How do you decide how to interpret?

[sojourner]

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Jesus didn't come to earth to talk about animals.

Jesus tells us in MT. 11:25-27, "I praise you Lord of heaven and earth for having hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealing then to little children. For that was your good pleasure."

So all one needs is the faith of a child to understand it. But it's those who consider themselves "wise and learned" who have to define words like "is" in the bible.

Sometimes those small words can create the biggest bugaboos. for example, I think it's in the 3rd chapter of Romans, where Paul talks about "faith in Christ" being salvific. But the Greek word "in" might just as easily be translated "of." The transposition of those words would change how we interpret that passage. Is it the faith of Christ that is efficacious, or faith in Christ?

 

[sojourner]

Jesus explains that very clear in the next verse about having enough faith you can accomplish anything you want.

Future prophecies are supposed to be disguised because man will try to alter them if he knew what they were. But false teachings aren't about future prophecies. They are always trying to change verses like Leviticus 18:22 into the opposite like "God loves homosexuality" Or changing the word "eternal" to mean "not eternal" that universalists try to do...you know redefining words like "is."

The Bible is a wonderfully polyvalent text that opens itself to a variety of understandings. Universalists and the inclusive are just as justified in their interpretation as the gatekeepers and homophobes.

Personally, I go with the crowd that stands for love, compassion, including, welcoming, radical acceptance, and freedom.

 

[Carico]

Narrow thinking, at best. It's the context, the syntax, the grammar, the style, the use of literary devices. Those things must be interpreted, or the words, themselves, don't make any sense.

Most of us learned words like "the", "it, "you" etc. in elementary school along with how to construct a sentence. So once you've learned those things, then the words in the bible speak for themselves.

 

[sojourner]

Most of us learned words like "the", "it, "you" etc. in elementary school along with how to construct a sentence. So once you've learned those things, then the words in the bible speak for themselves.

You forgot about literary styles, in which constructs are distinguished from historical or factual reporting. You forgot about poetry, narrative, biography. You forget about the distance, both in time and place, between author and audience. You forget that the Bible was originally heard and not read. When these things are taken into consideration, many times, the Bible does not "speak for itself," but does lend itself to a polyvalent interpretation.

 

[Oberon]

polyvalent

I just finished reading the book Valency and Case in Computational Linguistics, and now you have to throw "valent" in a post. I don't care if the meaning is totally different, I have had enough of this word to last a lifetime. You just went WAY down in my book.

 

[Buttons*]

mmmm, semantics are tasty