Quotes about Interpretation

If she wanted to write Christian fiction, how was she to go about it? I told her that if she is truly and deeply a Christian, what she writes is going to be Christian, whether she mentions Jesus or not. And if she is not, in the most profound sense, Christian, then what she writes is not going to be Christian, no matter how many times she invokes the name of the Lord.

If I cannot see evidence of incarnation in a painting of a bridge in the rain by Hokusai, a book by Chaim Potok or Isaac Bashevis Singer, music by Bloch or Bernstein, then I will miss its significance in an Annunciation by Franciabigio, the final chorus of the St. Matthew Passion , the words of a sermon by John Donne.

The task of the teacher of the Bible is to open up what's closed, to make plain what is obscure, to unravel what is knotted and to unfold what is tightly packed.

It may be said, "Surely these passages cannot be taken literally, for how then would the people of God be able to survive in the world?" The state of mind of John 7:17 will cause such objections to vanish: If anyone desires to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God or whether I speak of myself. I believe that whoever is willing to act out these commandments of the Lord literally, will be led with me to see that taking them literally is the will of God.

Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerales.

His genius was belowThe skill of ev'ry common beau;Who, tho' he cannot spell, is wiseEnough to read a lady's eyes;And will each accidental glanceInterpret for a kind advance.Swift'sMiscell.

And buxom, which means only obedient, is now made, in familiar phrases, to stand for wanton; because in an ancient form of marriage, before the Reformation, the bride promised complaisance and obedience, in these terms: I will be bonair and buxom in bed and at board.

Dogma is by definition nothing other than an interpretation of Scripture. The defined dogmas of our faith, then, encapsulate the Church's infallible interpretation of Scripture, and theology is a further reflection upon that work.

Saint Augustine said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New.

The name of the one was Obstinate and the name of the other Pliable.

Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men.

They who strive to build up a firm faith in Scripture through disputation are doing things backwards.