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Q.
Is there a right or wrong way to read the Bible?
José F. Morales Jr.
A.
There are right and wrong ways to read the Bible. I used to move
within certain church circles that said there was objective Truth
(with a capital “T”). Because of “objective Truth,” they argued that
logically there could only be one way to read scripture.
I later discovered that the only way was their way, and that their way was
laden with a racist and classist agenda: protecting the status quo of the white
suburban dominance. Although John 8:32 says the truth will set you free, as a
Latino from “da ’hood,” there was nothing freeing to me about their readings.
At the other end of the spectrum, postmodernism challenges this idea
of objective Truth, and claims at its most extreme that there is no truth. Theo-
logian Catherine Keller, in On the Mystery (Fortress Press, 2008), has labeled
these two extremes “absolute” and “dissolute.” She argues that neither is help-
ful nor faithful.
I always refer to the story in Luke 10 of the lawyer who asks Jesus,
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus then answers with a question,
“What is written in the law? What do you read there?” The Good News Bible
paraphrases the second question: “How do you interpret it?” In other words,
what’s the right way to read the scriptures? The lawyer answers correctly,
“Love God... love neighbor.” St. Augustine, that great early church father,
put it succinctly when he said that any reading of the Bible that gets in the
way of loving God and/or neighbor is a wrong interpretation.
We read the Bible to be freed to love, to be empowered to love. To under-
stand what this “love” thing really is, I recommend starting with the Bible.
Joshua Toulouse
A.
While there no doubt are traditions that will tell you exactly
how the Bible is to be read, the Bible doesn’t come with a how-to
manual. All anyone can really give you on this question is her or
his own opinion, so the easy answer is no, there is no explicitly right or wrong
way to read the Bible.
Some people read the Bible to fi nd answers on what exactly they should
believe about moral issues, some for inspiration, and others to learn more
about where their religion came from or as a guide for where it should be
headed. All of these are legitimate ways of reading the Bible, and we all can
fi nd ourselves responding to the Bible in any or all of these ways, as well as
others, at different points in our lives, and that is completely acceptable.
To get the most out of the Bible, use the many commentaries available to
learn more about the historical context that shaped the writing of the books.
It is also helpful to recognize that there are different understandings of how