Reading the Bible through the centuries

The Targum is a translation with commentary in Aramaic, read in the synagogue. Tradition traces it back to Nehemiah 8.

“The minority opinion is true as Torah, but we do not live by it.”

According to Klein, Blomberg and Hubbard, Jesus' fulfilment of the prophecies is their key to reading.

This is an allegorical reading: the characters stand for another reality.

Set out by Irenaeus, the rule of faith sums up the Gospel and serves as a safeguard for interpretation.

For Augustine, all of Scripture aims at the love of God and of neighbour (Matthew 22:37-39).

“The letter teaches what happened, allegory what you should believe, the moral sense what you should do, anagogy what you should strive towards.”

It is Erasmus, who published the Greek New Testament in 1516.

Luther makes the literal sense, rightly understood, the path to the meaning God intended.