Quotes About Interpretation

We trust the text not because it is "true" in the sense of fact, but because in its infinite variety it points to the truth and communicates truth because it comes from the truth which

language of the Bible is meant always to point us to a truth beyond the text, a meaning that transcends the particular and imperfectly understood context of the original writers, and our own prejudices and parochialisms that we bring to the text. Literalism is not part of the solution to this

than not, that we read scripture not only in the light of our own culture but as a means of defining and defending that very culture over and against which scripture by its very nature is meant to stand. In other words, scripture is invariably used to support the status

This relationship among author, text, and reader is known in the literary trade as

How can one interpret a Bible "full of alien genealogies, barbaric practices, strange prophecies, and eccentric epistles"? While we

Interpretation is the fuel that drives understanding. The making of meaning is what

There are no heroes and there are no villains. There are just opposing points of view. That's all history is...the viciously long battle between world views.

Perspective. Everything was about perspective. One man's darkness was another man's daylight. How come so many people did not realize that?

La incapacidad de relativizar el sentido común cuando abordamos la Biblia tiene efectos perniciosos en la teología y, por ende, en la vida eclesial y en la evangelización.

He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had:

He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that you have had? Will your mother and brothers and I actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”

and imprisoned them in the house of the captain of the guard, the same prison where Joseph was confined.

both of these men—the Egyptian kingís cupbearer and baker, who were being held in the prison—had a dream on the same night, and each dream had its own meaning.

When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were distraught.

“We both had dreams,” they replied, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Donít interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream: “In my dream there was a vine before me,

Joseph replied, “This is the interpretation: The three branches are three days.

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: There were three baskets of white bread on my head.

In the top basket were all sorts of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”

Joseph replied, “This is the interpretation: The three baskets are three days.

On the third day, which was Pharaohís birthday, he held a feast for all his officials, and in their presence he lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.

But Pharaoh hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had described to them in his interpretation.

After two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing beside the Nile,

After them, seven other cows, sickly and thin, came up from the Nile and stood beside the well-fed cows on the bank of the river.