On Christian Teaching

In Book 2 of On Christian Teaching, Augustine explains how to read the Psalms and therefore how to understand them. He first talks about signs: "for a sign is a thing which of itself makes other things come to mind" ( pg 30). There are two types of signs, natural and given- problems arise with the given signs are in the form of obscure words and phrasing, which we definitely encountered in the Psalms. Theses ambiguities/ obscurities only occur, Augustine believes, because of the translation in language and " to correct any Latin manuscripts, Greek ones should be used" (pg 42). His explanation of signs and how the obscurities occur could be used to interpret the Psalms since there are many signs ( in the form of metaphors, for example) and many confusing passages that even Alter doesn't have figured out.

Later on in book 2, Augustine seems to go much more into a Christian direction and really shares his religious beliefs but in a way that seems he thinks they are the absolute truth. This is not helpful in interpreting the Psalms in an open way. (maybe it works well for a Christian studying the Psalms as their religious book- but not as a book to learn about religion and how it work just as how we are doing in class). Also, Augustine believes that non- Christian, or pagan writings are untrue when they are not glorifying God. I may be off on this, but it seems that Augustine is denouncing science as truth because he does so with the study of astronomy. Since those writing about science would not be including God in the reason/theory/creation of those thoughts, Augustine did not approve. He does not want those who read his book to concern themselves with ideas that don't fall in place with Christian beliefs and he states" do not venture without due care into any branches of learning which are pursued outside the church of Christ.... keep away too from the unnecessary and self indulgent institutions of mankind" ( pg 63).

I don't think that these ideas(in the paragraph above) are helpful for interpreting the scripture because they are too one-sided, but his information on signs, translations, and how to go about actually learning the text are helpful. Even though Augustine states that we need to watch out for problems in translations which can lead to obscurities in the text, I think we also need to watch out for Augustine and his very strong views.