On Christian Teaching

Throughout On Christian Teaching, book two, I got the feeling that Augustine was telling the readers that in order to understand the Bible we must understand the language in which it was written, so in this instance, Latin. And if we don’t understand that language then we have to understand the background of the stories. He states on page 40, “Because a translator, unless very expert, often strays away from the author’s meaning, we should aim either to acquire knowledge of the languages from which the Latin scripture derives or to use the versions of those who keep excessively close to the literal meaning.” However, I feel like even if a story has been translated, the one that remains closest to the literal meaning could still have some striations from the original context.

Throughout the article that was assigned to us, I felt that it was telling us some of the same things but not entirely. It begins to talk about the different approaches when it comes to using the Scriptures. The first way was by creating a blueprint, then reading and using them as if they are concrete building blocks. However, this assumes that we already have prior knowledge to the larger picture the Scripture provides. The other process allows readers to use the Scripture for our own uses, and puts us in charge. People who use this way believe that the Bible is a way in which the Lord speaks to us.

With one of these approaches it states that “one cannot read the Bible without bringing some understanding to the table,” that to me is a similarity, but overall, I feel like they rarely tell us the same way to interpret and read the Bible.

I think that there are some aspects of the two different sources that are positive. For instance, in the Augustine book, I think that his point that states we need to have an understanding of the language and if we don’t then we need to know the background of the stories is a valid point. I think this because if the language doesn’t fit the story we could get an entirely different message. With the article, I think it’s a positive thing that some readers feel that they can use the Scriptures for their own use, and have control, because it allows the readers to use the Scriptures in a way that they feel is appropriate for their situations.