365 days/year.

I’ve found it very helpful, and can start to see the correllation between the New and Old Testaments, something that I struggled with in the past. You also get familiarized with the Catechism, something that is easier to read as it is broken down in this devotional.

This seems to be very easy to fit into my schedule, it’s not overwhelming to sit and read for 20-30 minutes a day, and if I miss a day, it’s easy to catch up again.

I hope you find the tools that work for you,

Mumsy23
 
buffalo said:
You must read scripture as a whole. You must also interpret it as the Church understands and teaches it.
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Aliciar, I suggest that you heed the words of Buffalo.

Also, you ought to appreciate the privilege that has been bestowed upon you.

Well into the nineteenth century it was still forbidden by Holy Mother Church to translate the Bible into languages that the plebeians could actually read.

The wise and benevolent fathers of the Church rightly observed that it would be far more advantageous to them to tell the commoners (that would be you and I) what to believe, how to live and, not unimportantly, how many tithes have to be paid.

So count your blessings, I’d say, and read the Bible any old way you want to.

For what it is worth, I have always preferred to read it front to back; starting with Genesis, where we find wondrous tales of talking snakes, giants roaming the Earth and folks living to the ripe old age of 900 years, all the way through to Revelations, which is my favorite book as it clearly demonstrates the superiority of Christian morals and ethics as it foretells how our Lord and Savior is going to deal with non-Christians, skeptical intellectuals and other rabble.
 
Dear Aliciar:

Great question. Two suggestions. #1 prayerfully read DEI VERBUM - you should be able to download it from ewtn.com library. It gives Catholic principles for biblical study.

In a nutshell they are: #1. Look at the bible as a whole, not just a collection of verses. Many people find, at first glance, the bible to be very contradictory. We need to remember that God reveals Himself in stages - just as we teach our children to read or math or anything.

As an example, you will find early (in terms of when the passage was originally written) passages in the Old Testament that say there is no afterlife. Later passages in the Old Testament says there is. Finally, Jesus, definitely says there is both a heaven and a hell and that they both are eternal.

2. Always pray before reading. As the Holy Spirit to show you the truths He is communicating from the passage.​

#3. All scripture, as St. Paul assures us, contains truth. This truth about God is contained in the literal meaning of the passage. Look for the type of literature (narrative, prophecy, moral fable, etc.). These are important clues about the truth the Holy Spirit is trying to teach. For example, take the story of Jonah and the whale. As yourself what kind of literature is this? Is this a narrative relating events as they actually happened or is this a moral fable set in ancient times to teach the universal mercy of God - i.e. that He is the one true God of all nations and He wants all men to know, love and serve Him and that as we respond to His call, He will grant the grace necessary for salvation. I.E. Salvation is for all men, not just Jews, not just Christians (Christ died that all men might be saved, not that all will be, because we need to accept God’s offer of salvation, we have a role to play as well).

#4. The Gospels present an accurate portrayal of Jesus’ life, death and teaching. Not that everything happened EXACTLY as told in the Gospels. Jesus did actually live, teach and die. There are historical records that show this, independent of Scripture. The actual historical details may be recorded differently in the Bible than how it happened. The Gospels were not written as we understand history. They were written to proclaim the truth about God, His Love for us, That Jesus is His fully Divine and fully human Son, who was born, lived and worked for a time and died for the sins of all mankind - everyone that has ever lived, lives now, or will live in the future. The important thing is Jesus’ teaching: about the Father, Himself, the Holy Spirit, about man, God’s Love for him, that Jesus became a man to show us the way to the Father; about salvation - that Jesus died for our sins and that we can receive the gift of salvation through believing in Him.

These are the truths that the Gospels and all scripture teaches. These are the things that are important. These are the things that one looks for when they read Scripture.

As a final suggestion: I would offer the example of the Church. The Church, through the readings read at daily Mass offer a selection from the Old Testament and the New. On Sundays, there is usually an Old Testament reading and a reading from one of the Gospels. Usually, there is a clear theme that unites the two to highlight how Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. On Sunday, there is also usually another reading from one of the letters of Paul, or the other early Church Letters (Peter, James, John, etc.).

There are many magazines (God’s Word Among Us is just one) that offer the daily Mass readings and a brief commentary. Although the commentary is just a guide, it does give an explanation of the day’s theme and some detail on what’s going on in the individual book the reading is taken from. By following this example, you will read the entire bible in three years and will have some valuable guidance and insights into God’s Word. Good Luck.

Corry
 
Lapin_Lascif said:
Aliciar, I suggest that you heed the words of Buffalo.

Also, you ought to appreciate the privilege that has been bestowed upon you.

Well into the nineteenth century it was still forbidden by Holy Mother Church to translate the Bible into languages that the plebeians could actually read.

The wise and benevolent fathers of the Church rightly observed that it would be far more advantageous to them to tell the commoners (that would be you and I) what to believe, how to live and, not unimportantly, how many tithes have to be paid.

So count your blessings, I’d say, and read the Bible any old way you want to.

For what it is worth, I have always preferred to read it front to back; starting with Genesis, where we find wondrous tales of talking snakes, giants roaming the Earth and folks living to the ripe old age of 900 years, all the way through to Revelations, which is my favorite book as it clearly demonstrates the superiority of Christian morals and ethics as it foretells how our Lord and Savior is going to deal with non-Christians, skeptical intellectuals and other rabble.
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I see a real scholar has entered the thread. :rolleyes:
 
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