Three Questions to Ask When Reading the Bible: A Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspective

Jewish tradition has always treated scripture as a text demanding relentless, layered questioning. The rabbinic method — codified most famously by Rashi in the 11th century and later systematized in the four-level PaRDeS framework — insists that a reader first ask: What does this text literally say? Diligent inquiry is not optional; Deuteronomy commands it explicitly Deuteronomy 13:14. The plain meaning (peshat) must be established before deeper interpretation can begin.

The second question a Jewish reader is trained to ask is: What does this teach me about fearing and knowing God? Deuteronomy 17:19 instructs that the king himself must read the Torah daily so that he might "learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law" Deuteronomy 17:19. Reading is inseparable from moral formation and covenantal obedience.

The third question flows naturally from the second: What is God requiring of me in this passage? Proverbs 2:5 promises that diligent seeking leads to understanding "the fear of the LORD" and finding "the knowledge of God" Proverbs 2:5. For Jewish readers, scripture is fundamentally a guide to righteous living within the covenant community, not merely a historical document or a theological treatise.

Christian hermeneutics, shaped decisively by figures like Augustine (354–430 CE) and later the Reformers, centers the act of Bible reading on three core questions. The first is: What does this text reveal about Jesus Christ? Jesus himself, according to John's Gospel, told his opponents to search the scriptures precisely because "they are they which testify of me" John 5:39. Every passage, in the classic Christian reading, is ultimately oriented toward christological disclosure.

The second question Christian tradition urges is: What is God's kingdom priority in this text? Matthew 6:33 establishes a hermeneutical principle as much as an ethical one — readers are to "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness" Matthew 6:33. This means approaching any passage by asking how it reorients the reader's allegiances and desires toward God's reign.

The third question is: Do I understand what I'm reading? Paul's letter to the Ephesians assumes that reading produces understanding of "the mystery of Christ" — but only for those who engage attentively Ephesians 3:4. Isaiah's rhetorical challenge — "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning?" Isaiah 40:21 — is frequently cited by Christian commentators as a warning against superficial reading. Scholars like Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart (in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 1981) built entire pedagogical frameworks around these three movements: observe, interpret, apply.

Islam's relationship with the Bible is complex and contested. Classical Islamic scholarship — represented by scholars like Ibn Hazm (994–1064 CE) and, more moderately, Ibn Kathir (1301–1373 CE) — holds that while the original Torah (Tawrat) and Gospel (Injil) were genuine revelations, the extant biblical texts have undergone alteration (tahrif). Nevertheless, Muslim scholars who engage the Bible still apply structured questioning, and the Quranic spirit of inquiry maps onto the Bible's own internal calls to diligence Deuteronomy 13:14.

The first question an Islamic framework would bring to any scriptural text is: Does this passage affirm the absolute unity of God (Tawhid)? Any verse that appears to compromise divine oneness is treated as a site of textual corruption or misinterpretation. The second question is: Does this text point toward the prophethood of Muhammad? Muslim readers have historically read passages like Deuteronomy 18:15 as anticipating the final prophet, making prophetic succession a governing hermeneutical lens.

The third question, shared broadly with Jewish and Christian readers, is: What does this demand of me morally and spiritually? Isaiah's challenge — "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning?" Isaiah 40:21 — resonates with the Quranic insistence that signs (ayat) are available to those who reflect. The Quran itself repeatedly asks whether people will not reason and understand, an impulse that Muslim scholars apply even when reading non-Quranic scripture. Seeking God's kingdom and righteousness Matthew 6:33 aligns, in Islamic thought, with seeking God's will through submission (islam).