The second chapter of McGrath’s text provides a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the Christian Bible. It explores first the meaning of the word itself and how this derivative of a Greek term has come to mean sacred or Holy Scripture for those in the Christian church. The Bible itself is really a collection of Hebrew and Christian writings spanning four thousand years. The Hebrew writings include religious law, history and revelation through prophetic works, as well as practical insights into life. The Christian writings include the Gospels – the story of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the world – and writings of early Christians in the form of pastoral letters and letters about the faith generally ending with an apocalyptic vision. This combination – Hebrew and Christian – of sacred or holy scripture offers mankind a continuing attempt among Jews and then Christians to understand mankind’s relationship with God. It explicitly suggests continuity between the understanding of Hebrew experience of the Divine and that of those who encountered Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry and those whom he charged with sharing his Gospel.
The early Christian church didn’t quickly create the Bible as these congregations were dispersed over most of the Roman Empire. Instead, a gradual consensus among those congregations, or perhaps more appropriately the Bishops of those congregations, regarding those writings to be considered sacred or Holy Scripture emerged. First came agreement on that the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were sacred or holy because of their contents and as a result of their understood author being an apostle of Jesus Christ. It wasn’t until the fourth century CE that the New Testament as we see it today was agreed upon by the Christian church. Authorship, authority and use in worship determined the writings included. In essence, the writings selected after three hundred years of discernment were those that edified and built the Christian church. It should be noted that most of the writings were originally in Greek only later to be translated into Latin. Not until Wycliffe’s English translation in the fourteenth century CE did it move into another language, and then it was only a translation of the Latin (and not the original Greek). Translations of translations, if seems, can be prone to error both as a matter of poor understanding, purposeful or intended adjustment and the passage of time changing the vernacular of a particular language. Perhaps one of the most wonderful outcomes of the Reformation in the sixteenth century CE was the desire to translate the Bible from the original Greek so as to remove any intended or unintended changes therein.
McGrath provides a very useful summary of the methods of Biblical interpretation – literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical – that I’m unfamiliar with and therefore need to study in more detail. This “fourfold sense of Scripture” was a common methodology for Biblical study in the Middle Ages, and for me seems just as relevant and useful today. He then moves into the use of the Bible as a source of Christian spirituality. As someone who has used Lectio Divina as a practice for prayerful study of Scripture, his historical summary of this topic reflects in many ways what the current method used by many appears to be; that is, to study Scripture, reflect and ponder upon it, open one’s heart to contemplate it and then seek prayer through it.
Learning about the Protestant introduction of Biblical commentaries was also something I didn’t realize was a result of the Reformation, but is likewise another wonderful outcome of the Reformation. He ends the chapter with a discussion of Biblical imagery focusing upon “light” and “dark” in his summation of the topic. It would be useful as a Dominican Friar to use this technique in preparing a homily that is more easily understood and useful to those listening. It certainly made for an engaging expression of the concept regarding “light” and “dark” in the Bible.
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