Meaning of EXEGESIS

(from the Greek verb "exomai", "I narrate or explain").

It is the explanation of the Bible, and its rules are subject to the principles of hermeneutics; Both rabbis and ancient Christian scholars of the Holy Scriptures used various methods to understand the obscure passages.

Already in the time of Philo, two main schools were formed: that of Alexandria, which gave greater importance to allegory in its explanation of the Bible, and its most characteristic representatives were Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

The Antioch school, on the other hand, was characterized by a literal interpretation of the sacred text; Among its most notable exponents are St. John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia.

As the centuries went by, both schools came together, and already in the times of Augustine and Jerome, who are the greatest expositors of the Bible in the West, they were practically united, although the former is more allegorical and the latter more literalist in his exegesis.

Scholastic Theology used four senses (literal, allegorical, moral and analogical) to interpret Scripture, with the result that the true meaning of what the Bible says was forgotten, to draw conclusions, many times, in open contradiction.

The Reformation introduced a new principle in exegesis: it must be the Bible itself that gives us the meaning of obscure texts. Before Luther and the reformers, it was the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church that had to establish the meaning of the Holy Scripture; From then on the Bible is, for Evangelical Churches, the foundation and basis for all theological interpretation or dogma of faith.