But you are assuming that the OT is a history book. That is NOT how it is interpreted by the Jewish people including Jesus. Instead those stories are the myths (meaning the collective consciousness) of the Jewish people. They convey meaning on many levels. To treat them as historical facts simply misses most of the point.
The real life plight of the Jewish being summed up as a ‘myth’ is not what we’re taught in the CC. Jesus said he came to
complete not *do away with *Holy Scripture. So saying ‘myth’ is as if we are saying Jesus completes a
myth - a nothing. I don’t think this is what you were trying to say and possibly just used the wrong word because the rest of what you write seems to disagree with that statement:
When we come to Christianity, the beauty of it is that Christ uses all of the meaning and context of the OT to explain things. Everything in scripture has depth and layers of meaning which is why it is fruitful to meditate on it.
- as you said here, Christ uses the OT to elucidate its foundations in Him. There is profound meaning, as you have said, in the various types of writing.
Some things in scripture are factual, some are metaphorical, some are parables, some are all at the same time. Can you tell the difference? Do you know the clues? /
You just said some parts *are factual *here. So if parts are factual then the
whole cannot be summed up as a myth.
This
is a history, but made up of various types of writing, which some it is said are not to be taken literally, which is why exegesis is a complicated affair. We do have Catholic commentaries to guide us through study of the OT. But we have to treat the OT with loving reverence and veneration because much of Holy Scripture is considered to be divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. And because it contains Christ Himself and holy prophets respectful care has to be taken not to just rubbish some areas.
I agree that I think there is a certain amount of leniency when it comes to interpreting the OT ourselves because God speaks to us personally through the OT too but it’s good to check on known references as well. And what you said here:
And since you learned it, you can start to understand the meaning and how it applies to your own spiritual journey
I think is true also. It is definitely a personal journey also but in many ways never separated from the pilgrimage of the Jews who also had their own pilgrimage of faith as a persecuted people (apart from the fact that we have the benefit to be able to find Jesus in those texts).
I want to reiterate for the other posters here that what you said about it not being a history book is not completely accurate. I would say that it is not just a history book - * it does contain history * - but this history is written in
various forms.
You mentioned it being written cryptically and intended to be that way? Not sure what you mean? The priests did a pretty intense job of getting as accurate translations as they could when they put the Hebrew Scriptures together and also the scribes when they did the translations into the Greek Septuagint. The irregularities crept in when the Bible translations containing the OT and NT began to differ (I think?) hundreds and hundreds of years on. If you meant that it is hard to understand, then this will be because of cultural differences between us and them and their different forms of writing, which is why experts in the field of exegesis have interpreted the OT by at first analysing what the people who lived in those times were probably like and how and why they may have expressed themselves in such and such a way.
