Lecture Question to Module #5 Joseph Workman

Literalism provides an escape from the Catholic Church by providing simplicity. The Bible was not in the hands of the people, mainly because of the language barrier, but also because it was deemed to hard to interpret. Every passage could have lots of hidden meanings and only the church fathers could interpret it. Literalism is a much easier system, and reduces the human error in interpretation.
Principles like a word must be understood in terms of the sentence; a sentence in context, and a clearer passage is given preference over a obscure one were some good guidelines and brought simplicity to interpretation. Instead of trying to figure out the hidden meaning, you could just study the word or sentence and derive the interpretations. This type of study can often take you back to the Hebrew or Greek meaning, so it encouraged one to become familiar text also, instead of just Latin.
The Catholic Church neglected the history of the Bible basically, but at the Syrian School in Antioch, the history and grammatical interpretation was encouraged. This provided an Old Testament reality. This move towards more liberal art, historical, and geographical studies as the basis of exegesis really propelled a greater move away from the Catholic Church. The Victorines and Reformers emphasized these.
The reformers, one of the main being Martin Luther, really emphasized the philosophical system of Occam. This system separated reason and revelation. Along with the renewed study of Hebrew and Greek, the Occam system really helped prepare the way for a reformation and a beginning escape from the Catholic Church system.