The Four Senses of Scripture: The Literal Sense

Over at The Catholic Weekly, I wanted to talk about something, but realized that before I could talk about it, I had to first talk about the Four Senses of Scripture or the thing I wanted to talk about would not make sense to my reader. So I am doing a brief series on the Four Senses of Scripture so that the reader will be up to speed and prepared to talk about the other thing I wanted to talk about.

The Catholic Faith is an endless education. Goes with the whole “God made heaven and earth and call us to explore it all from top to bottom” thing.

Anyway:

Have you ever noticed that you can do something without realising you are doing it?  Like when you wear glasses and give no thought to the fact that you are wearing them. Or unless you are learning a foreign language, chances are good that you never give any thought to subject/verb agreement or any of the other fine details of grammar when you carry on a conversation.

My point is this: there are certain things you know so well that, in another sense, you don’t know them at all.

Among these things, if you are a Christian, are the Four Senses of Scripture.

“What are those?” you ask?

You actually know.  You just don’t know you know.

Much more here. Tolle, lege!

If you want the full discussion of what you just taste here, go read my book Making Senses out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did.

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2 Responses

  1. The stars are aligned . Right in time comes this, to go along with the Exodus post and “Literal Sense” of Scripture. The destruction of Sodom may be based on oral tradition of a real event.

    A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea

    https{:}//www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3

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