This question takes us into a territory where there is much activity in modern scholarship, and which is called: hermeneutics, or the search for meaning. Different approaches to written documents are used and they all bear the name of "criticism", not in the sense of a negative judgment, but in the sense of a careful analysis.

1. Survey of Methods of Interpretation (Hermeneutics)

   In the following presentation, we will give examples from the New Testament. But the different approaches apply to a much wider field.

   1. Textuel Criticism

      The gospels were written almost 2,000 years ago, and unfortunately we do not have any of the original manuscripts. The handwritten copies that we do have range from the year 150 to the invention of printing in the 15th century. As can be imagined, there are variations between these different copies, although they are usually minor, due to copyist's errors or sometimes to voluntary modifications. The comparison of these various copies in Greek, as well as some ancient translations into other languages, is called: textual criticism.

   2. Historical Criticism

      Evangelists want to convey a message to their audience. This message is called: literal meaning, i.e. what the author meant. This understanding is one aspect of historical criticism. Obtaining this understanding is sometimes easy, but sometimes it requires a good knowledge of the language, grammar, or customs of the time. A typical example is the account in Mk 7:11-12 of the custom of qorbân (dedicated to God).

   3. Source Criticism

      It is the study of the background from which the authors of the NT drew their information. Let us not forget that the authors of the gospels were most likely not eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. After Jesus' departure, preachers proclaiming the good news left us primarily an oral tradition, and it is only gradually that this tradition was put into writing. Can we find these various traditions in the composition of the gospels? One possible approach is to compare the gospels, especially the synoptic gospels, and to identify common elements. And there is the related question: did one evangelist reuse the work of another evangelist? This raises the question of dependence: does Matthew depend on Mark, or conversely, does Mark depend on Matthew?

   4. Form Criticism

      The books of the NT belong to different literary genres: gospels, letters, Revelation, proclamations, hymns. We also experience different literary genres today that change our approach to them: for example, when we see the headlines of a major newspaper, we assume that the information is accurate and reliable, whereas we are much more cautious when we see an advertisement; when we buy a book in a bookstore, it is usually accompanied by a jacket or cover indicating that it is a work of fiction, a story, a biography, etc. These different literary genres condition our expectations. This study that allows us to classify NT writings in this way is called: form criticism.

      Beyond this general classification of the gospels, the letters or Revelation, biblical scholars have studied the components of these great literary genres to arrive at a much more precise classification. Sometimes it is quite obvious when it concerns parables, miracle narratives or infancy narratives. But sometimes it becomes quite technical when it includes maxims of wisdom, prophetic or apocalyptic sayings, rules or laws of community life, sayings in "I", metaphors, small anecdotes, legends, etc. Each of these genres has its own characteristics, and the absence of any of these characteristics in a component can lead the biblical scholar to draw certain conclusions to determine their originality. But these conclusions can only be highly hypothetical. Note that form criticism says nothing about their historical character. For example, that a component is a miracle story does not help us answer the question: did this miracle really happen?

   5. Redaction Criticism

      What interests the reader of the New Testament is the meaning of the final product, not merely the understanding of the small units revealed by form criticism. This is what redaction criticism, or at least one of its branches, is concerned with: author criticism. For the author is not a mere compiler of pre-existing material. He has creatively reshaped his sources. When one knows his sources, it becomes easy to determine his own theological emphases. For example, in the account of Peter's confession, Mark (8:27-33) puts into Jesus' mouth this word to Peter: "Get out of my way, Satan, for your words are not enough. When Luke takes up this account (9:18-22), he eliminates these harsh words about Peter, because he always wants to present a favorable image of the disciples; Matthew (16:13-23), for his part, puts this comment into Jesus' mouth following Peter's confession: "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven", because for him Peter plays a special and unique role in the Christian community. On the other hand, when the source of a passage cannot be reconstructed, the determination of its theological emphasis is more hypothetical. But the fact remains that an author's work as a whole reveals theological interests and concerns.

   6. Canonical Criticism

      We saw earlier how various writings have come over time to constitute a normative group of sacred books to express the core of the Christian faith. While each individual book has its own significance, being integrated into a larger whole gives it new meaning. It is the role of canonical criticism to examine individual NT passages in light of the whole NT, indeed the whole Bible.

   7. Structuralism

      As in writing criticism, structuralism (or semiotics) takes as its starting point the final product, or rather, the structure of the final product. But this structure goes further than the establishment of the general lines or plan of a text, so that it is a very technical study akin to mathematics. For the deeper structures are not apparent, and it is important to bring them to light so that the text becomes a coherent whole. Structuralists sometimes propose structures of frightening complexity, leading non-structuralists to question their usefulness and to wonder whether the same results could not be achieved with ordinary exegesis.

   8. Narrative Criticism

      When it looks at the gospels, narrative criticism considers them as narratives. Thus, it distinguishes the actual author (the one who actually wrote it) from the assumed author (the one who can be inferred from the narrative), just as it distinguishes the actual audience (those of the first century who heard/read the narrative or those of today) from the implied audience (those whom the author envisioned). This approach works well in the analysis of ongoing narratives such as the birth and death of Jesus. For example, although Mark is silent in his account of how Pilate was informed to be able to say to Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" the narrative criticism approach allows us to recognize that the gospel audience assumed that the Jewish authorities had previously informed Pilate. Similarly, it is logically impossible that the chief priests could have brought Jesus to Pilate, while at the same time being in the temple to greet Judas with his 30 pieces of silver; but was Matthew's intention not to create an effect of simultaneity? When the gospel stories were read aloud, was the listener not making this assumption of interpretation that the writer had in mind? Literary criticism makes it possible to consider the gospels as a literary work, like a play, and in this way counterbalances the excesses of historical investigation and makes it possible to highlight the author's main interest.

   9. Rhetorical Criticism

      Closely related to narrative criticism, rhetorical criticism analyzes the author's strategy for achieving his goal: the choice of narrative material, its organization, the selection of words. It assumes that the written text reveals the context of both the author and the reader, and thus is concerned not only with the writer's purpose and method, but also with the reader's interests, values and emotions. Like narrative criticism, rhetorical criticism views the gospels as a piece of literature. In the past, the gospels were classified as a "minor" piece of literature in comparison to classical Greek literature. Today, however, literary criticism studies do more justice to an undeniable historical fact: the narrative power of the gospels centered on the person of Jesus was uniquely effective in convincing millions to become Christians. And there is no equivalent to the gospels in Jewish literature of the time.

   10. Social Criticism

       Social criticism studies a text assuming that it reflects a particular socio-cultural environment and intends to respond to it. Different groups with different political, economic and religious positions would have shaped the text to address their particular concerns.

   11. Advocacy Criticism

       Advocacy criticism is a generic title sometimes given to liberationist, African American, feminist, and related studies, as their authors advocate that the findings be used to change the current social, political, or religious situation. This approach is based on the idea that the biblical authors and their writings were not free from a tendency to propagate a worldview, and thus reflect a specific patriarchal or ecclesiastical viewpoint. Consequently, one must examine the slightest clues to find what may have been consciously or unconsciously suppressed. Some biblical scholars see in this approach the danger of reading into the Scriptures what one would like to find there, without recognizing that the sociological situation of the NT is indeed not very favorable to modern causes. Nevertheless, we should recognize that this approach has made it possible to raise important questions that traditional biblical scholars have never asked, thus shedding new light on the situation in the NT.

   12. Overview

       The different approaches to the text must be combined so that no one "critism" becomes the exclusive mode of interpretation. Biblical scholars who employ the various forms of criticism in a complementary manner will arrive at a much fuller meaning of the biblical text. To illustrate this point, we can consider that there are three worlds surrounding the gospels:

       • The world behind the text would include both the life of Jesus and religious reflection on him through faith, preaching and community religious experience.

       • The world of the text contains the written testimony of the evangelists, which reflects their own understanding and experience of Jesus and their ability to express that testimony. Note that the evangelists were able to incorporate into their gospel not only written sources, but also oral sources that they knew. Note also that once published, the gospel text had a life of its own, so that there may be meanings passed on that go beyond what the author envisioned or what the original readers understood.

       • The world before the text is about the interaction of the gospels with the readers who, through interpretation, enter into them, appropriate their meaning and are transformed by them. Here, biblical commentaries play an important role, as does the reader's spiritual commitment.

         These different approaches will be illustrated when we analyze the individual books of the NT.

2. Special Issues Raised by Views on Inspiration and Revelation

   Applying the various literary and scientific methods to the Bible in general, and to the NT in particular, could shock those for whom these texts are sacred and inspired. The question then arises: does the belief in inspiration, if valid, change the rules of interpretation? And how does the view that Scripture is a unique and important part of divine revelation affect interpretation?

   1. Inspiration

      There are four different positions on the inspiration.

      1. According to some, the inspiration of Scripture is a pious belief without any validity. This position, which arose in Germany at the end of the 18th century in response to the proponents of a literal reading of the Bible, intends to judge the NT texts in terms of their sociological impact as a minor religious movement of the Roman Empire.

      2. Without engaging in a positive or negative view of inspiration, many interpreters would consider references to it to be wholly inappropriate in a scholarly study of Scripture. When passages of theological significance present difficulties, inspiration or any other religious factor cannot be appealed to in interpreting them.

      3. In contrast, others see divine inspiration as the factor so dominant that the limitations of the human writer become irrelevant. God knows all things and God communicates through the Scriptures; therefore, the Scriptures answer the problems of all time, even those that human writers have never thought of. This emphasis on inspiration is often correlated with a broad theory of inerrancy in which biblical data on scientific, historical, and religious matters are considered infallible and indisputable.

      4. A number of interpreters take an intermediate position. They accept inspiration as important to the interpretation of Scripture, but they do not believe that God's role as author removes human limitations. God is responsible for the events narrated, but those who wrote the Christian narrative were people conditioned by the time of the first and early second centuries, addressing audiences of their time in the worldview of that period. They did not know the distant future, even though what they wrote is relevant to all centuries.

         Even within this intermediate position, attitudes vary on the question of infallibility.

         1. Some simply dismiss it as an erroneous deduction from the inspiration of Scripture
         2. Others limit this infallibility to religious matters
         3. Still others, because of the great diversity in the content of the Scriptures, limit infallibility to a few religious questions
         4. Finally, for others, the limit to infallibility means that infallibility is implied only when it concerns the purpose for which God intended a passage of Scripture for our salvation (see Dei Verbum 3.11). But this only postpones the problem: how to specify this purpose? Two criteria have been proposed, one from the Protestant world where the Spirit guides the individual reader of the Bible to religious or theological truth, i.e., the "private interpretation" of the Bible, the other from the Catholic world where the Spirit provides guidance through the teaching of the Church. But each criterion presents difficulties. In the private interpretation, how to deal with all the conflicting interpretations. In Catholic interpretation, how to avoid sticking to broad generalities and never pronouncing on the meaning of particular passages, or using Scripture primarily to support magisterial teaching.

      A certain form of the position (d.) on inspiration gains the most support among those interested in the religious implications of the NT. In our presentation of the various books of the NT, we will highlight the different theological interpretations that have emerged from divergent views on the role of the Spirit and/or tradition in interpreting the inspired word of God.

   2. Revelation

      The question of inspiration raises the related question of revelation, i.e., do the Scriptures present a revelation from God that affects human life and destiny? On this point, there are four positions that parallel the four positions on inspiration.

      1. Radical Christians deny the existence of any revelation from God other than that already implied in creation. Any alleged communication from above can only be superstition.

      2. Some, who may believe in divine revelation, do not attribute any role to it in the interpretation, because only logic rather than faith determines the value of what Scripture affirms.

      3. Many more conservative Christians view Scripture as the product of revelation, so that every word is a divine communication of truth to human beings. In this approach, Scripture and revelation are equivalent, so that even trivial things like name lists, temple measurements or poetic descriptions are part of revelation.

      4. Other Christians, not finding revelation in every biblical passage, argue that Scripture is not revelation but that it contains it. But on this point, Christians are divided on the answer to the question: Is Scripture the only normative witness to revelation? Protestants say yes, Catholics say no. Historical development has changed the framework of this question, highlighting the gap between the worldview of the NT authors and our own, and thus the interpretation of spiritual realities. Thus, some Protestants recognize the need for a reformulation of biblical revelation. On the Catholic side, some have sought to support certain dogmas not supported by the NT either by referring to a hidden meaning in the text of Scripture or by appealing to a second source of revelation, tradition, known in the first century and transmitted orally. The Second Vatican Council rejected this approach.

         A modified Catholic view considers two facets to revelation, God's action itself, and the interpretation of that action with the help of God's Spirit. And indeed, Scripture describes this action of God for Israel and in Jesus, and also provides the interpretation of it through the prophets and the apostles. However, it must be recognized that this interpretation is limited in time, extending from 1000 BC to about 125 AD. In the Christian faith, God's action reached its peak in Jesus, so that it is considered that with the death of the last apostles the revelation is closed. However, there is no reason to believe that God would have ceased to provide his help thereafter. Indeed, the subsequent role of the Spirit in human history, in the history of the Church and its declarations, in the writings of the Fathers and theologians, enters into a Tradition that embodies the post-scriptural interpretation of God's saving action described in Scripture. Thus, there can be a subsequent normative interpretation of that action described by Scripture, but not found in Scripture, e.g., the resurrection from death to glory of all Christ's faithful followers.

3. The Literal Sense

   Let us now return to one of the methods of interpretation we described earlier: historical criticism, which plays a fundamental role in the interpretation of Scripture by determining the historical value of a text, the circumstances of its composition, its author and its objective content. It seeks to determine the literal meaning of a text, i.e. what the biblical authors intended to convey and actually did convey to their audience through what they wrote. But achieving this goal is a challenge when one considers each of its components.

   1. By What The Biblical Authors Wrote

      The books of the NT were written about 1,900 years ago in Greek. From the point of view of language, even the best translation into everyday language cannot capture all the nuances of the original Greek. From the point of view of culture and context, the authors and their audience had a very different worldview than we do: a different context, different knowledge, different assumptions about reality. And among the various NT authors who belonged to different times and backgrounds, they did not necessarily all have the same background or perspectives. For example, it seems likely that many of the NT authors were of Jewish birth, but to what extent did they know Judaism, and from what perspective? Was the Greek in which they wrote a language they had grown up with, or was Aramaic or Hebrew their native language, so that they (or a secretary) translated mentally into Greek? The authors knew the Jewish Scriptures, but in which language, Hebrew or the Greek translation of the Septuagint? The Gospels and Acts set scenes in Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, Antioch and other parts of the ancient world; how many of the authors had already been to the places they mention and therefore spoke with knowledge, or if they had not been there, had to resort to their imagination or to what they had heard?

   2. To Audiences

      How did these audiences understand what was written? We can't answer that with certainty, but there are factors to consider.

      1. First, the author's intent and the audience's understanding may differ. For example, we may wonder how an audience of Gentile-born Christians who had acquired only a partial familiarity with Judaism understood what an author wrote. We need only think of Paul referring to Jesus as the son of God on the basis of Nathan's promise of royal offspring to David (2 Sam. 7:14), when he is addressing people of Gentile origin who had paid public honor to male and female gods and their divine children. Let us remember that the letters and the gospels were known primarily by oral proclamation.

      2. Second, we have limited knowledge of this audience, except in the case of some of Paul's letters. For example, Mk 7:3 has to explain the Jewish custom of ablution with water before eating and drinking, so we can presume that the author was Jewish or knew Jewish customs, while his audience seems to be unaware of them. This presumption may play a role in assessing the meaning of a difficult passage in Mark, such as 15:38, concerning the torn veil of the Temple sanctuary (see also Mt 27:51; Lk 23:45b). For there were a number of Temple veils with different functions and decorations. Did any or all of the evangelists know that there were different sanctuary veils? Had any of them ever seen the Temple building or the decorated veil? The answer to this question leads to a different understanding of the tearing of the veil. And would Mark's listeners have understood a recurring reference to a specific veil of the Temple in Jerusalem if they did not have a basic knowledge of Judaism? In terms of literal meaning, can one properly speak of the "meaning" of a passage when there is little chance that the original intended audience understood such meaning? The tearing of the veil of the sanctuary can probably not be interpreted as meaning more than anyone who has ever been in a temple would have understood, i.e., that the tearing of the veil separating the sacred place from the temple deprived that place of what made it God's sanctuary and distinguished it in its holiness from the other places in the enclave.

      3. How familiar was the audience with Jewish Scripture? Would the intended audiences have picked up on the subtle allusions? If a passage is quoted, would they have been aware of the OT context, so that more of the pericope than the quoted line would have come to mind? Would the vocabulary used by the author in a quoted passage of Scripture have evoked in the minds of the readers other passages of Scripture containing the same vocabulary or its broader meaning conveyed by the living Jewish tradition?

      4. Knowing the sociological background of the author and the audience is an immense challenge. Modern sociology, reinforced by a more astute application of archaeological technique, has made us aware of differences centered on citizenship, wealth, education, and social status within the churches concerned. Diagnosis of the socio-political situation of the gospel's hearers usually depends on internal evidence and is a highly speculative pursuit.

   3. What The Biblical Authors Intended And Conveyed

      The NT authors certainly knew more of the Christian tradition than they were able or willing to convey in their writings; John 21:25 is specific about this. Thus, just because an author did not address a point does not mean he did not know it. But an exegesis that includes what the evangelists did not actually convey in writing becomes very speculative.

      A more difficult question is the relationship between what the written word conveys and what the authors intended. There is a range of possibilities: depending on the author's skill, a piece of writing may convey what the author intended, or something less, or the opposite, or something other than what the author intended or anticipated. However, in interpreting a work, one must begin by assuming a general correspondence between what the author intended to say and what he or she conveyed, and only in exceptional cases should attention be drawn to cases where what the words seem to convey may not be what the author intended. The latter case is illustrated by Lk 23:26 which uses the pronoun "they" as the subject of the action of those who bring Jesus to be crucified: grammatically, the characters mentioned just before are the "chief priests", and so we should understand that they are the ones bringing Jesus in, which contradicts the rest of the narrative where it is the Roman soldiers who bring Jesus in to be crucified; here we have a typical case of Luke's careless use of antecedents, and thus a case where the grammatical meaning of what he wrote was not what he wanted to convey.

      We must be careful when we detect what seems to be a contradiction in an author, because what is a contradiction for us is not necessarily a contradiction for him. For example, some commentators find a contradiction between Mark 14:50, which says of the disciples, "And when they had left him, they all fled," and Mark 14:51, where a certain young man is still following Jesus, and Mark 14:54, where Peter is following him at a distance. In this type of account, are they really contradictory, or are they cumulative ways of illustrating the failure of the disciples? All of them fled or went away denying Jesus, including finally those who, while continuing to follow, tried not to flee.

      Finally, when we talk about the author's intention we are referring to the final product. All the evangelists use sources that no longer exist. For example, Matthew and Luke use in their gospel a document written in Greek, which biblical scholars have called Q, which looks like a binder of loose sheets of Jesus' words. A whole industry has developed around this document to analyze the exact order of the words, its theology, its audience, its proximity to the historical Jesus. Such analysis is valid, and discernment of the complex origins of a biblical book should be part of the diagnosis of that book's meaning; but the canonical NT to whose authority Christians are attached consists of whole books, not reconstructed sources, however fascinating.

4. Wider Meanings beyond the Literal

   Although the literal meaning offered by historical criticism is fundamental, the very nature of the Bible opens the door to other broader meanings.

   1. Wider Meaning From Recognizing God's Role As Author

      The fourth position on inspiration presented earlier conceived of inspiration as a dual biblical authorship, divine and human - "authorship" not in the sense that God dictated the Bible to human copyists, but in the sense that the composition of the biblical books by human writers was part of God's providence in order to provide enduring guidance to God's people. Because of God's active role in the production of Scripture, it is not illogical to propose that beyond the literal meaning intended and transmitted by human writers, there may be a fuller meaning intended by God. A typical example is the use of the OT by the early Christians: they recognized in the OT anticipations of Jesus that went beyond what the original human authors had intended, just as beliefs today go beyond the specific teaching of the NT.

      The main problem with this more-than-literal exegesis is establishing criteria for reading God's intention into the Scriptures so that it remains distinct from mere human ingenuity in thinking about the Scriptures. In the period 1925-70, especially in Roman Catholic circles, a more technical approach developed in terms of sensus plenior ("fuller sense") of Scripture that would appear in the light of subsequent revelation or the development of understanding of revelation. One of the criteria is that the sensus plenior must be consistent with the literal meaning. This movement has found its voice in the two hermeneutical approaches that follow.

   2. Wider Meaning Gained From The Placement Of A Book Within The Canon

      A book of the NT has significance not only by itself but in relation to the other biblical books. Indeed, a book is only truly biblical because it is part of an authoritative collection, i.e., the NT or even the entire Bible. No NT author knew that what he wrote would be included in a collection of twenty-seven books and read as an enduring message centuries or even millennia later. Someone like Paul might have found it strange to find his letter to the Galatians in the same Testament as two epistles attributed to Peter and one attributed to James, even though he wrote (Galatians 2:11-14) opposing Cephas and the people sent by James, just as Luke might have been annoyed to see his second book (Acts) separated from the first (the Gospel) and placed as if it were of another kind.

      Earlier we presented the canonical criticism. In fact, there are different nuances to this approach. Let us take the example of the book of the prophet Isaiah. This book consists of three major divisions composed over a long period of time: protoIsaiah (8th century BC), deuteroIsaiah (mid-6th century), and tritoIsaiah plus other segments (from the end of the 6th century). Biblical scholars write commentaries on each of these parts; but the "canonical meaning", in a sense, would be the meaning that the passages in these parts have in the context of the whole book. With other nuances, it would be the meaning that the passage has in the context of the prophetic corpus, then in the OT, then in the whole Bible, including the NT-in other words, the canonical meaning could include up to 800 years of interpretation.

      This canonical dimension is forgotten in two ways.

      1. We forget this by imagining that the biblical message is uniform. It is not. It is hard to imagine that Paul's attitude (Rom 8:28: "justified by faith apart from works of the law") was the same as James' (Jas 2:24: "justified by works and not by faith alone"). By putting it in the same corpus, we then have a more complete picture of what the NT says about the Christian's relationship to the Law. In short, the answer to the canon is not to suppress or undervalue the trenchant view of an individual biblical author, but to make up one's mind about the various views that exist by putting them side by side.

      2. It is also forgotten by privileging certain books and dismissing others. Among biblical scholars, there is sometimes a push to define the "center of the canon" or the "canon within the canon." All must recognize that some biblical books, by their length and depth, are more important than others; one cannot equate, for example, the letter to the Romans with the letter of Jude, just as greater importance is given in the OT to the Pentateuch (the first five books) and in the NT to the gospels. But there are dangers in pushing certain writings to the margins. For example, prior to 1970 the Roman Catholic lectionary overwhelmingly neglected Mark in favor of Matthew and Luke - a choice that deprived Christian audiences of the unique acuity of the Marcan witness. Today, some Christians seek to prove themselves right and others wrong by appealing to certain passages and books of the NT, unconsciously ignoring the other passages and assuming that they were following the whole of the NT. By its diversity, is it not the role of the canon to challenge the various opinions? It then becomes for the Christian both his conscience and his corrector.

   3. Wider Meanings From Subsequent Reading

      Over the centuries, people have continued to find meaning in the NT for their own lives as they have faced new problems; they have asked what the NT books mean, not just what they meant. But it would be naive to think that first-century writings that attempted to answer first-century questions can directly solve 21st-century problems. On the other hand, according to modern contextual approaches to hermeneutics, the literary work is not simply the written text once completed; it arises from the interaction between the writing and the reader. The text is not simply an object from which a permanent univocal meaning is extracted; it is a structure that engages readers in the process of realizing meaning and is therefore open to more than one valid meaning. Once written, a text is no longer under the control of the author and can never be interpreted twice from the same situation. The NT has given rise to theological, spiritual and artistic reflection which, if it goes beyond what the author had envisaged, is not a simple adaptation to the spirit of a later era.

      But the major problem with this development of meaning lies once again in the criteria for distinguishing authentic development from distortion. For example, Francis of Assisi became the most important interpreter of the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke by introducing the creche or Christmas crib. One can appreciate this enormous contribution while being obliged to ask whether, by promoting a maudlin sentimentality, the crib does not, in certain circumstances, risk departing from the main theological objectives of these narratives. Similarly, the Western Church has been divided over such questions as whether Christ provided two or seven sacraments. It should be recognized at the outset that the NT never speaks of "sacrament" and that there was probably no generic term in the first century to cover various sacred actions such as baptism and eucharist. Perhaps the best approach is to study the common elements in the NT conceptions of baptism and eucharist that would lead to the post-NT development of the term "sacrament" as a generic term, and the possible existence in the NT period of other sacred actions that somehow shared the same common elements.