The purpose of this brief paper is to highlight what it is a theologian does when he is "doing" theology. In what follows, I will first answer the question: 'what is theological method?' and then provide some of my thoughts on what I think is an apropriate (yet very tentative) thological method.
To define the term 'theological method' proves no easy task. At bottom, this term refers to the preliminaries of theology. What, then, is meant by the preliminaries? The enterprise of theology cannot be reduced to simply the activity of organizing and codifying doctrine. Many fundamentalist theological procedures are guilty of a kind of reductionist activity of organizing what the whole Bible may say on a specific doctrine (e.g., baptism, or predestination, etc). While many conservative, evangelical and fundamentalist theologies (though not all) may be applauded for their taking serious the Scriptures, these traditions sometimes neglect the critical task of also taking time to provide a careful, nuanced and sustained study of the method they employ (it is sometimes said that liberals, on the other hand, only talk about method and never engage in actual exposition of theology).
So what are the preliminaries of theology? The preliminaries of of theology are legion and may not always be easily identified. For a theologian to take seriously the preliminaries means that he must render explicit, for example, hermeneutical assumptions, the relationship of faith and history, epistemological warrants, and authorities (e.g., scripture, tradition, culture, philosophy, recent critical literary tools, etc). Further, taking preliminaries of theology seriously means raising questions regarding the nature of doctrine, especially its relationship to first and second order truth claims and to other disciplines, such as literary studies, philosophy, science etc. I will elaborate on a few these issues below. But as one can see already, theological method is an enterprise that calls attention to a variety of crucial questions that are many times ambiguous and difficult to articulate. Perhaps reviewing a few of the more prominent theologians who have written on this topic may help provide clearer parameters to the subject at hand. I will look at two in particular, David Tracy and George Lindbeck.
Tracy's theory (follwing in line with Paul Tillich's method) has determined that all theology must be "correlational." This means that theology must, if it be a responsible and public discipline, interact critically with culture's latest intellectual tools. Of course, for Tracy, this translates, usually, to the task of reinterpreting theology mostly in light of philosophy and critical-literary tools. For example, he has taken Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutical paradigm of "mode-of-being-in-the-world" to reinterpret the gospels. Thus, in light of Ricoeur's powerful and creative hermeneutical approach Tracy has interpreted the gospels as stories that reveal possibilities of how an authentic life can be lived--that is what any 'classic' can do.
Lindbeck has attempted, on the other hand, to retain more of a concern for the authority of the Christian community. Doctrine, here, need not be necessarily focused on first order truth claims (e.g., is it actually true or not) but rather should be focused on serving a 'regulative' function. This means that doctrine can posit, for the Christian community, regulative grammars and cultural-linguistic systems that explain and shed light on the life-transforming ideas found in tradition and scripture. Lindbeck's theory has been criticized for reducing theology to its own isolated ghetto, that is, being resistant to public interaction with other disciplines, but this criticism is not always valid. Lindbeck still believes that the Christian community can speak on public issues and many times provide a prophetic stance against culture. To be sure, though, he simply does not stress a correlational paradigm in the same way Tracy does. But the Tracy-Lindbeck debate is a conversation for another time.
Allow me to now return to some of the themes I raised earlier. Among all the quesitons that were raised above, hermeneutics plays an especially central role in theological method. How do we interpret an ancient document, the Bible, that has been taken in so many disparate directions with any kind of certainty? Postmodernism has critiqued the Enlightenment' project of object, neutral, theory-free knowledge. So the question of hermeneutics takes on particular nuances that poses a serious threat to objective interpretations. Does scripture simply have a plain meaning? Does the literal sense hold water any longer? Perhaps not, and perhaps the real questions is: how does the theologian interpret scripture without returning to a reductionsit hermeneutic of fitting scripture within one's previous held theological heritage? How does one take the newness and authority of the text of scripture seriously while at the same time take one's assumptions about the text seriously? These questions are not easy to answer and are at the core of theological method.
A second theme that is central theological method is epistemology--and more precisely, foundationalism versus non-foundationalism. Many postmodern theologians seek to rid theology of any Enlightenment pitfalls of certainty and therefore ground epistemic authority in the community--Lindbeck and Edward Farely seem to do this.
And finally, another major theme is the relationship theology has among other disciplines, in particular the social sciences, philosophy and literary studies, as I have already alluded to. Edward Farley has argued, I think in "Ecclesial Church" that theology will simply look parasitic to the other disciplines if it plays by the exact same rules as, for example, the social sciences. The idea here is that many times theology is held to the same standards as a science, social or otherwise and thus the identity of theology is compromised and becomes parasitic. Theology has yearned for the same respect as other disciplines across the curriculum and has then been prone to borrowing its methods from them. Tracy is perhaps, and I stress perhaps, guilty of such a compromise. Instead of relying on other disciplines, theology must persist in forming its own theological identity and its own theological principles and methods. This also is not an easy task. In conclusion, allow me to make a few remarks regarding my own preferences with respect to theological method. Scripture must remain the overall guiding principle when formulating a method. I am an evangelical of sorts, and therefore I am sympathetic to the protestant scripture princple, sola scriptura. I am not, however, a fundamentalist, a conservative or a propositionalist. I think that the some of the social sciences, philosophy and literary critical tools can also be involved in fine tuning an evangelical method (without it being parasitic to them), though not in necessarily the same way as Tracy or Lindbeck involve them. How exactly I am not sure, and at this juncture I must remain in limbo. I just think hermeneutical theory derived from Gadamer, Ricoeur, Von Balthasaar (theo-drama) and Speech-Act theory can be of great help in nuancing how scripture is reinterpreted for our contemporary age. Last but not least, I also possess a great appreciation for tradition, especially the tradition of how scripture has been appropriated througout the ages--orthodoxy, Roman Catholic, protestant, etc. I know that the plural nature of scripture, its pluarity of genre and communicative activities is not limited to my interpretation alone. A conversation with all traditions is also crucial
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
ANSWER TO PART IV
IS CHURCH TRADITION AND HISTORY A GOOD AID IN HELPING ONE BETTER INTERPRET THE BIBLE?
Sorry it took me so long to answer this one, I have been preoccupied with other stuff.
Anyway, the answer to this question is yes…and no. allow me to first answer yes. Church tradition is very very helpful for two reasons. First, I would never deny that the Holy Spirit has been guiding the church throughout the ages. Of course it has. This means of course that we have something to learn from the great Christian thinkers of the past, though they may have fallen into error at times. I would be behaving very pretentiously to think that I know it all and I have nothing to learn from the past or that the holy spirit could not have lead the church in the right direction.
Second, let me say that the church tradition, if cautiously used, can help us filter out our unhelpful prejudices and retain our helpful ones. I think the early church creeds are amazing statements of early development of doctrine amid a very pluralistic society. The early Christians were constantly forced, like we are now, to reassess their faith and make sure it is pure because there was such a diversity of religions, especially paganism(s). at any rate, we have a lot to learn from the early church (roughly 400ad and before). Also, precisely because Christianity is a historic faith, precisely because it is grounded in a real person who really lived in history, we must take the past seriously. We must see it as ultimately a helpful aid in our interpretation of the bible. The bible was not written in a vacuum, nor is to be interpreted in one.
Also, remember, the new testament was no canonized until well into the 300s. so the early church was without a well defined new testament canon for at least 3 centuries. This should make us rethink the importance of tradition, since that is precisely where the new testament canon grew out of. How else did we get the new testament? The answer is: by many church leaders over many years meeting together to decide which books should be considered "canonical." So of course, if the new testament emerged out of church tradition, then we should be more willing to engage tradition in our interpretation of the bible.
Now, for the no part. Very briefly, I think we can go to far in thinking tradition is the end all be all, as though it is just as authoritative as scripture itself. That is a very brief cautionary word, one I could try to flesh out later on.
Sorry it took me so long to answer this one, I have been preoccupied with other stuff.
Anyway, the answer to this question is yes…and no. allow me to first answer yes. Church tradition is very very helpful for two reasons. First, I would never deny that the Holy Spirit has been guiding the church throughout the ages. Of course it has. This means of course that we have something to learn from the great Christian thinkers of the past, though they may have fallen into error at times. I would be behaving very pretentiously to think that I know it all and I have nothing to learn from the past or that the holy spirit could not have lead the church in the right direction.
Second, let me say that the church tradition, if cautiously used, can help us filter out our unhelpful prejudices and retain our helpful ones. I think the early church creeds are amazing statements of early development of doctrine amid a very pluralistic society. The early Christians were constantly forced, like we are now, to reassess their faith and make sure it is pure because there was such a diversity of religions, especially paganism(s). at any rate, we have a lot to learn from the early church (roughly 400ad and before). Also, precisely because Christianity is a historic faith, precisely because it is grounded in a real person who really lived in history, we must take the past seriously. We must see it as ultimately a helpful aid in our interpretation of the bible. The bible was not written in a vacuum, nor is to be interpreted in one.
Also, remember, the new testament was no canonized until well into the 300s. so the early church was without a well defined new testament canon for at least 3 centuries. This should make us rethink the importance of tradition, since that is precisely where the new testament canon grew out of. How else did we get the new testament? The answer is: by many church leaders over many years meeting together to decide which books should be considered "canonical." So of course, if the new testament emerged out of church tradition, then we should be more willing to engage tradition in our interpretation of the bible.
Now, for the no part. Very briefly, I think we can go to far in thinking tradition is the end all be all, as though it is just as authoritative as scripture itself. That is a very brief cautionary word, one I could try to flesh out later on.
BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS PART IV
This is the fourth question in a never-ending series of random questions about how we, as humans, interpret the Bible.
IS CHURCH TRADITION AND HISTORY A GOOD AID IN HELPING ONE BETTER INTERPRET THE BIBLE?
IS CHURCH TRADITION AND HISTORY A GOOD AID IN HELPING ONE BETTER INTERPRET THE BIBLE?
ANSWER TO PART III
this question is extremely important. Allow me to lay out some of its implications for interpreting texts from the past, and especially the Bible. Again, I may be off my rocker and crazy…this is just stuff for you to think about.
Imagine two scenarios. scenario one: there are two people in front of each having a conversation. A hearer and an author/speaker are both present talking back and forth. Any points of confusion can be cleared up immediately by the hearer asking the author/speaker for clarification. Here, it is obvious that the intent of the author/speaker can be known—the hearer simply needs to ask for it. For example, the author/speaker says, "I love cats." The hearer is unsure what exactly that statement means and so, asks for clarification. The author/speaker then clarifies his intention by saying, "I love the Northwestern wildcats football team." Thus, any temptation to think that "I love cats" meant love of the small domestic animal many people have is avoided. In other words, in a speech-act where both hearer and author are present, the intention of the author can be fully known.
Scenario two: Imagine that someone is reading a written text of any sort. Let us say that the hearer's name is Bill and that the written text is Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis (the text is not important and the choice is random). Now, we must recognize that the hearer and the author of the written text are no long present together. When Bill begins reading Mere Christianity and comes across an unclear phrase he cannot simply put the book down and ask C. S. Lewis for clarification. A major rupture has taken place between the hearer and author/speaker. No longer can the author's intentions be necessarily known. Especially with respect to Mere Christianity, since C. S. Lewis is dead, we will never be able to get to his intentions (only in heaven). This scenario is therefore presents a totally different set of problems than scenario one.
So, how can we know for sure our interpretation of Mere Christianity is correct if we don't have access to the author's intention? What if we come across a silly looking phrase and have no idea what it means? Are we simply out of luck? Well, yes, to some degree. Many scholars like to simply say that the written text is an exact reflection of the author's intentions. That in the written text itself, that author has left clues as to what his intentions are. So, when Bill reads the book Mere Christianity he is supposed to assume that it is the same as C. S. Lewis' intention. That seems to solve the problem, I guess. What it really seems to do is sidestep the problem. Nevertheless, the question remains: how can possible get inside the head of C. S Lewis and discover his intention? It isn't. To some degree, then, we will always have a hard time determining "exactly" what C. S. Lewis meant after writing every sentence of Mere Christianity. To some extent, various interpretations of Mere Christianity must be allowed as legitimate.
What about the Bible? Is it exempt from this problem? Can I really take a time machine back 2000 years and ask Paul the Apostle for clarification on what he meant in Romans Chapter 7 (that chapter still has me mystified!). Well no, I can't really know Paul's intent that lies behind every sentence in the book of Romans. what about when the church in the middle ages declared someone as a heretic or false teacher? How does the church have access to the normative interpretation if the author's intention cannot be known? Is Paul's letter to the Romans open then to any kind of interpretation one wants to impose on it? Does that mean were totally screwed with respect to the author's intention of the Biblical books? No. Here's why.
If you believe (and many people do not) that the Bible is in some sense inspired by God and thus authored by him, then we now have to consider if we can determine the intentions of God. What are God's intentions behind writing the whole of Scripture? Well, clues in the Bible itself tell us that we can know, very broadly, two major intention of God the author of the Bible, namely that God intends to never say anything that is false and to never say anything unloving. I guess I will end here. Just ask me for clarification if you want it. At any rate, I think these two intentions of God (1.never speaks falsely and 2.never speaks unlovingly) can help guide us in our interpretations of the Bible. If we see something unclear in let us say, Psalm 93, which seems to say that the earth is the center of our solar system (when we know it is the sun), then we can simply re-interpret Psalm 93 in a metaphorical way—why?—because God never speaks falsely. This may raise more questions than answer. sorry if it does.
Imagine two scenarios. scenario one: there are two people in front of each having a conversation. A hearer and an author/speaker are both present talking back and forth. Any points of confusion can be cleared up immediately by the hearer asking the author/speaker for clarification. Here, it is obvious that the intent of the author/speaker can be known—the hearer simply needs to ask for it. For example, the author/speaker says, "I love cats." The hearer is unsure what exactly that statement means and so, asks for clarification. The author/speaker then clarifies his intention by saying, "I love the Northwestern wildcats football team." Thus, any temptation to think that "I love cats" meant love of the small domestic animal many people have is avoided. In other words, in a speech-act where both hearer and author are present, the intention of the author can be fully known.
Scenario two: Imagine that someone is reading a written text of any sort. Let us say that the hearer's name is Bill and that the written text is Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis (the text is not important and the choice is random). Now, we must recognize that the hearer and the author of the written text are no long present together. When Bill begins reading Mere Christianity and comes across an unclear phrase he cannot simply put the book down and ask C. S. Lewis for clarification. A major rupture has taken place between the hearer and author/speaker. No longer can the author's intentions be necessarily known. Especially with respect to Mere Christianity, since C. S. Lewis is dead, we will never be able to get to his intentions (only in heaven). This scenario is therefore presents a totally different set of problems than scenario one.
So, how can we know for sure our interpretation of Mere Christianity is correct if we don't have access to the author's intention? What if we come across a silly looking phrase and have no idea what it means? Are we simply out of luck? Well, yes, to some degree. Many scholars like to simply say that the written text is an exact reflection of the author's intentions. That in the written text itself, that author has left clues as to what his intentions are. So, when Bill reads the book Mere Christianity he is supposed to assume that it is the same as C. S. Lewis' intention. That seems to solve the problem, I guess. What it really seems to do is sidestep the problem. Nevertheless, the question remains: how can possible get inside the head of C. S Lewis and discover his intention? It isn't. To some degree, then, we will always have a hard time determining "exactly" what C. S. Lewis meant after writing every sentence of Mere Christianity. To some extent, various interpretations of Mere Christianity must be allowed as legitimate.
What about the Bible? Is it exempt from this problem? Can I really take a time machine back 2000 years and ask Paul the Apostle for clarification on what he meant in Romans Chapter 7 (that chapter still has me mystified!). Well no, I can't really know Paul's intent that lies behind every sentence in the book of Romans. what about when the church in the middle ages declared someone as a heretic or false teacher? How does the church have access to the normative interpretation if the author's intention cannot be known? Is Paul's letter to the Romans open then to any kind of interpretation one wants to impose on it? Does that mean were totally screwed with respect to the author's intention of the Biblical books? No. Here's why.
If you believe (and many people do not) that the Bible is in some sense inspired by God and thus authored by him, then we now have to consider if we can determine the intentions of God. What are God's intentions behind writing the whole of Scripture? Well, clues in the Bible itself tell us that we can know, very broadly, two major intention of God the author of the Bible, namely that God intends to never say anything that is false and to never say anything unloving. I guess I will end here. Just ask me for clarification if you want it. At any rate, I think these two intentions of God (1.never speaks falsely and 2.never speaks unlovingly) can help guide us in our interpretations of the Bible. If we see something unclear in let us say, Psalm 93, which seems to say that the earth is the center of our solar system (when we know it is the sun), then we can simply re-interpret Psalm 93 in a metaphorical way—why?—because God never speaks falsely. This may raise more questions than answer. sorry if it does.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Biblical Hermeneutics Part III
All of my questions are, unfortunately, in random order. I wish I could put energy into organizing my questions in a kind of logical order. Oh well, it happens. What I am trying to say, I guess, is that there is no rhyme or reason to my order of questions, so please to read into my order as though I am asking questions in ascending order of importance. The third question is:
IS IT POSSIBLE TO KNOW THE INTENTIONS OF THE AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE? AND IF WE HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTENTIONS OF THE BIBLE (THIS IS CALLED "AUTHORIAL INTENT"), DOES IT HELP US BETTER UNDERSTAND IT? FOR EXAMPLE, IS IT POSSIBLE TO GET INSIDE THE HEAD OF PAUL THE APOSTLE AND KNOW HIS INTENTIONS?
IS IT POSSIBLE TO KNOW THE INTENTIONS OF THE AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE? AND IF WE HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTENTIONS OF THE BIBLE (THIS IS CALLED "AUTHORIAL INTENT"), DOES IT HELP US BETTER UNDERSTAND IT? FOR EXAMPLE, IS IT POSSIBLE TO GET INSIDE THE HEAD OF PAUL THE APOSTLE AND KNOW HIS INTENTIONS?
Answer to Part II
IS THERE A NEUTRAL STANDPOINT, FREE FROM ALL PREJUDGMENTS, FROM WHICH ONE CAN INTERPRET THE BIBLE? IF NOT, HOW WOULD THIS AFFECT ONE'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE?
Answer to Part II--sorry for it being so long.
The answer to this is: No, No and No. We all have enormous amounts of mental baggage we bring to any text, especially the Bible. We cannot, in a sense, divorce ourselves from ourselves, that seems to me impossible. Neutrality is an illusion, no one can attain it and therefore no one can read or interpret a text on its own terms. Now, what usually happens, because we bring our prejudgments to the text, is that we impose our own belief system and pre-understanding of life onto the Bible. This can occur in various ways. The most obvious way this happens is that a Christian will interpret the Bible from his/her own denomination's point of view, sometimes disregarding those texts in the Bible that might go against it. For example, a Presbyterian will immediately see many good Presbyterian doctrines in the Bible, or a Catholic the same thing, or a Methodist the same thing and etc. Then of course, there is the non-religious person's point of view from which Bible is viewed. Everyone, religious or not, has a pre-existent understanding of life, which profoundly affects how one interprets any text, but especially the Bible.
What unfortunately happens, then, is that many times the Bible is fitted within an individual's pre-existent theological scheme (remember, you don't have to be religious to possess a theology). This means the Bible is subject to much abuse and that we all read-into-the-Bible (rather than letting the Bible read into us, so to speak). Now, how do we prevent this from happening, if at all?
Of course I don't think we can prevent this from happening altogether, but I do think, however, there is a way to help resist from the simple reductionist tendency to impose one's pre-existent beliefs on the Bible. Allow me to give you one approach to interpretation that may be of some help (or it may not, who knows).
If anyone has heard of Hans-Georg Gadamer, he is the philosopher from whom I am drawing my main ideas. He was a German scholar who specialized in hermeneutical theory and is quite helpful. If interested, his main work is called "Truth and Method."
Anyway, now allow me to delineate an interpretive approach that I think is balanced. First we must recognize that there exist two horizons or perspectives during an interpretive process. There is the horizon or perspective of the interpreter (you) and there is the horizon of the text (the Bible). What we want to do, ideally, is reject the idea that we can simply impose our horizon completely on top of the Bible's horizon. We want to let the Bible speak on its own terms. But, as we mentioned above, this is impossible since we all bring prejudgments to the Bible that profoundly affect how we see it. However, I think we can at least "fuse" the two horizons, the first horizon being you the interpreter and the second being the Bible.
Further, I think we need to be very aware of our own horizon, what kind of prejudgments we have regarding the Bible and allow them to be smashed. I call this the smashing of our idols. Too many times we don't recognize how unconsciously we impose our ideas onto the Bible. We need to be suspicious of ourselves and smash those idols that would prevent the Bible from speaking on its own terms.
Once we become aware of our own horizon and that fact that we bring unfruitful prejudgments (Paul Ricoeur calls them idols as I just mentioned) to the interpretive process, then we can begin to fuse our horizon with Bible's horizon. This means, most of all, being ready to listen to the Bible openly, and allowing it to transform our horizon (remember horizon simply means perspective that we have on everything to do with life). Then, and only the, will the Bible begin to speak on its own terms and wield its true message. We need to always resist the temptation of simply making the Bible into our own image. Too many times Christians and non-Christians don't take time to listen to the Bible and read it carefully and slowly.
Context, context, context is always helpful in allowing the Bible's truest message to emerge. Context, here, simply means not isolating one little verse from its surrounding sentences and paragraphs, but reading the Bible as a whole, and especially at the very least reading a specific book of the Bible as a whole. Don't read Matthew chapter 5 in isolation from the rest of the book, for example. At the end of the day, we must remember that it is well nye impossible to not read at least some our own pre-existent theological patterns onto the Bible. The goal is simply to resist this as much as possible
Answer to Part II--sorry for it being so long.
The answer to this is: No, No and No. We all have enormous amounts of mental baggage we bring to any text, especially the Bible. We cannot, in a sense, divorce ourselves from ourselves, that seems to me impossible. Neutrality is an illusion, no one can attain it and therefore no one can read or interpret a text on its own terms. Now, what usually happens, because we bring our prejudgments to the text, is that we impose our own belief system and pre-understanding of life onto the Bible. This can occur in various ways. The most obvious way this happens is that a Christian will interpret the Bible from his/her own denomination's point of view, sometimes disregarding those texts in the Bible that might go against it. For example, a Presbyterian will immediately see many good Presbyterian doctrines in the Bible, or a Catholic the same thing, or a Methodist the same thing and etc. Then of course, there is the non-religious person's point of view from which Bible is viewed. Everyone, religious or not, has a pre-existent understanding of life, which profoundly affects how one interprets any text, but especially the Bible.
What unfortunately happens, then, is that many times the Bible is fitted within an individual's pre-existent theological scheme (remember, you don't have to be religious to possess a theology). This means the Bible is subject to much abuse and that we all read-into-the-Bible (rather than letting the Bible read into us, so to speak). Now, how do we prevent this from happening, if at all?
Of course I don't think we can prevent this from happening altogether, but I do think, however, there is a way to help resist from the simple reductionist tendency to impose one's pre-existent beliefs on the Bible. Allow me to give you one approach to interpretation that may be of some help (or it may not, who knows).
If anyone has heard of Hans-Georg Gadamer, he is the philosopher from whom I am drawing my main ideas. He was a German scholar who specialized in hermeneutical theory and is quite helpful. If interested, his main work is called "Truth and Method."
Anyway, now allow me to delineate an interpretive approach that I think is balanced. First we must recognize that there exist two horizons or perspectives during an interpretive process. There is the horizon or perspective of the interpreter (you) and there is the horizon of the text (the Bible). What we want to do, ideally, is reject the idea that we can simply impose our horizon completely on top of the Bible's horizon. We want to let the Bible speak on its own terms. But, as we mentioned above, this is impossible since we all bring prejudgments to the Bible that profoundly affect how we see it. However, I think we can at least "fuse" the two horizons, the first horizon being you the interpreter and the second being the Bible.
Further, I think we need to be very aware of our own horizon, what kind of prejudgments we have regarding the Bible and allow them to be smashed. I call this the smashing of our idols. Too many times we don't recognize how unconsciously we impose our ideas onto the Bible. We need to be suspicious of ourselves and smash those idols that would prevent the Bible from speaking on its own terms.
Once we become aware of our own horizon and that fact that we bring unfruitful prejudgments (Paul Ricoeur calls them idols as I just mentioned) to the interpretive process, then we can begin to fuse our horizon with Bible's horizon. This means, most of all, being ready to listen to the Bible openly, and allowing it to transform our horizon (remember horizon simply means perspective that we have on everything to do with life). Then, and only the, will the Bible begin to speak on its own terms and wield its true message. We need to always resist the temptation of simply making the Bible into our own image. Too many times Christians and non-Christians don't take time to listen to the Bible and read it carefully and slowly.
Context, context, context is always helpful in allowing the Bible's truest message to emerge. Context, here, simply means not isolating one little verse from its surrounding sentences and paragraphs, but reading the Bible as a whole, and especially at the very least reading a specific book of the Bible as a whole. Don't read Matthew chapter 5 in isolation from the rest of the book, for example. At the end of the day, we must remember that it is well nye impossible to not read at least some our own pre-existent theological patterns onto the Bible. The goal is simply to resist this as much as possible
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Biblical Hermeneutics Part II
I will try to keep this answer-and-question process going. Each time I post an answer I will try to post a new interesting question regarding how one should or should not interpret the Bible. All comments are welcome, as there is not always necessarily a right answer. The next question is:
IS THERE A NEUTRAL STANDPOINT, FREE FROM ALL PREJUDGMENTS, FROM WHICH ONE CAN INTERPRET THE BIBLE? IF NOT, HOW WOULD THIS AFFECT ONE'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE?
IS THERE A NEUTRAL STANDPOINT, FREE FROM ALL PREJUDGMENTS, FROM WHICH ONE CAN INTERPRET THE BIBLE? IF NOT, HOW WOULD THIS AFFECT ONE'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE?
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