Friday, December 14, 2007
a presupposition on bible interpretation
in What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza, the author mentions three ways to interpret scripture: literally, figuratively, and contextually. having been trained at the masters level in biblical exegesis, i am familiar with all three. i believe that any person who quotes scripture in an authoritative way vascillates between all of them, often without careful precision. of the three, context is by far the most neglected. if one selects literal or figurative as the only valid way to read the bible, all sorts of problems come up. if any one passage from scripture is examined currently, there are both visible and invisible criteria used to determine whether the message applies literally or figuratively. i am questioning the criteria we use to decide what applies (now) and what does not. the neglected method, reading in context, merits more exploration. and here is what i mean. could the context of the bible as a document be more limited than first thought? using prayer as a vehicle, could 'ask and ye shall receive' exist as a valid instruction only in the context of the time it was written? and could we admit that our knowledge of that context is limited? paul once made an unambiguous statement (at least to us), 'women should keep silent in the churches'. the reality is, no one has ever applied this text completely. given the way it appears in I cor 12-14, so me it has to mean something other than what we think; it had a context, and maybe that context is lost to us?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I completely agree with your observations on Bible interpretation.
My comments on Jas. 5:13-16 ("the prayer of faith will raise the sick man") essentially question whether James' situation continues to apply today. When James' remarks are stacked up against other NT teaching on prayer, his approach stands out as unusual.
Paul's statement(s) about women's silence are in the same category.
But, back to prayer. The CofC has long argued that the NT era was filled with lots of activities that no longer exist (e.g., demon possession, healings, tongue-speaking, the silence of women, etc.). They may be right, but where do you stop? Do "answered prayers" belong to this list of now-defunct first-century phenomena?
Side note: I have been asked to speak at a local Presbyterian church on Dec. 30, and I intend to talk bluntly about prayer. My working title is "Prayer and Suffering: A Second Opinion." Our discussion is helping me refine my thoughts on this.
thanks for your thoughts, dude. the linchpin: on deciding what persists and what does not, WHERE DO YOU STOP? a lot of our assumptions have been arbitrary, at least to me.
one other thought. i find that such variances from accepted dogma are not viewed by others as 'spiritually endearing'. so mostly i keep that stuff to myself. it is less important for me to make a point / win an argument, and more important to work out the answers internally as best i can. then, i get along with my efforts to live consistently with those convictions, whether others know about it or not.
heh. "Variances from accepted dogma." When I was in Flint, they called that "false teaching."
It's too bad that we can't openly discuss stuff like this. It makes it all the harder to discover the truth of a particular matter.
As I recall, Alexander Campbell once said, "Freedom of discussion is the heart and soul of all reformation."
I regret to report that I have found CofC folk to be the least likely to promote a free discussion. (Present company excepted.)
Post a Comment