The Less You Read the Scriptures the Less Part of the Scriptures You Learn
Introduction
At BioLogos, we believe the Bible is God's inspired and authoritative word, from Genesis to Revelation. It tells a single, overarching story: how God created the world good and made people in his prototype; how people rejected God; how God made a covenant with the people of Israel; how, through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ, God has graciously redeemed broken and sinful people from every tribe and language and people and nation and has adopted them into his family; and how God's kingdom is breaking into our world, making all things new.
The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth of this "big story" of the Bible in the hearts and minds of Christian believers. We believe that the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to bring nearly conviction of sin, repentance, and faith. Everyone who picks up a Bible tin can read information technology profitably, regardless of culture and education level.
That said, the Holy Spirit does not provide an unambiguous interpretation of every given text. Every time nosotros read the Bible we accept to translate what we read. Interpreting just means making sense of a text—it is not a special skill reserved for difficult passages. The means nosotros become about making sense of the Bible volition be influenced by our frames of reference and cultural expectations. Sometimes these can interfere with our ability to hear the intended meaning of the biblical authors.
Keeping in listen the origin of the Bible and overall purpose of Scripture can help orient our expectations every bit we read. When reading a detail text, we should consider the author'south intentions, literary forms and conventions, linguistic communication, and cultural background of the original audience.
The Origin of the Bible
The 66 books of the Protestant Bible contain diverse types of literature and were written in 3 different languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic) by dozens of authors from various cultural backgrounds and walks of life over many centuries. The Old Testament writings were penned and compiled over a period of about 1,000 years; the New Attestation writings span perhaps 100 years. Hundreds of years passed between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament and the showtime book of the New Attestation.
While many writings were understood to be authoritative by Christians in the first century A.D., it took hundreds of years for the early church to sort through the diverse torso of writing related to the Christian movement and finalize the canon of authoritative writings that comprise the Bible today (and there remain differences betwixt the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox canons). The many versions and translations of the Bible available today reflect centuries of scholarship and collaboration amongst Christians of various traditions.
The Purpose of Scripture
Scripture is non intended every bit a moral guide volume or a drove of propositions to believe. Its purpose is to reveal God'due south program and purposes throughout human history. According to the Campaigner Paul, "All scripture is inspired past God and is useful for pedagogy, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that anybody who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good piece of work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, NRSV). (Paul refers here to the Onetime Testament scriptures, but Christians understand this poetry to use to the New Testament too.) Amid the most of import objectives, Scripture is "able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (vs. xv).
What Is the Author Trying to Practise? What Literary Forms and Conventions are they Using?
When we interpret a passage, first nosotros have to place what an author is trying to do. Sometimes authors desire to tell what happened or will happen; sometimes they want to explicate or describe something; sometimes they desire to give instructions virtually how to do something; and sometimes they want to give an exhortation or command.
All languages and cultures have ways of communicating these kinds of intentions. Yet, languages and cultures embed these intentions in dissimilar literary forms. These literary forms have certain conventions or rules that people within a certain culture and time recognize and hands interpret. Merely moving from one culture to another, from once to another, or from one language to another, nosotros may find that both the literary forms and the conventions within the forms are different than what we await or easily recognize.
The literary forms and conventions associated with the ancient Hebrew psalms, a fifteenth-century Japanese haiku, an eighteenth-century English sonnet, and a xx-first-century American rap song are very different, fifty-fifty though all could exist classified equally poetry.
Some literary forms that nosotros find in the Bible, like apocalyptic literature, practice not fifty-fifty exist in some other cultures. Some linguistic conventions in the Bible, like the structure of acrostic poems, or wordplay and puns may be obscured or lost in translation. Some literary conventions in the Bible may be unfamiliar, similar using numbers symbolically, framing narratives in pericopes (pocket-sized units), or using doublets for emphasis.
No one should expect to exist able to pick up a Bible and perfectly interpret unfamiliar literary forms or immediately recognize the significance of unfamiliar or obscured conventions that contribute to the overall meaning. That is why we turn to the expertise of scholars and translators who have extensively studied the cultures and languages of the Bible. They can also assistance us place areas where our own cultural expectations about literary forms and conventions may interfere with our interpretation of the Bible. For example, the Bible definitely records history, just the literary forms and conventions it uses are unlike than what we may wait from our experience of reading histories in our own linguistic communication, culture, and fourth dimension.
What Kind of Language is Being Used?
In addition to identifying an writer'due south purpose and knowing something nigh the literary grade and conventions they are using, part of interpretation is understanding how an author uses language. Some of our human communication is fairly straightforward, but much of information technology relies on the hearers drawing inferences that are not fabricated explicit by the sum full of the definitions of the words.
Also, much of our linguistic communication use is figurative in some fashion, or is not meant to be taken "literally." Think back to high school English grade and all those vocabulary words you had to larn: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, euphemism, synecdoche, litote, idiomatic expression. The Bible has examples of all of these kinds of figures of voice communication.
To further complicate things, words themselves can take figurative senses. In Greek the master sense ofpoimen is shepherd, "someone who cares for sheep". The secondary, figurative sense is "the leader of a church building". When Jesus says "I am the Proficient Shepherd" in John ten:14, he is using the primary sense ("literal" meaning) of shepherd in a metaphor that speaks figuratively about his love for his people. In Ephesians 4:11, Paul lists some roles in the church that include shepherd (the secondary or figurative sense, "pastor"), but using that word does non mean we should interpret the passage figuratively; it is a very straightforward list.
Figurative language can show up anywhere; it is not bars to certain literary forms. A poem can use very straightforward language, and a history can use lots of imagery and figures of speech. We cannot make pronouncements about whether linguistic communication is beingness used figuratively or not simply based on the literary form of a text. Evidently, the procedure of interpretation can exist circuitous and multi-faceted.
What was the Cultural Background of the Original Audience?
To take the Bible seriously, we also need to consider whom the author was writing to: the Bible was writtenfor united states, but notto u.s.. Cultural norms, symbolism, and the audience'south familiarity with Scripture may all contribute to the way in which Scripture has been written and understood. For example, the long lifespans of the patriarchs in the Quondam Testament likely had greater symbolic significance to the ancient Hebrews than we currently understand. The ages are all multiples of five with seven or fourteen added occasionally, suggesting a rhetorical meaning.
An case of cultural significance in the New Testament is found in the story of the prodigal son as described in Luke 15. A straightforward reading of the parable—disregarding the context—teaches the states near the dear and forgiveness of a father toward his son, and consequently about God's beloved toward his children. All the same, when the story is considered in its cultural framework, the reading is much more profound.
Co-ordinate to New Attestation scholar Kenneth Bailey, the Jewish son not only acted disgracefully past request for his inheritance, simply he further debased himself by squandering it. The son's behavior warranted aKezazah, or cutting off ceremony, upon his render.1 This ceremony would have included rejection past the hamlet and an aroused confrontation by his father. Furthermore the son would take had to beg for permission to train for a chore in the side by side hamlet.
Instead of this harsh and inhospitable reception, a loving and merciful homecoming awaited the son. As soon every bit the father saw his son returning, he raced to see him. This is as well a significant detail since men of the male parent'due south historic period and stardom in Eye Eastern civilisation ever walked in a slow, dignified style. Past running, the father took on the shame and humiliation due his prodigal son. He and then kissed his son, gave him his best robe, and called to have the fatted calf slaughtered for a feast.
When Jesus originally told this story to a Centre Eastern audience, information technology is likely that they would have understood the father'due south love in a deeper way than modern-day readers. Every bit this example shows, filtering a Scripture passage through an awareness of the original audience and its culture tin greatly aggrandize our understanding of the passage.
How Then Should We Interpret Genesis?
Christians today are strongly divided on how to read the early on chapters of Genesis. For that reason, perhaps hither more than almost anywhere else in the Bible, we need to become enlightened of our tendencies to translate with twenty-first century ideas and questions in mind.
Scholars in the BioLogos community interpret the early chapters in Genesis in a variety of ways, and there are many manufactures on our website revealing this variety of idea. Nevertheless all share a commitment to the authority and inspiration of Genesis and a method of interpreting Genesis that tries to recover what the original audience would have understood.
BioLogos understands the early capacity of Genesis equally describing existent events through largely figurative language, consistent with the way other ancient Near Eastern literature described events. By organized religion we believe Genesis istrue, though its purpose is to reveal God and his plan for humanity, not to communicate blank facts virtually scientific discipline or history as nosotros think of them today.
Decision
Christians believe the Old and New Testament Scriptures are divinely inspired and authoritative. The Bible is not simply a work of literature, merely for readers of faith it is living and active. It is the most important manner in which God speaks to his people.
Advanced training is not necessary to profit from Bible reading—God speaks to all of us through Scripture—but the body of Christ includes experts who can help u.s. understand it better.
While disagreements abound about how best to interpret diverse Scripture passages, we tin can rest in the fact that our salvation does not depend on attaining perfect knowledge. As Christians our faith is grounded in Jesus Christ—not in the perfect interpretation of Scripture. All the same salvation is not the cease of the Christian experience, but the beginning: delving deep into Scripture can assist united states of america see God'south larger plans and purposes for restoring creation and dwelling amongst his people.
Source: https://biologos.org/common-questions/how-should-we-interpret-the-bible/
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