Galileo Galilei Quotes

Fanciful spiritualizing, so far from yielding God's meaning, actually obscured it. The literal sense is itself the spiritual sense, coming from God and leading to Him.

Let us read the Bible without the ill-fitting colored spectacles of theology, just as we read other books, using our judgment and reason. . . .

Taking the Bible too literally is a mistake. It should be read as a guidebook of wisdom and insight.

No man … ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.

We read the whole Bible, cover to cover, over and over again... It wasn't that we read selective parts of the Bible. It was that we interpreted it in this very selective way.

We must allow the Bible to say what is says, not what we think it ought to say.

I do not have deep theological understanding or opinion, but I do not read the Bible as the literal word of God.

Theological writing is usually done in essays or books, but I hope to show that if we concentrate on sentences, we may well learn something we might otherwise miss.

It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.

I spend my life studying that book, and every book I've written has in some sense been a book about the Bible, and that's what I mean by reclaiming its value and its essence for a world that no longer treats it literally and no longer reads it traditionally.

I argue that the resurrection was not the Great Resuscitation. It was a total transformation. I just don't accept the black-and-white thinking that goes along with needing to regard the gospels are literally true.

Philosophers are best able to understand properly the allegorical passages of the Koran on the basis of their logical training. There is no religious stipulation that all such passages have to be interpreted literally.

It seems to me that it was well said by Madama Serenissima, and insisted on by your reverence, that the Holy Scripture cannot err, and that the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. But I should have in your place added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways; and one error in particular would be most grave and most frequent, if we always stopped short at the literal signification of the words.

Chrysostom, I remember, mentions a twofold book of God: the book of the creatures, and the book of the scriptures. God, having taught us first of all by his works, did it afterwards, by his Words. We will now for a while read the former of these books; 'twill help us in reading the latter. They will admirably assist one another.

Saint Augustine ... insisted that scripture taught nothing but charity. Whatever the biblical author may have intended, any passage that seemed to preach hatred and was not conducive to love must be interpreted allegorically and made to speak of charity.

The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that. The Bible is a thing to be looked through, to see that which is beyond; but most people only look at it; and so they see only the dead letter.

He who is anxious to attain a true understanding of holy Scripture, will discover the spiritual truths which are spoken by it to those who are called "spiritual," by comparing the meaning of what is addressed to those of weaker mind with what is announced to such as are of acuter understanding, both meanings being frequently found in the same passage by him who is capable of comprehending it.

The Bible is not interested in precisionism unless the context indicates that precision is particularly important.

Every interpretation is but an introduction to another interpretation, and that is how Talmud pages are printed.

If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech.

[The Bible] has to be interpreted. And if it isn’t interpreted, then it can’t be put into action. So if we are serious about following God, then we have to interpret the Bible. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says. We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people.

Many biblical verses are like inkblot tests, revealing more about us than about the text in question.

This is my only and permanent complaint, that vulgar people, empty of the Spirit of God, want to judge solely by their human thinking what they listen to or read in the Bible, which has been pronounced and written by the Holy Spirit and in the Holy Spirit.

Refusing to teach a passage of Scripture is just as wrong as abusing it

In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-Gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it.