Revelation

[bpcatholic]

A friend of mine was telling me how we are to interpret Revelation literally. He argues that the things John envisioned were unexplainable at the time, so he described them in ways the people could understand. Is this a Catholic understanding? Thanks!

 

[NotWorthy]

A friend of mine was telling me how we are to interpret Revelation literally. He argues that the things John envisioned were unexplainable at the time, so he described them in ways the people could understand. Is this a Catholic understanding? Thanks!

Your friend is speaking for himself and not for the Church.

Revelation has the “Shrek-Affect” - it has many layers. If your friend thinks that there are only going to be 144,000 saints in heaven and a 1000 year reign, then he is being very near-sighted and extremely naive.

 

[Fidelis]

A friend of mine was telling me how we are to interpret Revelation literally. He argues that the things John envisioned were unexplainable at the time, so he described them in ways the people could understand.

There is nothing in the text itself that asserts this, so you would have to bring in an entirely fabricated theory from the outside to be able to say this.

Why would someone want to believe Revelation should be interpeted this way? Maybe because that way you can have the fun in tying in the current events of your own time to the events in Revelation and thus make it say whatever you think it should.

At the very least it is arrogant of your friend (and others) to think that God would inspire this text just for your friend’s time and place and thus have it mean nothing to the millions of Christians that went before in the last 2000 years.

Is this a Catholic understanding? Thanks!

Most assuredly not.

 

[COPLAND_3]

A friend of mine was telling me how we are to interpret Revelation literally. He argues that the things John envisioned were unexplainable at the time, so he described them in ways the people could understand. Is this a Catholic understanding? Thanks!

Taking the book of Revelation literally is misunderstood by so many people, especially well meaning Catholics who are trying to defend against Fundamentalists. To take it literally is not to say that you would interpret the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns as being literally that (that would be reckless), but it does mean that it refers to someone literally and uses symbolic language to identify it. To take it literally would be to understand that Revelation is talking about specific things at specific times, but to take it spiritually it would take a specific thing and interpret it to have a deeper spiritual meaning that could apply to your life or to be a type of something else.

To take the book of Revelation literally you do understand that St. John used figurative language, but you understand that that figurative language is talking about real things that have either taken place or will take place in the future. That is a very Catholic approach, and our faith teaches us to interpret Scripture by keeping in mind that the Bible has different senses.

So don’t be afraid to interpret the book of Revelation literally, but unless you fully understand the teaching of the Church about the senses of Scripture then I recommend not studying Revelation without a good Catholic commentary.

But one thing that makes our approach different than Fundamentalists is that they will usually only take the literal sense and nothing else. But as Catholics we will take the literal interpretation and also realize that the literal sense also has some deeper spiritual meaning hidden in it.

 

[Fidelis]

Taking the book of Revelation literally is misunderstood by so many people, especially well meaning Catholics who are trying to defend against Fundamentalists. To take it literally is not to say that you would interpret the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns as being literally that (that would be reckless), but it does mean that it refers to someone literally and uses symbolic language to identify it. To take it literally would be to understand that Revelation is talking about specific things at specific times, but to take it spiritually it would take a specific thing and interpret it to have a deeper spiritual meaning that could apply to your life or to be a type of something else.

To take the book of Revelation literally you do understand that St. John used figurative language, but you understand that that figurative language is talking about real things that have either taken place or will take place in the future. That is a very Catholic approach, and our faith teaches us to interpret Scripture by keeping in mind that the Bible has different senses.

So don’t be afraid to interpret the book of Revelation literally, but unless you fully understand the teaching of the Church about the senses of Scripture then I recommend not studying Revelation without a good Catholic commentary.

But one thing that makes our approach different than Fundamentalists is that they will usually only take the literal sense and nothing else. But as Catholics we will take the literal interpretation and also realize that the literal sense also has some deeper spiritual meaning hidden in it.

I think the proper distinction to make is between interpreting the Scriptures* literally *and literalistically.

To interpret the Scriptures literally means to read them in the sense they were writen and that the original author wished to convey to his audience. This is one of the four senses of Scripture the the Church encourages us to use. From the Catechism:

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”

This is opposed to the literalistic sense used by fundamentalists and some evangelicals which leads to a subjective and over-personalistic interpretation of Scripture. As Catholics, even though we are encouraged to read, study and ponder Scripture on our own and apply our insights to our own lives, we recognize that the Magisterium is the authentic interpreter of Scripture.

 

[Crumpy]

A friend of mine was telling me how we are to interpret Revelation literally. He argues that the things John envisioned were unexplainable at the time, so he described them in ways the people could understand. Is this a Catholic understanding? Thanks!

The preceding is the original post and it reveals that you have a very shallow understanding of the teaching of the Catholic Church. Now, I say that not to be offensive, but simply to state a fact that you should admit.

There is a danger, by not knowing your Catholic faith, that you will be easily swayed by what your (obviously) non-Catholic friend is saying to you.

Understand fundamentalism this way: “ignore the Catholic Church” because that is first and foremost what fundamentalists are saying.

Your friend is peddling to you what the early “reformer” John Wyclif said in the thirteenth century or thereabouts. He proclaimed that everybody (except Catholics of course!) should interpret scripture for themselves. Wyclif was a founding father of the rebellion against the Catholic Church.

If you want to educate yourself on what the Catholic Church says about scripture, start with some basics:

1. Download the 1993 guide from the Pontifical Biblical Commission on the Interpretation of Scripture in the Church. You will find it in the document library of www.ewtn.com.
2. Read that document slowly and carefully. Don’t skim over it.
3. Get yourself a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and read from about paragraph 50 to paragraph 200, the parts about the overview of the Catholic position on scripture.

These documents bring you up to speed very quickly with the more studied approach of the CC towards reading scripture.

Specifically, the literal sense of scripture is important, but you have to look at the scripture very carefully. Specifically, the first PBC document says that Catholics should get a good Catholic commentary on scripture. A good place to look for references is the website from Mike Aquilina and Dr. Scott Hahn, www.salvationhistory.com.

Your faith should be constantly growing and you should be always deepening your understanding of the Catholic Faith, or you will be left in the dust. By all means, read the Bible.

 

[COPLAND_3]

I think the proper distinction to make is between interpreting the Scriptures* literally *and literalistically.

To interpret the Scriptures literally means to read them in the sense they were writen and that the original author wished to convey to his audience. This is one of the four senses of Scripture the the Church encourages us to use. From the Catechism:

This is opposed to the literalistic sense used by fundamentalists and some evangelicals which leads to a subjective and over-personalistic interpretation of Scripture. As Catholics, even though we are encouraged to read, study and ponder Scripture on our own and apply our insights to our own lives, we recognize that the Magisterium is the authentic interpreter of Scripture.

Good point! My point that I was making is that we as Catholics don’t need to be afraid of the literal sense of the book of Revelation, as I often see is the case, almost as if Catholics think that if Fundamentalists do it then we are to take the complete opposite approach. Believe it or not Fundamentalists with half a brain understand that Revelation is full of symbolic language that is not to be taken as is. Too often Catholics wrongly accuse them of things that they don’t actually do in order to bring redicule on them. That is not necessary, we as Catholics don’t need to manipulate the arguement to bring a stronger case because we have the fulness of the Truth. I have seen too many great apologists (such as Carl Olsen, Scott Hahn, etc) use misrepresenting tactics like that and it misguides some Catholics. I love Olsen and Hahn and the others but I am trying to fair about it too.

This is opposed to the literalistic sense used by fundamentalists and some evangelicals which leads to a subjective and over-personalistic interpretation of Scripture. As Catholics, even though we are encouraged to read, study and ponder Scripture on our own and apply our insights to our own lives, we recognize that the Magisterium is the authentic interpreter of Scripture.

It can be used as a subjective interpretation but I believe that even the spiritual sense can be done exactly the same way, I see it all the time. But as you pointed out, we have the Magesterium as our inspired guidance, and that is what draws that line between us and non-Catholics.

The only thing that concerns me is that many Catholics seem to have developed a distrust for the literal sense of Scripture.

 

[Ruthie]

…the 1993 guide from the Pontifical Biblical Commission on the Interpretation of Scripture in the Church. You will find it in the document library of www.ewtn.com.

It’s here. I could only find it by Googling it, not by searching on EWTN!

Thanks for drawing my attention to it, Crumpy.

God bless us all,

Ruthie