What do you think causes misinterpretation of Scripture?

[patrick457]

As per title, what do you think causes many people to misinterpret Scripture?

Personally, I think that it is a factor of:

1. 
   *]Lack of recognition of the Bible as an ancient work. Many people, believers and critics alike, approach the Bible and read it in their modern-day Western cultural lenses. The Scriptures may be holy, but they are still works written in another time period. Thus, one should at least have an understanding of the Ancient Near Eastern/Greco-Roman culture in order to understand the Bible more clearly.
   
   *]Lack of knowledge about Ancient Near Eastern (and Greco-Roman) culture.
   
   *]Lack of understanding on the various nuances of the original languages.
   
   *]Injecting one’s own personal interpretations and bias into the Text.
   
   *]Divorcing one passage from its context. The Bible is NOT a collection of chapters and verses that one could cherry-pick without risking the loss of proper context. The chapter-and-verse depictions themselves were only introduced during the early half of the Middle Ages! It is also wise that one should not divorce Scripture from its proper historical context; the language, the social background, and the literary background of the Bible are all components which affect its meaning (see numbers 1-3 above).
   
   *]Assuming that the Scriptures can interpret themselves and rejecting any “outside help”. This is related to factor number 4. By far, this is the most dangerous mistake that people do: they try to read the Text itself without any outside, extra-scriptural assistance (the most extreme form of this is that we could not even use Greek or Hebrew dictionaries to understand the words of the Scriptures!), and their cultural and ideological biases lead them to conclusions that no sacred writer had ever thought of.
   
   We need to remember that the Bible was written in what is called a “high-context” society. In such societies people presume a broadly shared, well-understood, or ‘high’ knowledge of the context of anything referred to in conversation or in writing. Readers were required and expected to “fill in the gap” because their background knowledge was a given. Extended explanations were unnecessary. In contrast, other cultures, such as Germanic ones and its descendants, are “low-context” societies, where it is assumed that there is little or no knowledge of the context of a communication. The obvious problem this creates for reading the biblical writings today, say in modern-day America, is that “low-context” readers frequently mistake Biblical writings for low-context documents. They erroneously assume that the author has provided all of the contextual information needed to understand it. This is why Catholics are of the belief we need Sacred Tradition hand-in-hand with Sacred Scripture: the Catholic Church is “high-context”!
   
   What do you all think?

 

[tobinatorstark]

ignorance of the truth. To many people the truth hurts

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Because by the judgment of God, and by His providence, the Scriptures are veiled and hidden from the understanding of the unbelievers, heretics and schismatics. Only with the help of His Church, viz: through the Levitical Priesthood, and Jewish Tradition up until the coming of the Messiah, and through the Magisterium and Tradition of the Catholic Church until today, can the Scriptures be understood. All other attempts will lead people into error or worse. The Protestant tower of Babel is both and example and a warning.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Exegesis is the drawing out the meaning from Scripture. Isogesis is the cramming of my interpretation into Scripture. Much misinterpretation is due to scholars who do the later.

 

[COPLAND_3]

I think the most important thing is to interpret Scripture in the light of the Catholic Church, especially when it relates to Church Doctrine. As for those portions that do not involve those things that are necessay to believe, I personally feel it is best to seek insights from the saints, especially the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. You just can’t go wrong with a Bible commentary by St. Thomas Aquinas or St. John Chrysostom.

I don’t think it is always safe to interpret Scripture based upon the early cultures, because how people understand the cultures of the ancients can differ depending on what history book you read, especially with all the revisionist historians out there trying to rewrite history to further their agendas.

Understanding the ancient Biblical languages does have its advantages, but still that is not full-proof, as you see every demination under the sun using the ancient languages to “prove” their case.

It just boils down to the rich tradition of the Catholic Church!

 

[Axion]

All of the above.

I also think there’s a strong self-serving element in much “individual interpretation” of scripture. Either consciously or unconsciously, the reader wants to prove a point, make a specific argument, justify some action of his own, or condemn some action of another person.

Such people are led toward certain verses, and then build them up in their own mind as central , while forcing their own desire or meaning on them. I heartily distrust single-verse quoters, since single verses are incredibly easy to misunderstand and twist into something far different to what they were intended.

 

[patrick457]

I think the most important thing is to interpret Scripture in the light of the Catholic Church, especially when it relates to Church Doctrine. As for those portions that do not involve those things that are necessay to believe, I personally feel it is best to seek insights from the saints, especially the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. You just can’t go wrong with a Bible commentary by St. Thomas Aquinas or St. John Chrysostom.

Good point! I neglected to mention that the Church Fathers, being more closer to the time period, culture, and thinking of the Bible than most of us moderns are very valuable “outside help”; that, and Sacred Tradition. The Church Herself and Her beliefs I find to be much closer to Biblical thinking than the low-context “the-Bible-alone-is-sufficient-so-do-it-yourself” Christian denominations. No wonder since it was Her who made the Bible as it is today.

 

[patrick457]

Anyone else?

 

[Tim_Taylor]

I think Ambrose appropriately said that the Scriptures are veiled. In particular in symbolism, ambiguity leading those not Catholic, astray. That’s party true. But it subscribes too much authority only to the Scripture as if the words themselves have such power to know and not to know. Rather we are lead to the idea of Blind Guides, to darkness and light. This concept is clearest, i believe at the Cross of CHRIST. To either side of CHRIST is a thief, both sinners, but one repents, humbly calling upon the LORD. The other mocks the LORD and does not repent. This leads us to one believing and the other not believing. Again we see the followers of CHRIST put to the test, so to speak. When JESUS CHRIST gives them a “hard teaching”. Some could not accept it, but the Apostles remained believing. Why is this so? But again if we look to the Cross we see the answer, in the Darkness of a sinner, and the Light of a sinner, to either side of the Cross. Or again in the saying from the Scripture, that when the blind lead the blind, both fall into a pit.

But rather i say the WORD of GOD is the JESUS CHRIST. The Scriptures are a fruit of that TRUTH. To know the WORD, we must know JESUS CHRIST. And how is it we know we know JESUS CHRIST? Because we keep his commandments. I suggest to you, that it is our humble obedience in following CHRIST, that leads us to all TRUTH. Because everyone who hears the TRUTH hears the voice of JESUS CHRIST.

The Scriptures do not teach themselves. This is why the Scriptures also say we must find Apostolic Teachers of the word. The wise man admits his ignorance, needing to be taught. And again the Scriptures say receive instruction and not money. We must receive JESUS CHRIST, reject the world, remain humble and contrite before the LORD. Our path to TRUTH, to LIFE, is the WAY HIMSELF . . . JESUS CHRIST. And this of course means following in the LORD’s footsteps along a straight and narrow path.

Amen
LOVE your neighbor as yourself.
GOD bless you all.