Have you ever opened your Bible and wondered:

• Where do I even start?
• How do I know if I’m understanding this correctly?
• Why do Catholics talk about both Scripture and Tradition?
• Does God really speak to us through His Word today (like, literally)?

If you’ve ever asked questions like these, you’re in good (and plentiful!) company. They’re exactly the kinds of questions the Church set out to answer in one of the most beautiful documents of the Second Vatican Council: Dei Verbum.

At its heart, Dei Verbum isn’t just about the Bible. It’s about God. It reminds us that God desires to make Himself known to His children and that He has lovingly revealed Himself through Jesus Christ, Sacred Scripture, and Sacred Tradition. More than sixty years after it was written, its message is just as relevant today: if we want to know Christ more deeply, we must learn to encounter Him in His Word.

What Is Dei Verbum?

Dei Verbum is a dogmatic constitution that was written by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). In other words, it was one of the documents that the council created as a result of the conversations they had. Because it was drafted, debated, and approved by the bishops of an ecumenical council, it is considered authentic doctrine, or a teaching taught with the authority of Christ handed on to the Pope. With that authority, Pope Paul VI promulgated (enacted) this constitution in 1965, and it has been guiding the Church ever since. 

Why was it written?

Dei Verbum was written by the council to teach us, the lay faithful, about Divine Revelation. Divine Revelation is the way that God reveals Himself to humanity. That revelation happens two different ways: through Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.

The first method that the document addresses is the revelation through Tradition. Jesus taught the apostles many things, including how to pray, how to worship, how to read the Scriptures, how to care for others, how to live, etc. The apostles taught their followers, who taught their followers. This unbroken line of teaching is maintained in our bishops, the shepherds who guide the Church in the ways of Christ.

At the time this document was drafted in the mid 1960s, the bishops knew they didn’t have to convince Catholics that Sacred Tradition reveals God to humanity. The Council wasn’t trying to convince Catholics that Sacred Tradition mattered. At the time, most Catholics already accepted the Church’s authority and were accustomed to receiving the faith through the teaching of their priests and bishops.

Instead, the Council began with that shared understanding and then broadened the picture. Yes, God reveals Himself through Sacred Tradition (the living transmission of the faith entrusted to the Church).  Once that common ground was established, though, the Council was clear: there is more to this story. Divine Revelation doesn’t come from Tradition alone. It also comes from Sacred Scripture.

Two Parts of One Picture

To me, this is where the document gets good. It asserts that both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture flow directly from Christ Himself. They are two parts of one picture; they must be held together since they “form one sacred deposit of the word of God” (Dei Verbum, 10). Therefore, the authors state: we (the lay faithful) must dive into not only our Sacred Tradition, but into the Word of God Himself, Sacred Scripture.

Yes, you read that right. Christ is the Word made flesh, and Scripture is the word of God, therefore Scripture is an extension of Christ Himself. Jesus is the fullness of revelation, and Scripture contains a piece of that revelation (DV, 2, 9).

(When Dei Verbum says that Jesus is the fullness of Divine Revelation, I can’t help but think of the central figure in the Ghent Altarpiece (below). Christ is seated in majesty, reminding us that the Bible bears witness to the living Word made flesh, who reigns forever.)

Our Bibles are so much more than just another book. I once had a professor who said he’s in the habit of never putting anything on top of his Bible. When it’s sitting on the desk, it’s on the top of the stack, and he purposely doesn’t lay anything on it. What a beautiful, simple way to remember that the Bible is God’s Word, and we must venerate it as such. (DV, 21)

This understanding shapes the entire document. Once you begin to see Scripture as a privileged encounter with Christ Himself, it’s no surprise that Dei Verbum speaks about the Bible with such reverence and urgency.

Dei Verbum is filled with profound reflections on Sacred Scripture. So let’s look at a few of the ways the Church invites us to see the Bible as the inspired Word of God through which He continues to speak to His people.

We’re going to take a tour through some of the document’s most beautiful passages right now, and if any of these quotes leave you wanting more, I want to encourage you to read Dei Verbum for yourself! It’s surprisingly accessible, completely free to read online, and well worth the time. Check it out right here!

The Gift of Scripture

“Holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles…holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.” (11)

What a gift! We believe that God is the author of Scripture, and He gave these books to us. The document has much to say on the authorship of the Bible. It verifies for us that human writers, using their full capacities (meaning operating of their own free will), received divine inspiration to write what God wanted and nothing more (DV, 11). So, while God did not possess a human, control his hand, and produce a document, He did breathe the Holy Spirit upon the authors to write in such a way that conveys God’s Truth. To write in this way must have been a truly beautiful experience.

A Girl Reading the Bible, Marie Ellenrieder (1823)

“[In Scripture] we may learn the gentle kindness of God, which words cannot express, and how far He has gone in adapting His language with thoughtful concern for our weak human nature.” (13, quoting St. John Chrysostom)

Our Father is good and gentle. He understands our human frailties and provides nourishment for us, like a mother providing milk for her infant. God, who is beyond human knowledge and reasoning, is also beyond our language. There are no words we could use to reveal God or His Truth. Much like an infant couldn’t eat a 5-course meal, we could never take in the fullness of God. But, in His love for us, He gives us what we can consume—Scripture written in human language, with human images and ideas—so that we may begin to comprehend who God is and how He cares for us.

Christ Almighty, Viktor Vasnetsov (1896)

“[The Old Testament] books, then, give expression to a lively sense of God, contain a store of sublime teachings about God, sound wisdom about human life, and a wonderful treasury of prayers, and in them the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way.” (15)

The authors of Dei Verbum knew that some lay people doubt the fruit that can come from reading the Old Testament. The anecdote would sound something like this: “If Jesus is the fullness of divine revelation, and the stories of Jesus and His followers are contained in the New Testament, then those books are the ones with the best fruit.” While the authors do acknowledge that the Gospels have a primary place among the rest of Scripture (DV, 18), they are careful to point out that the Old Testament is rich with revelation too.

Reviewing this list of gifts that the Old Testament contains is a great reminder to us. By reading these books, we receive a lively sense of God, learn awe-inspiring Truths about Him, gain wisdom for our everyday lives, and have a wealth of go-to prayers. Those prayers can be found in many places of the Old Testament, but they truly shine in the Psalms. Jesus, being a Jewish man, would have prayed the Psalms daily. The Church continues this practice in the Liturgy of the Hours. It is incredible to consider that we can use the same language that Christ Himself would have used in prayer.

Christ in the Synagogue of Nazareth, (1350)

“God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New…the books of the Old Testament with all their parts…acquire and show forth their full meaning in the New Testament…and in turn shed light on it and explain it.” (16)

Continuing to proclaim the value of the Old Testament, Dei Verbum reminds readers that the Old and New Testaments speak to each other; the melodies that flow from the Old Testament find their resolution in the New. A careful reading of Scripture reveals this: a theme from the beginning of the Bible (example: salvation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt) is brought to its fullest form in the Gospels (salvation of the whole word from slavery to sin). The exodus prefigures the paschal mystery of Christ, and the two events infuse even greater meaning into each other. If we are able to hold the entirety of the Bible, we can see that there is only one story—God’s story being told throughout the pages, relying on the same themes and motifs, bringing every plot line to fulfillment in Christ.

For example, the manna that God gave Israel in the wilderness foreshadows the Eucharist: just as God fed His people with bread from heaven to sustain their earthly journey, Jesus Christ fulfills that sign by giving Himself as the true Bread from Heaven, nourishing us with His own Body for eternal life (cf. John 6:31–58).

The Israelites gathering Manna in the Wilderness, Jacob Willemsz de Wet (between 1630 and 1671).

“For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them” (21)

This statement is perhaps the simplest and yet most profound soundbite of the entire document. It’s easily memorized and can be pondered in our hearts as we pick up our Bible to read a passage. Yes, our Father meets us in many ways: in prayer, in sacraments and liturgy, in moments of encounter with others. However, in a very purposeful way, God meets us and speaks with us in Scripture. He wrote the Bible for us to encounter Him. It is His gift to us, and we ought not dismiss it. Personally, I love the invitation to meet my heavenly Father in the pages of my worn-out Bible. In fact, I take Him up on this invitation frequently, and He has always met me with love.

How the Church Invites Us to Read the Bible

Dei Verbum doesn’t just encourage the laity to read Scripture, it also provides some tips and guidelines for how to do so. Put simply, there are three questions readers can ask to help them understand Divine Revelation through Sacred Scripture. These questions are:

1. What did the human author intend to say?
2. What did the Holy Spirit intend to say?
3. What does the Church teach about this Truth?

Firstly, the document says, we must take into consideration the human author’s meaning. Because these authors used their own faculties to write, Biblical books reflect the human communities in which they were produced. It is important to consider the time period, culture, storytelling, and writing styles which surrounded the human authors. The document pays special attention to the idea of “literary forms”, or the genre of the writing. (DV, 12) Readers can learn a lot by simply asking, “Is this passage meant to be a historical retelling, a prayerful song, a prophetic oracle, etc.?”

It is also important to understand the culture and literary styles commonly used at the time of the book’s writing. The human author may have used a phrase or concept that would have been well-known to his contemporaries but has been lost or taken on new meaning in the millennia since his writing. A thorough reading of the Bible “search[es] out the intention of the sacred writers” (DV, 12). Thankfully, many Bibles come with introductory pages and footnotes to help us readers understand these kinds of nuances. Those who want to know more can utilize Biblical commentaries; many scholars have devoted countless hours to opening the Word for us.

Next, Dei Verbum asserts that readers should consider what the Holy Spirit intends to communicate through the words of Scripture. This should be done by considering the story of Scripture as a whole. We must remember that everything contained within Scripture is part of the larger story (DV, 12). We know that the Bible is a love story between God and His bride (the Church), and we must take this into consideration as we read. The Holy Spirit, as the author of Scripture, uses it to reveal Love Himself to us. Finally, we must pay attention to the Truths of faith that the Church asserts. These Truths reassure us of the truths found in Scripture, and they are in perfect harmony with each other. Reading Scripture should reaffirm for us what the Church teaches: that God loves us, sin broke our relationship with Him, He sent His Son to die and restore the relationship, and He desires for us to live in His Love and live with Him in Heaven.

At the end of the day, Dei Verbum is an invitation to all of us to know God more thoroughly through both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. It reassures us that God wants us to know Him in an intimate way through reading our Bibles. In fact, the council would tell us that to fail to read Scripture is to fail to consider the entire picture of divine revelation. To quote St. Jerome, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” If we are to take the council’s document as the authoritative teaching that it is, then we have but one choice: we must open the pages of our Bibles and get to know God better through them.