What Does the Old Testament Mean?

Abstract

When the Christian Church took over the Old Testament, it did so on the understanding that some of it should be understood in non-literal ways. Origen and then Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine developed a doctrine which Augustine summarized as ‘Whatever there is in the Word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as metaphorical.’ And he applied this so as to reinterpret not merely passages which seemed inconsistent with Christian doctrine or moral teaching but also passages which seemed inconsistent with the supposed scientific truths established by contemporary Greek science. This tradition influenced much biblical interpretation until the Reformation and should lead us to interpret the Bible in the light of modern science. The meaning of any text depends on its context. The Bible is a patchwork of passages from different centuries. Only the whole Bible, and so any passage understood in that context, can claim full truth and full divine inspiration.