Dei Verbum
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
Second Vatican Council, 18 November 1965

Chapter III- Sacred Scripture: Its Inspiration and Divine Revelation

11.  Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the Holy Spirit.  For Holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles, holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. (1) In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him (2) they made use of their powers and abilities so that Him acting in them and through them (3) they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which he wanted.  (4)

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors on sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation.  Therefore “all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind (2 Tim 3:16-17).

12.  However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, (6) the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate with us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.

To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms.”  For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse.  The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. (7)  For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patters men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.  (8)
But, since Holy Scripture must be read and interpreted in the sacred spirit in which it was written, (9) no less serious attention must be given to the content and unity of Scripture.

Scripture is not the Church's sole point of reference. The Church’s ‘supreme rule of her faith’ derives from the unity that the Spirit has created between Sacred Tradition, human experience, and Sacred Scripture and the magisterium of the Church in such a way which means that none of the four can survive without the others. Moreover, when studying Sacred Scripture, one should keep in mind the various possible approaches to arrive at the full meaning of the texts.
Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) Paragraph 55

• Scripture

• Tradition

• Reason

• Human Experience

On Christian Doctrine
by St. Augustine

Book III, Chap. 10.
How we are to discern whether a phrase is figurative

14. “But in addition to the foregoing rule, which guards us against taking a metaphorical form of speech as if it were literal, we must also pay heed to that which tells us not to take a literal form of speech as if it were figurative. In the first place, then, we must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one's neighbour; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one's neighbour. Every man, moreover, has hope in his own conscience, so far as he perceives that he has attained to the love and knowledge of God and his neighbour. Now all these matters have been spoken of in the first book.”

What does this say to you? Who are your neighbors? To whom is our primary responsibility?

How would you integrate this directive from Augustine, in light of what you have learned in Genesis 3?