Thanks to the works of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and later exegetes, the meaning of Holy Scripture from epoch to epoch is revealed more and more fully in its spiritual inexhaustibility and depth. There are five main methods of exegesis, or interpretation, of the Old Testament, which do not exclude, but complement each other. “There is something else in Scripture,” says St. John Chrysostom, - should be understood as it is said, and otherwise in a figurative sense; the other in a twofold sense: sensual and spiritual” (Conversation on Ps 46). Likewise, Rev. John Cassian the Roman pointed out that the interpretation of the Bible “is divided into two parts, that is, into the historical (literal) interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and the spiritual (mysterious) understanding” (XIV century).

The METHOD OF ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION originated among the Jews of Alexandria and was developed by the famous religious thinker Philo (d. c. 40 AD). Philo and his predecessors borrowed this method from ancient writers. Allegorical exegesis was adopted by the Christian school of Alexandria - Clement and Origen (II-III centuries), and then St. Gregory of Nyssa (332-389). All of them proceeded from the idea that the Old Testament contains much more than can be found in its literal understanding. Therefore, exegetes sought to explain the hidden, spiritual meaning of Scripture by deciphering allegories. Indeed, the biblical authors widely used allegorical symbolism, conditional images, sacred numbers, which were supposed to indicate the inner content behind them. So, the number 7 meant completeness, 4 - universality (4 countries of the world), 12 - the fullness of the elect, 40 - the duration of the generation and the stage in the history of salvation. However, for all its fruitfulness, the Alexandrian method lacked reliable criteria for an accurate understanding of the ancient Eastern symbolism used in the Old Testament, and this often led to arbitrary guesses. The great merit of the Alexandrian school was the attempt to present the teachings of the Bible in a philosophical and theological language. Today, a similar attempt was revived by the Protestant theologian Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), who called his method the demythologization of the Bible. As far as the Old Testament was concerned, this method was fruitful, but when Bultmann transferred it to the New Testament, the Gospel almost lost any historical basis for him.

THE METHOD OF LITERAL INTERPRETATION was to imagine, as coherently and clearly as possible, the course of biblical events and the direct meaning of the teaching set forth in the Old Testament. This method was developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries by the Syrian Church Fathers (Antioch and Edessa schools), of which St. Ephrem the Syrian (306–379). The Syrians were intimately familiar with the customs of the East, which allowed them better than the Hellenistic authors to reconstruct the picture of the biblical world. But the fact of the ambiguous meaning of Scripture often remained outside the field of view of these exegetes.

The methods of the two above-named schools were combined by the Fathers of the Church, who offered a MORAL-HOMILETIC INTERPRETATION of the Old Testament. It primarily pursued the goal of edification, preaching, emphasizing the moral and dogmatic aspects of Scripture. The highest example of such an interpretation are the works of St. John Chrysostom (380-407). Of the writers of the 19th century, we find homiletic exegesis in Archbishop. Innokenty of Kherson, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, and in the West with Pastor Eugene Bercier.

TYPOLOGICAL, OR DESIGN, METHOD OF INTERPRETATION was first used by members of the Jewish community of Qumran (I-II centuries BC - I century AD). This method was based on the fact that the Bible contains many-valued types (Greek tipos - image, type) of the history of salvation, which can be attributed not to one, but to its various stages. So, for example, in the exodus from Egypt they saw a prototype of the return from captivity, and later - a prototype of the exodus from slavery to sin (the waters of the sea are a symbol of the waters of baptism). This method is already used in the Gospel (Jn 3:14), in Ap. Paul (Gal 4:22-25) and is present in almost all patristic literature, starting from St. Clement of Rome (c. 90). Closely connected with the types are the prophecies about the Messiah, which are scattered throughout the Old Testament in an explicit or covert form. The typological method plays a big role in understanding the spiritual integrity of the Bible, which speaks of the deeds of one God in a single history of salvation.

HISTORICAL-LITERARY-CRITICAL METHOD, OR BIBLICAL CRITICISM. It got its start in the writings of Origen, bl. Jerome and a number of medieval scholars. However, biblical criticism has achieved its greatest results in the last 300 years. “A historical approach to the study of Scripture and revealed religion,” says a contemporary Orthodox biblical scholar, Protopresv. Aleksey Knyazev, - there is the most natural and correct approach, of course, provided that he is guided by faith in Revelation ... Thanks to modern discoveries in the field of history, philology, archeology, paleography and other auxiliary sciences in the field of isagogy, we are brought to the possibility even closer, more fully and to see in more detail the action of God revealing Himself to mankind and arranging its salvation. Biblical criticism is divided into: a) textual criticism, b) literary criticism, c) historical biblical studies (including biblical archeology and the study of extra-biblical religions), and d) internal (or "high") criticism. Biblical criticism does not abolish, but complements the 4 previous methods. 

 

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