Can anyone interpret the Bible?

The following text is the transcript of our Youtube video Can ANYONE Interpret the Bible?.

This video is part of a series on “The Sources of Faith”. You can find all the videos in the series here.

Welcome to Catholic Hub! I’m David, and in this video I’m going to tell you about the Catholic teachings on the interpretation of Holy Scripture.

I’m going to talk about why the Bible needs interpretation, whether an authentic interpretation of Holy Scripture actually exists, and finally, where this interpretation might be found.

We’ll also briefly discuss the reading of the Bible, whether it’s good to do so, and which translations you should read.

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First of all, let’s talk about the interpretation of Holy Scripture. Interpretation simply means to explain the meaning of a passage of words - and most of the time, interpretation or explanation of a text isn’t required, because the meaning is already clear and easy to grasp. So it’s actually a valid question to ask - do the words of the Bible even need explaining?

No one who has read even one book of the Bible will deny that Holy Scripture needs interpretation. The Scriptures are frequently so difficult that it’s simply absurd to say that it is an easy thing for everybody to read and understand them.

St. Peter himself says (2 Pet. 3:16) that in the Epistles of St. Paul:

There are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable wrest to their own destruction

and he adds:

as they do also the other Scriptures

So it’s clear that St. Peter recognised the difficulty in understanding Scripture and didn’t approve of haphazard and unguided interpretation of the Bible.

In the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 8:26-31) the Deacon Philip asked the eunuch from Ethiopia, who was reading a passage of the Prophet Isaias:

“Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest?”

And the eunuch answered:

“And how can I, unless some man show me?”

St. Augustine, one of the greatest Fathers of the Church, is said to have confessed:

There are more things in the Bible which I cannot understand, than those which I can understand.”

Since Holy Scripture is the work of the Holy Ghost, its meaning can be rightly and infallibly explained by Him alone or under His guidance. Now, God did not promise the Holy Ghost to every reader of the Bible, but only to the Catholic Church. So the Catholic Church alone can explain the Scriptures with infallible certainty. No one is allowed to put an interpretation on any passage in the Bible contrary to that of the Church.

This can be seen from the fact that since the Church is the divinely appointed custodian of revelation, it is evidently her office to preserve not only the letter of the Scriptures, but also their meaning. The Church, therefore, is the authentic and infallible interpreter of Scripture.

“What else,” says St. Augustine, “gives rise to so many heresies, except that the Scripture, which is excellent in itself, is falsely interpreted?”

And as William Shakespeare reminds us:

“The devil can quote Scripture to his purpose”

The Merchant of Venice

What he meant by this was that it is very easy to ascribe a certain meaning to the words of Holy Scripture.

Finally, here is an extract from the Council of Trent, Session 4, Second Decree:

In order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall, in matters of faith and of morals, pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures, hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

As mentioned, the approved interpretation of the Bible is that which is held and taught universally by the Church, as well as that which is contained in the commentaries on Holy Scripture produced by the Doctors and Fathers of the Church.

Almost every Father of the Church has written commentaries or explanations of all or part of Holy Scripture, and the Church forbids the faithful from holding an interpretation of Scripture which is contrary to the commonly-held opinion of the Church Fathers.

If you would like to obtain a deeper understanding of the meanings of a passage of Holy Scripture, then I highly recommend that you read one of the commentaries on that passage from a Doctor of the Church, such as St Jerome, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, St Gregory the Great.

There are also more recent commentaries, which are derived from these Doctors of the Church, such as the Haydock Bible, which has a parallel commentary of the Old and the New Testament along with the verses. This was originally published between 1811 and 1814 by Father George Leo Haydock, who states in the preface that:

To obviate the misinterpretations of the many heretical works which disgrace the Scripture, and deluge this unhappy country, has been one main design of the present undertaking.

You can read the Haydock bible online for free at haydockcommentary.com (as well as many bible study websites), and it’s also available in print from most Catholic bookstores.

Since it is the Church that teaches us what we must believe in order to be saved, it is not necessary for the Catholic to read the Scriptures to search out the truth for himself. We can gain a knowledge of the truths of revelation by listening attentively to the living teaching of the Church.

St Paul says:

Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing is through the word of Christ

Romans 10:17

Hence there is no divine precept commanding the Christian to read the Bible specifically, since it is sufficient for Christians to hear the word of God through preaching.

You should remember that in olden times many people couldn’t read or write, and as I’ve mentioned in a previous video, the Bible wasn’t widely distributed in written form until the Middle Ages - and even then, these manuscripts were considered very precious and hard to come by.

So the majority of Christians learnt the Catholic faith through the preaching of the Apostles and their successors, and not by reading Holy Scripture themselves.

But although there is no strict obligation to read the Scriptures, all the same, such reading is, in the words of St. Paul, “profitable unto salvation.” St. Gregory the Great calls the Scriptures “a letter which Almighty God addressed to mankind.”

And no book has been so often and so highly recommended to the faithful as the Bible. Pope Leo XIII granted an indulgence of 300 days to all the faithful who spend at least a quarter of an hour each day in devoutly reading the Gospels, and a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions once a month for this daily reading.

The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 says in its Pastoral Letter:

“It can hardly be necessary to remind you, beloved brethren, that the most highly valued treasure of every family library, and the most frequently and lovingly to be made use of, should be the Holy Scriptures.”

It used to be often accused that Catholics were forbidden to read the Bible - and this is absolutely false and frankly ridiculous - on the contrary, as we’ve seen, the Church highly praises the practice of reading the Bible.

It is true that Catholics are not allowed to read just any translation of the Bible, but only such translations as have been approved by the Church. This ecclesiastical approval is commonly expressed by the Latin words Imprimatur and/or Imprimi potest, which means, “It can be printed,” and this is placed either at the beginning or end of the book, together with the name of the approving bishop and the place and date.

Occasionally Catholics were specifically forbidden to read certain translations; but these kinds of enactments were always local and the intention was to protect Catholics from the influence of erroneous and heretical translations or interpretations.

In no instance has the Catholic Church ever prohibited the reading of the Bible in the original texts or in an approved translation.

If you’re an English speaker, then you can hardly do better than to read the Douay Rheims translation as revised by Bishop Challoner. This version is very faithful to the Latin Vulgate and preserves a very traditional English which is really a pleasure to both read and listen to. You can read the Douay Rheims version online at D R B O dot org.

I can’t recommend highly enough that you take up this practice of reading Holy Scripture, daily if possible. You will find that it will greatly deepen your understanding of the faith and your love for God.

If you don’t know where to start, then I’d recommend beginning with the New Testament, which tells of the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the beginnings of the Church.

That’s all for this episode. I hope you found it interesting, please do make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel. Thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.