Catechesis · Inquirer
How to Read Scripture
Catechesis · Inquirer
How to Read Scripture
The Orthodox read Scripture liturgically, typologically, and in community with the Fathers. Liturgically: the primary context for hearing Scripture is the services, where it is ch…
Question
How do Orthodox Christians read the Bible?
The Orthodox read Scripture liturgically, typologically, and in community with the Fathers. Liturgically: the primary context for hearing Scripture is the services, where it is chanted, proclaimed, and interpreted by the hymnography around it. Typologically: the Old Testament is read as pointing toward Christ -- its persons, events, and institutions are types that find their fulfilment in the New Testament. In community with the Fathers: the Orthodox do not read Scripture alone but within the interpretive tradition that the Spirit has given through the patristic commentators.
The literal sense is foundational but not final. The Antiochene school (Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia) emphasised the literal and historical sense against excessive allegory. The Alexandrian school (Origen, Cyril) emphasised the spiritual and allegorical sense. The Orthodox tradition has held both in tension without reducing to either -- recognising that the literal sense must be established before spiritual senses can be built on it, but that the literal sense alone does not exhaust the meaning of a divinely inspired text.
The teaching
Typology -- how the Old Testament speaks of Christ
Typology is the interpretive method by which the Old Testament's persons, events, and institutions are read as foreshadowings of New Testament realities. Adam is a type of Christ (Romans 5:14). Isaac's near-sacrifice on Moriah is a type of the crucifixion. The Passover lamb is a type of Christ the Lamb of God. The crossing of the Red Sea is a type of Baptism (1 Corinthians 10:1-4). The manna in the wilderness is a type of the Eucharist (John 6:32-33). Typology is not the imposition of a Christian grid on Jewish texts -- it is the apostolic reading that Christ Himself authorised: "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:27).
The liturgical application of typology: the Orthodox services are saturated with it. Great Vespers on Saturday evening juxtaposes Old Testament readings (called *prokimena* and *parimia*) with the New Testament fulfilment. The Holy Week services read Exodus at the Passover in direct parallel with the Passion. The Nativity of Christ is celebrated with Old Testament readings that speak of the Messiah's coming. The typological reading is not a scholarly exercise -- it is the Church's primary mode of hearing the Old Testament in the liturgy.
The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. The letter of Scripture, read without the Spirit who inspired it, yields death. Read with the Spirit, in the community of faith that the Spirit inhabits, it gives life without limit.
Paul's statement (2 Corinthians 3:6) is the apostolic charter for the spiritual reading of Scripture. The "letter" is not the text as such but the text read without the Spirit -- read as a legal code to be obeyed, read as a historical document to be analysed, read without the community of faith in which it was born and in which it is rightly heard. The Spirit gives life -- meaning that the text, read in the Spirit, participates in the divine life it describes.
After St. Paul
2 Corinthians 3:6
Holy Scripture
"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself."
Luke 24:27
"For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope."
Romans 15:4
The Psalter
Why the Church's primary prayer book is the Old Testament
The Psalter is the spine of Orthodox worship. In monastic practice, the entire 150 Psalms are read every week (in some traditions, every day). The Divine Liturgy is structured around Psalms. Vespers begins with Psalm 104; Matins includes the six Psalms (3, 38, 63, 88, 103, 143). The Hours are built on Psalms. The funeral service chants Psalm 119. The Psalter is not an Old Testament text used devotionally -- it is the Church's own prayer, the primary language in which she addresses God.