To read the Bible as a Catholic is first of all an encounter before it is a study: God speaks, and the reader listens. The Church urges every believer to acquire, "by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures, the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ"[1], for "ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ"[2]. This article is a practical guide: where to begin, how to go about it each day, which rules to follow in order to understand correctly, what to do with difficult passages, and how to let the liturgy guide your reading.
Reading as a Catholic changes three concrete things. First, you never read alone: you read with the Church, which received these books, fixed their list, and learned how to understand them for twenty centuries[3]. Second, you seek someone more than knowledge: Christ, the "one Word" God speaks through all the words of Scripture[4]. Finally, you read in prayer: "prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man"[5].
This guide takes for granted the framework other articles set out for its own sake: the formation of the canon and the list of inspired books in The Bible, the doctrine of the senses of Scripture in The Spiritual Sense of Scripture, the choice of a good edition in Which Bible Should You Buy?, and the prayerful way par excellence, lectio divina, in How to Grow in Lectio Divina (with its pitfalls in Frequent Mistakes About Lectio Divina and its witnesses in What the Saints Say About Lectio Divina). Here, you learn the reader's daily gestures.
Why read the Bible, and why as a Catholic?
God speaks, and he speaks to be heard
Catholic faith does not see the Bible as one collection of ancient wisdom among others, but as the Word of God addressed to men. "And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting font of spiritual life"[6]. So you do not open this Book the way you open a manual: you open it the way you pick up the phone when someone calls you.
"The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God's word and of Christ's body." — Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 21[7]
If there are two tables at Mass, the Word and the Eucharist, it is because Christians are fed twice: reading the Bible during the week already means taking your place at the first table.
An ancient thirst, a pressing invitation
Long before printing, monks copied the Bible by hand in order to read it every day: the Rule of Saint Benedict sets aside a substantial time each day for divine reading[8]. After Gutenberg (Bible printed around 1455), the Book became accessible to the Christian people; after the Second Vatican Council, the Church asks that "access to Sacred Scripture be open wide to the Christian faithful"[9]. Pope Francis sums up the invitation with his characteristic simplicity:
"Where do we find [the Lord's answers]? In the Gospel, always kept at hand, opened a few times each day, to receive a word of life addressed to us." — Pope Francis, Angelus of 16 October 2022[10]
And in the same address, the advice repeated "so many times": "keep a pocket Gospel with you, in your pocket, in your bag, and so, when you have a minute, open it and read something, and the Lord will answer"[11].
What reading as a Catholic is not
Three misunderstandings to clear up from the start. First, reading the Bible as a Catholic does not mean reading alone before the text, deciding its meaning by yourself: the article Why Catholics Do Not Follow Sola Scriptura shows why Scripture is received with Tradition and the Magisterium, not against them. Second, it does not mean storing up knowledge: "Christianity is the religion of the 'Word' of God, a word which is 'not a written and mute word, but the Word incarnate and living'"[12]. Finally, it does not mean understanding everything at first glance: Scripture is a river, said Saint Gregory the Great, "both shallow and deep, wherein both the lamb may find a footing, and the elephant float at large"[13]. The beginner walks in it, the scholar swims in it, and both drink from it.
In a few dates: twenty centuries of readers
- 382-405Jerome translates the Vulgate
At Bethlehem, Saint Jerome translates Scripture into Latin from Hebrew and Greek: for more than a thousand years, the West will read the Bible in his version[14].
- 6th centuryBenedict makes reading a rule
The Rule of Saint Benedict makes divine reading a daily obligation: lectio becomes the heart of monastic life[15].
- 1173-1176Guigo II describes the ladder of monks
Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, Guigo II names the four steps of prayerful reading: reading, meditation, prayer, contemplation[16].
- 1455Gutenberg prints the Bible
- 1546Trent fixes the canon
Faced with the Reformation, the Council of Trent solemnly confirms the list of the 73 received books[18].
- 1893-1943The Church encourages scholarly study
- 1965Vatican II: Dei Verbum
The Council urges all the faithful to frequent reading of the Scriptures and fixes the rules of Catholic interpretation[20].
- 1993-2010From the Biblical Commission to Verbum Domini
The Pontifical Biblical Commission (1993) puts the historical-critical method in its rightful place; Benedict XVI (Verbum Domini, 2010) recommends lectio divina to all the faithful[21].
What the Church holds as certain before opening the Book
Before the first page, the Catholic reader receives four certainties. They are not conclusions drawn from reading: they are its starting point, guaranteed by the faith of the Church.
An inspired Word, without error
"Hence Holy Mother the Church... holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author"[22]. And since "everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit," these books "must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation"[23]. Leo XIII had put it bluntly:
"The divine Scriptures, as committed to writing by the sacred writers, are free from all error." — Leo XIII, encyclical Providentissimus Deus (1893)[24]
Concretely, when a passage seems to contradict the faith or another passage, the Catholic reader concludes that he has not yet understood, not that the text was mistaken: the error is looked for on the side of his reading, never placed in the Word.
A twofold author: God and the sacred writers
God is the principal author, but he used men as "true authors," with their language, their culture, and their way of telling[25]. That is why the Church asks us to consider literary forms: "For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse"[26]. You do not read a psalm like minutes of a meeting, nor a parable like a news report, nor Revelation like a newspaper: Pius XII asked the exegete to "discern and recognize what literary forms the writers of that early age intended to use and did in fact use"[27], seeking first of all this:
"Above all, they must strive to discern and determine that sense of the biblical words which is called the literal sense." — Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943)[28]
Faith in inspiration therefore does not exempt us from learning to read: on the contrary, it obliges us to read better, respecting what each author meant to say.
One single plan, one single center: Christ
"Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely"[29]. Christ himself gave the key, on the road to Emmaus: "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk 24:27)[30]. The Old Testament prepares, announces, and prefigures; the New fulfills and unveils: "the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old is unveiled in the New"[31]. So the Catholic reader reads the whole Old Testament toward Christ, and the whole New Testament from Christ: the great prefigurations (Adam, Isaac, the paschal lamb, the bronze serpent, Melchizedek) are catalogued in Figures of Christ in the Old Testament.
Seventy-three books received from the Church
The Catholic Bible has 73 books: 46 for the Old Testament and 27 for the New[32]. It is not the reader who chose this list: it is the Church that discerned and fixed it, at the councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393), and Carthage (397), then solemnly at Trent (fourth session, 1546)[33], and it is she who guarantees it. The seven books proper to Catholics are defended in Why Do Catholics Have Seven Extra Books?, the full history of the canon's formation in How Was the Bible Formed?, and that of the old and new lists in The Canon of the Old Testament and The Canon of the New Testament. Holding on to the essential is enough here: you receive the table of contents before reading the chapters.
The reader's dispositions: with what heart should you open it?
You only read well what you love, and you only listen well to one in whom you believe. Before any method, Catholic reading asks for four interior dispositions.
Faith that listens before arguing
The first gesture is not to understand, but to believe that Someone speaks. Saint Augustine, still an unbeliever and torn apart, heard one day in a garden in Milan the voice of a child singing: "Take up and read, take up and read"[34]. He opened the epistle to the Romans at the passage where his eyes fell: "let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day... but put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 13:13-14)[35], and "all the gloom of doubt vanished away"[36]. The lesson holds for every reader: the Bible does not prove itself before being read, it proves itself by being read, because the one who speaks in it makes himself met there.
The humility of a beginner
No one need blush at not understanding everything: Scripture surpasses every reader, and that is a good sign. Guigo II, prior of Chartreuse in the 12th century, compared holy reading to a meal: reading puts the food to the mouth, meditation chews it, prayer extracts its flavor, contemplation savors its sweetness[37]. In other words, you do not devour the Bible: you ruminate on it, slowly, one piece at a time. The beginner who stumbles over one verse in three reads better than the curious skimmer who races through three chapters without stopping.
Prayer together with reading
"We speak to him when we pray, but we listen to him when we read the divine oracles"[38]. Saint Augustine said likewise to his faithful:
"Your prayer is your word addressed to God. When you read, it is God who speaks to you; when you pray, it is you who speak with God." — Saint Augustine, quoted by Benedict XVI[39]
Concretely: begin with the sign of the cross and a simple request ("Lord, speak to me"), read little, then answer in few words. Saint Josemaria Escriva recalled that "reading has made many saints"[40]: not the reading that stores up, but the reading that becomes prayer.
Perseverance in small steps
Discouragement is the reader's number one enemy: you start Genesis in January, get bogged down in Leviticus in February, give up in March. The Catholic way around it fits in three habits: same hour, same place, same small amount. Fifteen minutes every morning are worth more than three hours on Sunday once a month. And days without taste cancel nothing: faithfulness in dryness is already an answer to the Lord who speaks. The concrete means of holding on (time, place, Gospel first, written notes, silence) are detailed in How to Grow in Lectio Divina, and the missteps to avoid in Frequent Mistakes About Lectio Divina.
Where to begin and in what order to read
The first principle: the Gospel first
The Bible is not a novel to be read from the first to the last page: it is a library, and you enter a library through the main door. For Christians, that door is the Gospel:
"The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Saviour." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 125[41]
Begin with the Gospel according to Saint Mark (the shortest, the most direct) or according to Saint John (the most contemplative), then read the Acts of the Apostles (the sequel of Luke: the birth of the Church), and in parallel one psalm a day: that is the path that has proven itself for a beginner.
Three paths according to where you are
| Path | Books, in order | Suggested pace |
|---|---|---|
| Discovering (first months) | Mark, then John, then Acts; one psalm a day in parallel | 10 to 15 minutes a day |
| Taking root (first year) | Matthew and Luke; Genesis and Exodus as founding narratives; Philippians, James, 1 John; Psalms every day | 15 to 20 minutes a day |
| Going deeper (following years) | Paul's letters in order, the prophets with the help of notes, the wisdom books, Revelation last and never alone | 20 to 30 minutes a day |
This table is an example, not a law: the essential thing is to start small and hold on. The prophets and Revelation require keys (literary forms, context, notes from an approved edition): approaching them without a guide discourages more than it enlightens.
What is best avoided at the start
First classic mistake: wanting to read everything in order, from Genesis to Revelation, like a novel. You cross the founding narratives with joy, then run aground on the laws of Leviticus or the genealogies of Chronicles, and close the Book for a year. Second mistake: tackling the most mysterious texts right away (Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation) without the Church's keys of reading. Third mistake: picking at random, a verse here, a chapter there, never following one book from beginning to end: you collect sentences and you meet no one.
Which text to choose
One sentence is enough here, since the subject has its own guide: read a complete Catholic Bible (73 books), in an approved translation, with notes bearing the imprimatur. See Which Bible Should You Buy?. Footnotes are not a scholar's luxury: for a beginner, they are worth a traveling companion pointing out literary forms, parallel passages, and possible meanings. The text heard at Mass is that of the liturgical translation: finding each Sunday's readings beforehand and rereading them during the week is already a fully drawn reading plan[42].
The simple daily session
Five gestures that suffice
Here is a typical fifteen-to-twenty-minute session, within a beginner's reach and never abandoned by the advanced:
- Choose a short passage (ten to fifteen verses, not a whole chapter), preferably following on from one day to the next in the same book.
- Read slowly, twice, aloud under your breath if possible: the first time to discover, the second to stop at the word or sentence that "catches."
- Stop at that word and ruminate on it: what does it say of Christ? What does it say of me? One single word held on to is worth more than a chapter skimmed.
- Answer the Lord in few words: a request, a thanks, a pardon, an offering. Reading becomes prayer.
- Keep one sentence for the day, learned by heart or noted in a journal: it will come back by itself in the day's trials.
When you understand nothing
That will happen often, and it is not a failure: Saint Peter himself notes that some pages of Paul's letters are hard to understand (2 Pet 3:16)[43]. Three Catholic reflexes: note the question instead of drowning in it; move on without spending hours on an obscurity (what is clear will explain the obscure later); ask: the footnote, the Catechism, the Sunday homily, a priest. The Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah on his chariot without understanding any of it, until Philip climbed up beside him to guide him (Acts 8:30-31)[44]. No one reads well all alone: the eunuch had Philip, we have the Church.
Going further into prayer: the four questions of lectio divina
When the simple session has become a habit, Benedict XVI proposes going deeper with the four moments of lectio divina[45]:
| Step | Name | The question to ask yourself |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Reading | lectio | What does the biblical text say in itself? |
| 2. Meditation | meditatio | What does the biblical text say to us? |
| 3. Prayer | oratio | What do we say to the Lord in response to his word? |
| 4. Contemplation | contemplatio | What conversion of mind, heart, and life is the Lord asking of us? |
Benedict XVI adds the essential:
"Lectio divina... does not end in a dynamic of its own until it leads to action (actio), which moves the believer to make his or her life a gift for others in charity." — Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, § 87[46]
The full path, its degrees, growth, pitfalls, witnesses, is set out in How to Grow in Lectio Divina: turn to it when thirst grows.
The three golden rules for understanding correctly
The Church does not leave the reader without a compass: "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written"[47], and the Council gives three criteria which the Catechism takes up[48].
The unity of all of Scripture
First rule: "be especially attentive to the content and unity of the whole Scripture"[49]. Concretely, the obscure is clarified by the clear: a difficult verse is understood in light of the limpid passages on the same subject, never the reverse. And you never build a doctrine on an isolated verse: a sentence torn from its chapter, its book, and the whole can make the text say the opposite of what it says. So always check the context before concluding.
The living Tradition of the Church
Second rule: "read the Scripture within the living Tradition of the whole Church"[50]. Saint Augustine admitted it: "I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me"[51]. Twenty centuries of Fathers, councils, liturgy, and saints have already read these pages before us: their proven readings (homilies, commentaries, Catechism) protect us from personal whims. "Everything to do with the interpretation of Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church"[52]: not to bridle intelligence, but to keep it in the truth.
The analogy of faith
Third rule: "be attentive to the analogy of faith"[53], that is, to the coherence of each truth with the whole of the faith. An interpretation contradicting a defined dogma (the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Real Presence) is false by definition, however ingenious: God does not contradict himself. This is the safeguard that rules out sectarian readings and whims from the start: if my reading contradicts the faith of the Church, it is my reading that must be corrected.
The literal sense first, always
Saint Thomas Aquinas fixed the hierarchy which the Catechism takes up:
"All the senses of Sacred Scripture find their support in the literal sense." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 1, a. 10, quoted by Catechism § 116[54]
Before seeking what a text means for me, then, seek what the inspired author meant for his first readers. The beautiful spiritual senses come afterwards, never in its place: the article The Spiritual Sense of Scripture sets out this doctrine (allegorical, moral, anagogical) for its own sake. Holding on to the hierarchy is enough here: the literal carries, the spiritual clarifies.
The rule of charity, the test of every interpretation
Saint Augustine gives a criterion of admirable simplicity: the fulfillment and end of all of Scripture is the twofold love of God and neighbor[55]. Hence:
"Whoever thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought; but if he draws from them a meaning which tends to build up charity, his error is not pernicious." — Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I, 36[56]
In other words: a reading that makes you more loving is on the right path; a reading that makes you hard, contemptuous, or proud has taken the wrong road, even if it quotes correctly.
Difficult passages: what to do?
Sooner or later, every reader comes upon a page that shocks or repels. Here are the four most frequent cases, with the Catholic key to each.
| Difficulty | Example | Key of reading |
|---|---|---|
| The hard sayings of Christ | "Hating" one's father and mother (Lk 14:26) | Read the strong word in its language: the liturgical translation clarifies, "without preferring me to his father, his mother..."[57]; Christ asks for first place, not hatred |
| The violence of the Old Testament | Wars, massacres, vengeance | Gradual divine pedagogy: these books "though they contain matters imperfect and provisional" bear witness to a true pedagogy of God[58]; all was "written for our instruction" (Rom 15:4)[59] |
| The angry psalms | Calls for vengeance against enemies | Pray them with Christ, who forgives from the height of the cross: the psalmist's anger becomes the confession of our own darkness, handed over to mercy |
| Numbers and visions | Beasts, seals, a thousand years, dates of the end | Apocalyptic genre: coded images for the persecuted, not a calendar; the Church refuses to fix the date of the end (Mt 24:36)[60] |
The strong language of the East
The Bible often speaks with absolute words where our modern languages would shade things: "hate" for "love less," "all" for "many," "to the end of the age" for "forever." This is not exaggeration, it is a way of speaking: the literary forms of the time require it, and the Council asks us to take them into account[61]. When Jesus says you must "hate" father and mother, the liturgical translation faithfully renders the meaning: "without preferring me to his father, his mother, his wife, his children... he cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:26)[62]. The shock of the ancient word remains, to wake us; its true meaning crushes no one.
The Old Testament, a school before being a scandal
The violent pages of the Old Testament trouble honest readers, and that is healthy. The Church's answer fits in two words: gradual pedagogy. God educated his people step by step, "like a father," through centuries of hardness; these narratives keep "a lasting value" and "in them the mystery of our salvation is hidden"[63]. So read them from Christ: he alone shows how far God's love goes, and in that light the ancient shadows are explained without being erased or softly excused. The Church "has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void"[64]: rejecting it would amputate the Gospel of its roots.
Never calculate the end of the world
Revelation and the discourses on the end fascinate and unsettle. The Catholic rule is clear: these texts console persecuted Christians with images, they do not deliver a calendar. Christ himself said: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (Mt 24:36)[65]. Every dated prediction therefore contradicts the very Scripture it claims to explain: read these pages to hope, never to calculate.
The Bible in liturgical life: reading with the whole Church
Mass, the school of reading
The Council teaches it forcefully:
"Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung." — Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, § 24[66]
The simplest advice for progressing: arrive at Mass having already read the readings. The Sunday texts are available beforehand (missals, apps): reading them the evening before, even quickly, changes everything. You listen instead of discovering, and the homily becomes "the explanation received from the Church" instead of a speech you endure.
The liturgical year, a ready-made reading plan
The Church distributes the Gospels over three years: Matthew (year A), Mark (year B), then Luke (year C), with John returning every year, notably in Eastertide[67]. Following this cycle means reading the whole Bible in three years without thinking about it: each Sunday brings a passage from the Old Testament, a psalm, an epistle, and a Gospel, chosen to clarify one another. The article The Liturgical Year details this calendar: readers who follow it never read at random, they read at the pace of the whole Church.
The psalms, the daily prayer of the Church
The 150 psalms are the prayer the Church never ceases: priests, religious, and more and more lay people sing them every day in the Liturgy of the Hours. Christ himself prayed them, even on the cross. For the beginning reader, one psalm a day, read slowly, as a prayer and not as a text to be understood, teaches every tone of prayer: praise, lament, trust, pardon. "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Ps 119:105)[68]: the psalmist sang it, the reader verifies it.
Mary, the model reader
No one has read Scripture better than the Virgin Mary: before events she did not yet understand, "Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Lk 2:19)[69]. Keeping, then pondering: that is exactly this article's method, before the fact. The article How to Grow in Lectio Divina shows her "first in lectio": beginning each reading by entrusting it to her means securing the best of teachers.
What modern exegesis proposes, and its limits
The Catholic reader will sooner or later come across bewildering claims: "Moses did not write the Pentateuch," "the Gospels are late," "that narrative is a legend." This section loyally sets out what one part of contemporary exegesis proposes, then shows why the traditional positions remain defensible. The full case is unfolded in The Catholic Interpretation of the Bible.
What the Church expects of biblical scholarship
The Church is not afraid of scholarship: she demands it. Pius XII wanted exegetes trained in ancient languages, textual criticism, and archaeology, in order to establish the literal sense solidly[70]. The Pontifical Biblical Commission goes so far as to call the historical-critical method "indispensable" to the scientific study of ancient texts, since Scripture is also "the word of God in human language," composed by human authors[71]. The Dead Sea manuscripts, papyri, inscriptions: these discoveries, presented in The Qumran Manuscripts and The Manuscripts of the Bible, have confirmed the faithfulness of transmission far more often than they have shaken it. Scholarship is thus the servant of believing reading, never its mistress.
The traditional positions first
Before any recent hypothesis, here is what the Church received and never abandoned: Moses for the Pentateuch, David and Solomon at the heart of the Psalms and the Wisdom books, the prophets for the books bearing their names, the apostles and their companions for the New Testament[72]. These attributions rest on ancient witnesses (Jewish tradition, the Fathers of the first centuries), on internal evidence (the text itself, its claims of authorship, its coherence), on canonical reception (it is under these names that the books were received as Scripture), and on liturgical use (it is thus that they have been read and prayed for twenty centuries). A challenge must therefore weigh heavily to prevail: the age and continuity of a witness are proofs, not prejudices.
The fragilities of recent reconstructions
One part of contemporary exegesis proposes late datings and divisions into multiple sources. Catholic readers know them without idolizing them, for they suffer from recurring fragilities: hypothetical reconstructions presented as facts (a given "source" exists in no manuscript); circular datings (a text is dated late because a prophecy is assumed unable to precede the event, then that date proves the prophecy came after the fact); an anti-supernatural presupposition that rules out miracle and prophecy in advance instead of examining them; the argument from silence (an event is not mentioned elsewhere, therefore it did not happen); extrapolations from incomplete fragments. That is why the Church asks us never to write "research has demonstrated" when it is an interpretive hypothesis: say "one part of contemporary exegesis proposes," then answer.
Neither fundamentalism nor skepticism
The Church refuses both extremes with equal clarity. On one side, fundamentalist reading, taking everything in a materially literal way while ignoring literary forms and history, is "dangerous," for it "offers pious but illusory interpretations" and "invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide"[73]. On the other, exegesis that dissolves the text, keeping only hypotheses, betrays its mission: the historical-critical method "involves in itself no a priori" when well used, but it must remain open to other approaches and not be combined with a philosophical system deciding the result in advance[74]. Between the two: Catholic reading, a text that is true, read in its literary form, received in Tradition, ordered to Christ.
To go further
- Read The Bible: the canon, the 73 books, the languages, the manuscripts, and inspiration in apologetic mode.
- Read The Spiritual Sense of Scripture: the doctrine of the four senses (literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical) and its patristic sources.
- Read How to Grow in Lectio Divina: the prayerful way step by step, with Frequent Mistakes About Lectio Divina and What the Saints Say About Lectio Divina.
- Read The Catholic Interpretation of the Bible: the full case for the rules of interpretation and the historical-critical debate.
- Read Which Bible Should You Buy?: choosing a complete, well-annotated Catholic edition.
- Read How Was the Bible Formed?, The Canon of the Old Testament, and The Canon of the New Testament: the history of the list of inspired books.
- Read Why Do Catholics Have Seven Extra Books?: the defense of the deuterocanonical books.
- Read Figures of Christ in the Old Testament: Adam, Isaac, the paschal lamb, Melchizedek, and the other prefigurations.
- Read The Manuscripts of the Bible and The Qumran Manuscripts: the transmission of the text through the centuries.
- Read The Liturgical Year: following the cycle of readings Sunday after Sunday.
- Hold on to the heart of the matter: the Bible is read with the Church (unity, Tradition, analogy of faith), toward Christ (every spiritual sense is founded on the literal and leads to him), in prayer (reading becomes dialogue), every day (the Gospel first, one short passage, one sentence kept), and without fear of objections (neither fundamentalism nor skepticism: the received Tradition remains defensible).
Notes and References
Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum on Divine Revelation (18 November 1965), § 25: "Hence the Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful... to learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures the 'surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ' (Phil. 3:8). 'For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.'" Official text: vatican.va.
1 20Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 133: "The Church 'forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful... to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ' (St. Jerome, Comm. Is., Prol.: PL 24, 17B)" (Dei Verbum 25).
2Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 113: "Read the Scripture within 'the living Tradition of the whole Church.'"
3 50Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 102: "Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely (cf. Heb 1:1-3)."
4 29Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 25: "Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man, for 'we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles.'"
5 38Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 131: "'And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting font of spiritual life' (DV 21). Hence 'access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful' (DV 22)."
6 9Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 21: "The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God's word and of Christ's body."
7Rule of Saint Benedict (6th century), chap. 48: the day shared between manual work, common prayer, and divine reading (lectio divina), with a daily time of reading as obligation, the matrix of Western monastic life.
8 15Pope Francis, Angelus, Saint Peter's Square, Sunday 16 October 2022 (29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year C, on Lk 18:1-8): "Where do we find [the Lord's answers]? In the Gospel, always kept at hand, opened a few times each day, to receive a word of life addressed to us"; and: "keep a pocket Gospel with you, in your pocket, in your bag, and so, when you have a minute, open it and read something, and the Lord will answer" (our translation from the Italian). Text: vatican.va.
10 11Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 108: "The Christian faith is not a 'religion of the book.' Christianity is the religion of the 'Word' of God, a word which is 'not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living' (St. Bernard, Hom. in Missus Est 4, 11)."
12Saint Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job (Moral Commentary on Job), dedicatory letter to Leander of Seville, § IV: Scripture is like a river "both shallow and deep, wherein both the lamb may find a footing, and the elephant float at large" (our translation). Verified original: "It is, as it were, a kind of river, if I may so liken it, which is both shallow and deep, wherein both the lamb may find a footing, and the elephant float at large."
13Saint Jerome (c. 347-420), retired at Bethlehem, translated the Old Testament from Hebrew and revised the New Testament on the Greek (382-405): the Vulgate, the Bible of the whole Latin West for more than a thousand years. See the article The Vulgate.
14Guigo II the Carthusian (9th prior of the Grande Chartreuse, elected 1173, died 1188 or 1193), letter on the contemplative life known as the Ladder of Monks (Scala claustralium): the four steps of holy reading are reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation (Latin lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio), compared to the moments of a meal: putting food to the mouth, chewing it, extracting its flavor, savoring its sweetness.
16 37So-called "Gutenberg" Bible, Mainz, around 1455: the first great book printed in the West with movable type; Scripture becomes materially accessible to the Christian people.
17Catechism, § 120 (quoting DS 1501-1504: decree of the Council of Trent, fourth session, 8 April 1546, on the canon of the Scriptures). The councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393), and Carthage III (397) had already received the same list; see the article The Bible for the full history of the canon.
18 33Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943), on the literal sense: "above all, they must strive to discern and determine that sense of the biblical words which is called the literal sense. They must take the greatest care to discover this literal sense of the words by means of a knowledge of languages, with the help of the context and comparison with similar passages" (our translation).
19 28 70Benedict XVI, apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini (30 September 2010), § 86 ("Prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture and lectio divina"): "The Synod frequently insisted on the need for a prayerful approach to the sacred text as a fundamental element in the spiritual life of every believer... The word of God is at the basis of all authentic Christian spirituality"; quoting Saint Augustine: "Your prayer is your word addressed to God. When you read, God speaks to you; when you pray, you speak with God." Text: vatican.va.
21 39Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 11: "Hence Holy Mother the Church... holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 20:31; 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:19-21; 3:15-16), they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself"; "since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation."
22 23Leo XIII, encyclical Providentissimus Deus on Sacred Scripture (18 November 1893): the divine Scriptures, "as committed to writing by the sacred writers, are free from all error." Text: vatican.va.
24Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 105 (quoting Dei Verbum, § 11): the Church "holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."
25Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 12: "To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to 'literary forms.' For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse."
26 61Pius XII, encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu on biblical studies (30 September 1943): the exegete must "discern and recognize what literary forms the writers of that early age intended to use and did in fact use," provided "the manner employed is in no way opposed to the holiness and truth of God" (our translation). Text: vatican.va.
27Luke 24:27 (disciples of Emmaus), liturgical rendering: "And, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself"; cf. Lk 24:44.
30Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 129: "'The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old is unveiled in the New' (St. Augustine, Quaest. in Hept. 2, 73; cf. DV 16)."
31Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 120: "It contains 46 (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one) writings for the Old Testament and 27 for the New (cf. DS 179; 1334-1336; 1501-1504)," followed by the complete list of the 73 books.
32Saint Augustine, Confessions, book VIII, chap. 12, §§ 28-30: in the garden in Milan, a child's voice sings "Take up and read, take up and read" (received Latin: Tolle, lege); Augustine opens the epistle to the Romans and reads Rom 13:13-14, whereupon "all the gloom of doubt vanished away" (our translation). Verified original: "Take up and read; take up and read"; "No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended, by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart, all the gloom of doubt vanished away." Text: newadvent.org/fathers/110108.htm.
34 36Romans 13:13-14: "Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (English rendering after the French liturgical translation, verified on aelf.org.)
35Saint Josemaria Escriva, The Way, chap. "Prayer," point 116: "Reading has made many saints" (our translation). Verified original: "Don't neglect your spiritual reading. Reading has made many saints." Text: escriva.org.
40Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 125: "The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures 'because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Saviour' (DV 18)." Wording verified on vatican.va.
41Readings of the Mass of the day and coming Sundays: in English, the daily and Sunday readings are given by the liturgical books of each episcopal conference and by the usual missals and apps; readers following the French liturgical translation find the official text heard at Mass on aelf.org ("La messe" and "La Bible" sections).
422 Peter 3:16: Saint Peter notes that Paul's letters contain passages hard to understand, which the ignorant distort, hence patience and recourse to the Church before obscurities.
43Acts 8:30-31: on the road to Gaza, Philip joins the Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah without understanding and climbs up beside him to guide him, the figure of the reader who accepts being guided.
44Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, § 87: lectio divina "is capable of opening up to the faithful the treasures of God's word, but also of bringing about an encounter with Christ, the living divine Word"; its four moments: reading ("what does the biblical text say in itself?"), meditation ("what does the biblical text say to us?"), prayer ("what do we say to the Lord in response to his word?"), contemplation ("what conversion of mind, heart, and life is the Lord asking of us?", cf. Rom 12:2); "lectio divina... does not end in a dynamic of its own until it leads to action (actio), which moves the believer to make his or her life a gift for others in charity."
45 46Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 111: "'Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written' (DV 12, § 3)."
47Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 112-114: the three criteria for interpreting Scripture "in the Spirit in which it was written" (Dei Verbum, § 12).
48Catechism, § 112: "Be especially attentive 'to the content and unity of the whole Scripture.'"
49Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 119: "I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me (St. Augustine, Contra Ep. Man. 5, 6)."
51Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 12, final: "everything to do with the interpretation of Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church."
52Catechism, § 114: "Be attentive 'to the analogy of faith' (cf. Rom 12:6)."
53Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 116: "'All the senses of Sacred Scripture find their support in the literal sense' (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, 1, 10, ad 1)."
54Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book I, chap. 35-36: the fulfillment and end of all of Scripture is the twofold love of God and neighbor; "whoever thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought; but if he draws from them a meaning which tends to build up charity, his error is not pernicious" (our translation). Verified original: "Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought." Text: newadvent.org/fathers/12021.htm.
55 56Luke 14:26: "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." The French liturgical translation renders the Semitic idiom ("to hate" for "to love less") as: "without preferring me to his father, his mother, his wife, his children, his brothers and sisters, and even to his own life" (verified on aelf.org).
57 62Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 15: the books of the Old Testament "though they contain matters imperfect and provisional, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy"; they keep "a lasting value" and "in them the mystery of our salvation is hidden."
58 63Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, § 14: the books of the Old Testament "retain a lasting value, for 'whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope' (Rom 15:4)."
59Matthew 24:36: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." (English rendering after the French liturgical translation, verified on aelf.org.)
60 65Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 123: "Christians venerate the Old Testament as true Word of God. The Church has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void (Marcionism)." Wording verified on vatican.va.
64Second Vatican Council, constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the sacred liturgy (4 December 1963), § 24 ("Scripture and liturgy"): "Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung; the prayers, collects, and liturgical songs are scriptural in their inspiration and their force, and it is from the scriptures that actions and signs derive their meaning."
66Distribution of the Roman Lectionary for the Sundays in Ordinary Time: year A, the Gospel according to Saint Matthew; year B, Saint Mark; year C, Saint Luke; Saint John returning every year, notably in Eastertide. See the article The Liturgical Year for the detail of the cycle.
67Psalm 119:105 (118:105 in the numbering of the Vulgate followed by the French liturgical translation): "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." (English rendering after the French liturgical translation, verified on aelf.org.)
68Luke 2:19: "But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart." (English rendering after the French liturgical translation, verified on aelf.org.)
69Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993), I, A: the historical-critical method is "indispensable" to the scientific study of ancient texts, since Scripture is "the word of God in human language," composed by human authors (our translation). Verified original: "The historical-critical method is the indispensable method for the scientific study of the meaning of ancient texts. Holy Scripture, inasmuch as it is the 'word of God in human language,' has been composed by human authors in all its various parts [...]." Well used, the method "involves in itself no a priori" and must remain open to other approaches.
71 74Received attributions never abandoned by the Church: the Pentateuch under the name of Moses, the Psalms and Wisdom books around David and Solomon, the prophetic books under the name of the prophet giving them his title, the New Testament under the name of the apostles and their companions. Witnesses: ancient Jewish tradition, Fathers of the first centuries, canonical reception under these names, unbroken liturgical use. See the full case in the article The Catholic Interpretation of the Bible.
72Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993), I, F: fundamentalist interpretation, which refuses the historical character of biblical revelation, is "dangerous," for it "offers pious but illusory interpretations" and "invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide" (our translation). Verified originals: "The fundamentalist approach is dangerous [...] offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory"; "fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide."
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