Rediscovering the Art of Reading Sacred Texts: a new research article

A transformation began in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, which radically reshaped Catholic approaches to biblical interpretation. This was consolidated in 1993 when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) edited a landmark instruction that pluralised the intellectual tools available for making sense of the Bible unlocking multiple rich traditions of meaning seeking, endorsing multiple hermeneutical methods—from historical-critical analysis to literary approaches to personal spiritual reading.

This was in a tradition of reading scripture that had been captured centuries earlier by the Quadriga approach, the four senses of meaning that ancient scholars and leaders of the Christian church developed, when approaching the question of how meaning was drawn from the Bible.

The 1993 document recognized something profound: meaning happens in different dimensions. There’s the historical meaning of what the text meant in its original context. There’s the meaning that emerges through centuries of theological reflection.

However, more than that, there’s the meaning that speaks directly to a person’s present life—the mother who has lost a child reading about Mary at the foot of the cross, or the person facing uncertainty finding courage in the disciples’ response to Jesus’ call. This has become much more important.

When Adrienne von Speyr, founder of the Community of St John, reflected on a single verse from Mark’s Gospel—”And immediately they left their nets and followed him”—she spent a page and a half meditating on what this means for someone responding to a call today. Her writings weren’t primarily concerned with historical context or theological propositions, but with how this ancient story resonates with lived faith experience.

This personal, reflective engagement with scripture has always been at the heart of Christian tradition. The biblical narrative becomes a “personal reflector”—it touches you spiritually in your life. Yet somewhere along the way, religious education has not focussed on this dimension.

The question of meaning and sacred texts raises two instincts. One that seeks to understand historically what doctrines they supported or contributed to, and another that seeks to put the personal at the centre.

The scholarly revolution is finally reaching clear direction for schools and teachers in Catholic schools to draw on. The 2023 Religious Education Directory for Catholic schools in England and Wales represents a serious attempt to translate these insights into practical guidance for teachers. It explicitly warns against proof-texting and calls for a richer, more authentic engagement with scripture.

The Directory identifies clear problems with the old approach: inaccurate paraphrasing, ignoring literary forms, reducing passages to fragments, and encouraging literalist readings “with all the attendant risks of fundamentalism.” Instead, it calls for attention to literary techniques, historical circumstances, and—crucially—personal spiritual response.

This raises a difficult question: if the Bible means different things in different contexts and to different readers, how do we avoid relativism where anything goes?

One answer lies in what biblical scholar Stephen Fowl calls “under-determinacy.” This isn’t determinacy (where interpretation produces a final answer rendering all further engagement unnecessary) or indeterminacy (where all previous meanings are dismantled). Rather, it’s an approach that recognizes both the value of tradition-settled understandings and the necessity of ongoing personal engagement.

Think of it as pursuing a polyphony—an orchestral harmony of different melodies working together, even permitting some unresolved discordances. Historical meaning, theological meaning, and personal spiritual meaning can coexist and inform each other.

This has implications for education. Scripture should be studied for its own sake, for a whole life. Meaning should be explored as a multilayered, multi faceted thing which requires diverse interpretative methods. Readers need to embrace openness to the strangeness of sacred texts and balance settled understandings with personal responses.

This isn’t just an academic debate. How we teach young people to read sacred texts shapes whether they develop a lifelong relationship with scripture or see it as a closed book of settled meanings. It determines whether someone makes a spiritual connection or becomes fossilized.

Pope Benedict wrote, methodologies that precisely interpret the past have both strength and limitation - The one thing it cannot do is make it into something present today. For scripture to live, it must speak to each generation anew, for it to retain a link to the tradition communities of the past it must remain connected.

For teachers, this presents both challenge and opportunity. As the Religious Education Directory acknowledges: “Reading the Bible is not easy; teaching it is more difficult.” But if education is to serve not just understanding about religion but genuine spiritual formation, it’s a task that must be undertaken with courage and passion.

Read the research article here.