40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible: A Cross-Faith Comparison

Jewish biblical interpretation — known broadly as parshanut — is one of the most layered and sophisticated hermeneutical traditions in human history. It's worth noting upfront that when Jews speak of "interpreting the Bible," they primarily mean the Tanakh, particularly the Torah, and they do so through a framework that insists written scripture is inseparable from oral tradition.

The classical fourfold method, called PaRDeS, organizes interpretation into four levels: Peshat (plain, contextual meaning), Remez (allegorical or typological reading), Derash (homiletical exposition), and Sod (mystical or esoteric meaning). Scholars like Rashi (1040–1105 CE) championed peshat as the foundation, while Maimonides (1138–1204 CE) pushed for philosophical rationalism in reading difficult passages.

Isaiah 40 itself raises interpretive questions that Jewish commentators have wrestled with for centuries. The rhetorical challenges — "Have ye not known? have ye not heard?" — presuppose that the audience already has access to foundational knowledge about God's nature Isaiah 40:21. Rashi read such passages as rebukes of Israel's spiritual forgetfulness, while Ibn Ezra emphasized their universal theological force.

The Talmudic tradition institutionalized disagreement as a feature, not a bug, of interpretation. The famous phrase "these and these are the words of the living God" (Eruvin 13b) legitimizes competing readings. Modern Jewish scholars like Nehama Leibowitz (1905–1997) brought academic rigor to traditional commentary, asking not just what the text says but why it says it the way it does.

One of the most pressing interpretive questions concerns the limits of human understanding. Isaiah 40:28 states plainly that God's understanding is unsearchable Isaiah 40:28, which Jewish commentators like Nachmanides took as a warning against over-systematizing divine logic. You can study endlessly — and you should — but intellectual humility is baked into the tradition.

Christian biblical interpretation — hermeneutics — is arguably the most internally diverse of the three traditions, shaped by two millennia of theological conflict, denominational splits, and scholarly innovation. The stakes are high: how you interpret the Bible determines doctrine, ethics, ecclesiology, and salvation itself, at least in many Christian frameworks.

Early church fathers like Origen (184–253 CE) favored allegorical readings, finding Christ prefigured throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Augustine (354–430 CE) insisted that any interpretation must ultimately serve the love of God and neighbor — a hermeneutical principle that sounds simple but generates enormous complexity in practice. The Protestant Reformation cracked open interpretation further: Luther's sola scriptura principle (1517) democratized the Bible but also fragmented interpretive authority.

Modern Christian hermeneutics spans a wide spectrum. Historical-critical scholars like Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) applied source criticism to the Old Testament, producing the Documentary Hypothesis. Evangelical scholars like D.A. Carson push back, insisting on authorial intent and the unity of scripture. Liberation theologians like Gustavo Gutiérrez (b. 1928) read the Bible through the lens of the poor and oppressed — a method that produces radically different answers to the same texts.

Isaiah 40 is a particularly contested passage in Christian interpretation. The question "With whom took he counsel... and taught him in the path of judgment?" Isaiah 40:14 is cited by Paul in Romans 11:34 and 1 Corinthians 2:16, making it a New Testament proof-text for divine incomprehensibility and, in some readings, a pointer toward Christ as the wisdom of God. That double-layer of interpretation — Old Testament passage read through New Testament citation — is distinctly Christian.

The affirmation that God "fainteth not, neither is weary" and that "there is no searching of his understanding" Isaiah 40:28 grounds Christian hermeneutics in a kind of epistemic humility: you can interpret scripture, but you can't fully systematize God. Reformed theologians call this the incomprehensibility of God, and it functions as a guardrail against interpretive overconfidence.

Islam doesn't interpret the Bible as a living authoritative text — Muslims believe the Torah (Tawrat) and Gospel (Injil) were corrupted over time, so the Qur'an supersedes them. That said, the Qur'an speaks directly and powerfully about the principles of scriptural interpretation, and those principles are highly relevant to any cross-faith discussion of how to read sacred texts.

Qur'an 3:7 is perhaps the most important Islamic statement on hermeneutics. It distinguishes between muhkam (precise, foundational verses) and mutashabih (unspecific or ambiguous verses), and it issues a sharp warning: those who chase the ambiguous verses are motivated by "discord" and self-serving interpretation Quran 3:7. This isn't just a theological point — it's a hermeneutical methodology. The muhkam verses anchor interpretation; the mutashabih verses must be read in light of them, not the reverse.

The Qur'an also poses a pointed rhetorical question — "Or do you have a scripture in which you learn" Quran 68:37 — which classical commentators like al-Tabari (839–923 CE) read as a challenge to those who claim scriptural authority without proper grounding. It's a question about the legitimacy of interpretation itself.

Islamic jurisprudence developed its own sophisticated interpretive science called Usul al-Fiqh, which governs how the Qur'an and Hadith are read, harmonized, and applied. Scholars like al-Shafi'i (767–820 CE) systematized these rules. The discipline of tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis) produced monumental works — Ibn Kathir's 14th-century commentary remains widely used today.

So while Islam doesn't engage in Bible interpretation per se, its own hermeneutical tradition offers a rigorous parallel framework — one that shares with Judaism and Christianity a deep concern for who has the authority to interpret, and what happens when interpretation goes wrong.

To frame “40 questions about interpreting the Bible,” Jewish readers can anchor their inquiry in Isaiah’s insistence that human understanding is limited and must be schooled by God’s self-revelation, not by human counsel (Isaiah 40:14) Isaiah 40:14. These questions typically probe context, genre, parallel passages, and the community’s memory with humility, because Isaiah presses that knowledge and understanding are rooted “from the beginning” and from the “foundations of the earth,” reminding us interpretation is reception more than invention (Isaiah 40:21) Isaiah 40:21. In practice, that humility is sustained by confessing that God’s wisdom remains inexhaustible for any reader or method we bring to the text (Isaiah 40:28) Isaiah 40:28.

• What in this passage claims God’s authority over human judgment? (Isaiah 40:14) Isaiah 40:14
• How does creation language guide the scope of my reading? (Isaiah 40:21) Isaiah 40:21
• Where must I stop and admit the horizon of my knowledge? (Isaiah 40:28) Isaiah 40:28

Christians can shape “40 questions about interpreting the Bible” around Isaiah’s claims that God’s counsel is not derived from any creature, which cautions against overconfident systems that force texts to fit us rather than letting God speak (Isaiah 40:14) Isaiah 40:14. Questions about authorial intent, canonical context, and application are tempered by the conviction that God’s understanding is unsearchable, so exegesis should be bold yet penitent (Isaiah 40:28) Isaiah 40:28. Moreover, Isaiah’s call to remember what has been “told you from the beginning” disciplines interpretation to attend to the long arc of God’s dealings rather than isolated proof texts (Isaiah 40:21) Isaiah 40:21.

• What prior revelation frames this passage’s meaning? (Isaiah 40:21) Isaiah 40:21
• Where must my reading yield because only God’s wisdom is exhaustive? (Isaiah 40:28) Isaiah 40:28
• Am I letting God’s counsel lead, rather than mine? (Isaiah 40:14) Isaiah 40:14

For Muslims considering how to approach a program like “40 questions about interpreting the Bible,” a parallel hermeneutic principle comes from the Qur’an’s distinction between precise (muhkamat) and unspecific (mutashabihat) verses, with the final knowledge of their true interpretation belonging to God, which mandates interpretive restraint and prioritization of clarity (Qur’an 3:7) Quran 3:7. That same posture asks whether a claim rests on a firm, learned scripture, echoing the Qur’an’s challenge, “Or have you a scripture wherein you learn,” which presses interpreters to anchor assertions in revealed text rather than speculation (Qur’an 68:37) Quran 68:37.

• Is this claim drawn from what is precise, or am I forcing what is unspecific? (Qur’an 3:7) Quran 3:7
• What warranted reliance on an actual scripture underlies this interpretation? (Qur’an 68:37) Quran 68:37