Biblical Interpretation
Most churches will teach a little on how to interpret the Bible, but they don’t do a very good job of it. It is not in their best interest that you learn how to see the wickedness of their ways. And they get away with plenty! They know that most will not do the research required and if anyone challenges them they are rarely affected. Well actually there are a lot of defections but the leaders just groom a few more into their ways of deceipt.
The way to not get duped, whether it be in church, on the internet, or someone on TV, is to know how to interpret the Bible. Below are 10 rules of biblical interpretation, taken from Tekton Apologetics Ministries.
- Pray! Pray! Pray! The Holy Spirit knows better then you do!
- Always know what the verse actually says, not what you think you remember it saying
- Take the verse in literary context, don’t just read what you want to read to prove your point and don’t forget the Bible is a mosaic of different kinds of literature meant to be read different ways.
- Take the verse in cultural context, just like you saying “it’s raining cats and dogs” is not what you literally meant
- Remember the Bible is a whole 66 books! Interpret all verses in relation the other 1000’s of verses
- Check the other translations, The variations are complimentary and show the whole picture
- The Bible was not originally written in English, go back to the sources
- Theological presuppositions are bad, scripture determines doctrine, not the other way around
- Check the Theologians’ opinions, The Ph.D, professor of heart surgery of Harvard is better then your uncle Ted’s heart removal service. Professional opinions matter! (but don’t assume they’re always right)
- Assume nothing, be ready to learn, don’t give up. Remember, only God knows everything.
Tags: Christianity, Church Criticism, False Doctrine
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November 13, 2007 at 8:34 pm
That’s a pretty good little list of commandments for interpretation – I think they did a fairly good job.
Number one is like commandment #1 from Exodus 20 – the focus should be on God – they are His words.
“Always know what the verse actually says, not what you think you remember it saying ”
I like this – it was one of the things I had to relearn when looking constructively at scripture again. I was very denominationalized – but a lot of what I was taught was lacking in depth.
“the Bible is a mosaic of different kinds of literature meant to be read different ways.”
So true – metaphor, allegory, and word-play are used a lot in the writings. Not everything is literal.
“Take the verse in cultural context”
I would almost put this number 2 in my books – since I think the church community has left behind the Jewishness of those gospels for European interpretation. Culturally (in context) we may have missed something here when defining what is being written in the gospels.
“Remember the Bible is a whole 66 books! Interpret all verses in relation to the other 1000’s of verses”
I agree to a certain point and I disagree to a certain point here. What we have in the gospels and letters may hearken back to another idea in the Tanakh – I totally agree – so it’s worth checking into. But 66 books (not all are books) have to be in complete agreement – I am not sure about this. I think we have to approach each book seperately and look at them that way – some themes may flow over – but each book is a unique work.
“Check the other translations”
This is a whatever point more or less – it’s good if you do but if you cannot get the point from one good translation – I would be hard pressed to see someone use 20 translations and actually get the point.
“go back to the sources”
This is as tricky as reading the English. Going back to the greek can produce good results but I have seen people go back to the greek and still mess something up. Because irregardless of what language you read – you still have to find the point.
“Theological presuppositions are bad, scripture determines doctrine, not the other way around”
If this was actually true – things would be do different right now in our churches. I personally like the idea – but again scripture also needs to be interpretated by us humans and we are quite limited (namely if we have to check 1000’s of passages just to find one meaning).
“Check the Theologians’ opinions”
I agree – I think there are a lot of people that have dedicated time to studying the words of God – and I am open to hearing them out for a more fuller meaning to our faith.
“Assume nothing, be ready to learn, don’t give up”
Uh huh – oddly enough I made this same point as one of the things I learned over the last 2 years (in discussing God) and I was blasted by fishon for it. I think this approach speaks of humility and why should any of us think we have these book(s) all wrapped up? I know we don’t…we are far from it actually. But that’s the greatness of our times – we are looking at this more openly and finding the words of God have much more to say than what doctrinal statements propose.
November 14, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Hi Brother
Refreshing and valuable list. Cumulatively, I see it forces us interpreters to take personal responsibility for what we interpret. Here’s a “gospel” interpretation I saw at another site that someone said was “right on the money”. Have a good laugh.
‘The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree, which never actually existed.’
November 15, 2007 at 1:48 am
Societyvs, thanks for going through the list and commenting on each one. I too find it hard to go back to the source language, but I appreciate that here are some who have learned how to do that and they are able to clarify things sometimes by doing that.
Jim J, that is hilarious! But I do believe that you must either believe Jesus was who He said He was or that He was completely wacko. At least whoever wrote this is not sitting on the fence saying ‘well I like some of what he taught’.
November 18, 2007 at 8:28 am
But I do believe that you must either believe Jesus was who He said He was or that He was completely wacko. At least whoever wrote this is not sitting on the fence saying ‘well I like some of what he taught’.
No Ken, there are always other options. My take on Jesus is that he didn’t say most of what he is credited with saying. The books were not written until much later and by then writers had their own agendas, their own memories, which came into play.
I’m not sitting on any fence. I have no interest in Jesus at all, but I’m not going to sit and throw rocks at those who believe differently. Surely showing a certain amount of respect to others is the better way to go than saying because I don’t believe in Jesus he must have been nuts or, perhaps more accurately in your view, I must be nuts? We all live in this world together. Surely your black and white picture doesn’t leave much room for us to find ways to get along.