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Debate on Interpretation


Matthitjah

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Grace to you,

CSLewis has invited Shiloh357 to a debate over Semantics and Literalism. This started over the debate about Creationsim and Evolution.

Here are the guidlines;

1) This will be a "polite" discussion. This means that neither party will engage in namecalling, ad-hominem attacks, or resort to any manner of character assassination at any point in time.

2) Time to reply will not be a consideration. However, please be considerate enough to at least try to reply in a timely manner, or otherwise concede the discussion.

3) This is not a "win/lose" discussion. The nature of a debate is to argue your points clearly and to the best of your ability. Nobody is right or wrong. Even though you may use the words "right" and "wrong" in the process of disputing a point, the purpose of debate is to get your point across, and support that point with evidence. It is up to the reader to decide who's argument is more weighty.

4) Books and online articles may be used as source material. However, those articles may be referenced in accordance with the Terms of Service. Links to inappropriate material will be removed. Material that is plagiarized will not be considered at all. At all times participants will cite their source material completely.

5) Wherever possible, please try to avoid leading the course of discussion "off track," or "off topic." In order to have a clear and concise debate it is necessary to stick to the topic until such time as the issues involved have been completely discussed and all points have been exhausted. When such a point in the discussion has been reached then other issues can be brought into the discussion and debated.

Let's pray for God's TRUTH to be revealed through this discussion.

Peace,

Dave

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"Problem #1: The argument that text have "subconscious" meanings is not valid, as the reader cannot possibly deduce from a given text what alternate "subconscious" meanings might be present in the mind of the author. Honestly, I don't know where you came up with that argument, but it is weakest that you have presented thus far, and has no place in a serious discussion about literary analysis."

this is called psychological criticism. Learned about it in Literary Criticism class in college. It is not my favorite way of viewing the text but it is a valid and highly used method of interpretation.

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this is called psychological criticism. Learned about it in Literary Criticism class in college. It is not my favorite way of viewing the text but it is a valid and highly used method of interpretation.

It is a poor form of interpretation, as it relies on the reader to guess at what the subconscious meanings in the mind of the author are. Fuirthermore, the "subconcsious" meanings would differ from reader to reader, as each person would have their own opinions as to what was going on in the author's mind. Essentially it amounts to reading a meaning into the text. Real interpretation is about leading the meaning out of the text. It is about understanding the text in the light of the stated object that the author has in view. Where biblical hermeneutics are concerned, the "subconscious" argument is mostly worthless means of arriving at the correct meaning of the text.

Yeah, CS, I have gotten bad information in college, too.

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this is called psychological criticism. Learned about it in Literary Criticism class in college. It is not my favorite way of viewing the text but it is a valid and highly used method of interpretation.

It is a poor form of interpretation, as it relies on the reader to guess at what the subconscious meanings in the mind of the author are. Fuirthermore, the "subconcsious" meanings would differ from reader to reader, as each person would have their own opinions as to what was going on in the author's mind. Essentially it amounts to reading a meaning into the text. Real interpretation is about leading the meaning out of the text. It is about understanding the text in the light of the stated object that the author has in view. Where biblical hermeneutics are concerned, the "subconscious" argument is mostly worthless means of arriving at the correct meaning of the text.

Yeah, CS, I have gotten bad information in college, too.

"Problem #2: While agree that context is important, what you are also calling for is an interpretation of the text based on outside sources. In your position, the author alone does not have the right to determine the meaning of his text, but you are imposing on to his/her text ideas, myths, and idealogies that may or may not have had any impact on what the author is trying to convey. In other words, if the author's intent does not match what YOU believe, then you have chosen to supply your own meaning to the text so that it agrees with your preconceived notions and presuppositions, which is an invalid means of understanding a given text."

outside sources are extremely valuable for understanding the context - both to understand the reader and to understand the author - who the author(s) are and what preconcieved ideas that he/she may have had. Symbols both universal and local need to be understood in order to extract meaning from the text, otherwise the meaning is face value as you would call it.

That is historical criticism. And in my opinion is the best way to interpret the meaning of the text of the Bible.

Now I think what you are referring to in the second part of the "problem #2" is reader-response criticism, which in my opinion is used extensively in understanding scripture. For example, let's say I had a spiritual experience and "spoke in tongues" my interpretation of the scriptures would reflect that experience in spite of historical criticism or even the intent of the author - a sort of what it means to the reader- and how the readers respond to the text creates a meaning. In a way it is unavoidable because we all bring certain notions, assumptions and baggage to the table when we attempt to interpret the text. But if these "prejudices" are made aware we have a better understanding of the reader. Literature exists for the reader and to ignore responses would be close minded. However, I find readers response and psychological criticism far down the scale of ascertaining a valid interpretation of the Bible. Modern literature and postmodern literature these interpretations work well but in ancient literature I believe historical criticism does the best job of creating a context in which the text can be interpretted.

From here I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony , I don't know where to start, but we really need to look at historical, non- biblical sources in order to create a context from which to read this ancient cosmology.

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outside sources are extremely valuable for understanding the context - both to understand the reader and to understand the author - who the author(s) are and what preconcieved ideas that he/she may have had.

1. Extra biblical historical sources do help with understanding the historical context, as does understanding the culture. The Bible is written within the framework of an Hebraic culture and mindset. God did not circumvent Jewish culture, but used it as a vehicle to communicate His truth.

2. Proper biblical herumeneutics is not concerned with understanding the reader. I think you may be referring to the immediate audience to which the Scriptures were addressed.

3. A careful and skillful examination of the text of Scripture will dispell the misnomer that the Bible is just another rehashing of other preexisting myths. Once we look behind what amount to purely cosmetic similarities, the nature and teaching of Scripture stands in sharp contrast and contradiction to other contemporaneous religious documents.

Symbols both universal and local need to be understood in order to extract meaning from the text, otherwise the meaning is face value as you would call it.

That is historical criticism. And in my opinion is the best way to interpret the meaning of the text of the Bible.

Actually, that is only one small facet of understanding Scripture. Your mistake is in putting all the eggs in one basket. Historical context provides a limited amount of information and is no way sufficient in and of itself to provide an accurate understanding of the text. You appear to be looking for ANY mode of interpretation that will help you avoid having to face what the author intends to convey.

Now I think what you are referring to in the second part of the "problem #2" is reader-response criticism, which in my opinion is used extensively in understanding scripture.
Yes it is used extensively, except by those who are competent, genuine scholars of Scripture.

For example, let's say I had a spiritual experience and "spoke in tongues" my interpretation of the scriptures would reflect that experience in spite of historical criticism or even the intent of the author - a sort of what it means to the reader- and how the readers respond to the text creates a meaning.
Now you are talking about application, not interpretation.

In a way it is unavoidable because we all bring certain notions, assumptions and baggage to the table when we attempt to interpret the text. But if these "prejudices" are made aware we have a better understanding of the reader.
Here is where you are mistaken. It is true that we all bring different paradigms built upon varying past experiences in our lives both good and bad. The way we approach Scripture in light of those things speaks not to interpretation, but to application. But proper application of Scripture depends on having the correct interpretation of Scripture.

Proper interpretation is the foundation of good biblical doctrine. Doctrine is understood to be those teachings in Scripture that provide a foundation for practical Christian living. If, for example, someone believes the Holy Spirit to be an impersonal force, that will effect how they apply Scripture pertaining to the Holy Spirit in their lives. But if the same person were to understand that the Holy Spirit is revealed in Scripture to be a Divine person and the 3rd member of the Godhead, the way the apply Scripture about the Holy Spirit would be radically different.

Literature exists for the reader and to ignore responses would be close minded.
I am not talking about ignoring reader responses. Reader responses are not useful in correctly understanding the text, though. Only the author is capable of correctly relating the meaning of the text.

However, I find readers response and psychological criticism far down the scale of ascertaining a valid interpretation of the Bible. Modern literature and postmodern literature these interpretations work well but in ancient literature I believe historical criticism does the best job of creating a context in which the text can be interpretted.
Again, that is only ONE small facet of understanding a given text, and it is a peripheral facet, at that.

From here I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony , I don't know where to start, but we really need to look at historical, non- biblical sources in order to create a context from which to read this ancient cosmology.

No, we need to look at the text itself. All of the answers are contained internally in the text.

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"3. A careful and skillful examination of the text of Scripture will dispell the misnomer that the Bible is just another rehashing of other preexisting myths. Once we look behind what amount to purely cosmetic similarities, the nature and teaching of Scripture stands in sharp contrast and contradiction to other contemporaneous religious documents."

These preexisting myths have created the context in which Genesis is written. Without the understanding of these pagan cultures the nature

and character of God is very hard to decipher. Take for instance Abraham and Isaac. Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? And why would Abraham comply? One who did not understand the context could paint God in a very negative light. But if we understand that people during this time frequently sacrificed human life to pagan deities and that God spared Isaac, and in fact blessed him- it really shows how God Jehovah has set himself apart from the pagan deities as a God that seeks a relationship with man, and yet maintains sovereignty throughout His encounters with His people. The Jews are in danger of being wiped out by pagan religions and the author(s) of Genesis needed a way in

which to separate God YHWH from the pagan deities that surrounded the cultures in the middle east.

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These preexisting myths have created the context in which Genesis is written. Without the understanding of these pagan cultures the nature

and character of God is very hard to decipher.

False. The God of the Bible makes a very clear distinction between Himself and other gods, as well as presents a law code and style of government that is distinct from the preexisting cultures. The Bible takes great pains to call Israel to NOT imitate those cultures and not worship Him in the manner that the pagans worship their gods. God's character is not hard to decifer in the Bible because God tells all we need to know about Himself. You will not understand God by means of studying pagan cultures and pagan religious writings.

Take for instance Abraham and Isaac. Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? And why would Abraham comply? One who did not understand the context could paint God in a very negative light.
That is again, false. The Bible TELLS us why God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

But if we understand that people during this time frequently sacrificed human life to pagan deities and that God spared Isaac, and in fact blessed him- it really shows how God Jehovah has set himself apart from the pagan deities as a God that seeks a relationship with man, and yet maintains sovereignty throughout His encounters with His people. The Jews are in danger of being wiped out by pagan religions and the author(s) of Genesis needed a way in which to separate God YHWH from the pagan deities that surrounded the cultures in the middle east.

I am not against understanding the preexisting cultures that surrounded Israel, as Israel's interactions with those cultures flavors the text. However, those cultures are not the measuring rod by which we are to interpret the Bible. The Bible, as I said, is not a retelling of ancient pagan myth. If anything, the Bible is very clear to point out that is far removed from the ancient myths of the day.

The Bible offers itself as absolute truth and as such, all other texts contemporaneous with it are inferior and have nothing to contribute in terms of actual interpretation of Scripture.

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"False. The God of the Bible makes a very clear distinction between Himself and other gods, as well as presents a law code and style of government that is distinct from the preexisting cultures. The Bible takes great pains to call Israel to NOT imitate those cultures and not worship Him in the manner that the pagans worship their gods. God's character is not hard to decifer in the Bible because God tells all we need to know about Himself. You will not understand God by means of studying pagan cultures and pagan religious writings."

I couldn't agree more with you here. I am not saying that we should read and study pagan religious writing to understand God, but to understand the context, and the culture that existed. The God of the Bible absolutely presents a law code that is completely distinct from paganism, and is extensively differentiating Himself with paganism. It is through this lens that we can look at the text and how the author of Genesis shows God as being so far superior to the pagan deities - in a way

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I couldn't agree more with you here. I am not saying that we should read and study pagan religious writing to understand God, but to understand the context, and the culture that existed.
Actually, you did say that. You said that without these pagan religious writings, the character and nature of God would be very hard to decipher. That is where we disagree. The Bible deliniates God's character and nature in the Bible, and the pagan texts have nothing to offer us in that regard.

The God of the Bible absolutely presents a law code that is completely distinct from paganism, and is extensively differentiating Himself with paganism. It is through this lens that we can look at the text and how the author of Genesis shows God as being so far superior to the pagan deities - in a way it is a slap in the face to paganism- the Torah created an instruction manual if you will on how to worship God and how God had set apart His people, the dangers of paganism, and the awesome power of God compared to that of the pagan deities. But I also believe there is prophetic foreshadowing of the coming Messiah and that it will be through the vessel of the Jews, Gods chosen people, that Jesus Christ will come.

Yet, you can only get that through a literal approach to the text. Remove the literal apporach, and you lose the prophetic dynamic in the text.

So God tested Abraham's faith by asking him to murder his son - without context one would paint God as unfeeling uncaring and sadistic.
But the context is provided internally in the text. There is no need to run to the other cultures to understand why God asked that Abraham. It has nothing to do with what the pagans around them did.

However this story in light of context paints God as loving caring and more powerful than the pagan deities.
No that is not what it shows us. It shows us a prophetic foreshadowing the subustitutionary sacrifice of Christ, as well as His resurrection.

Exactly. I am not using these myths as a measuring rod but I am interpretting the scriptures in light of historical context. And in light of symbols both universal and local that would make sense to the readers.
The problem is that you are not really using historical/cultural context as it should be used. I also have not seen anything from you that indicates a proper use of symbolism. What I have seen from you is a subjective, abritrary approach to the Bible where YOU decide what is "symbolic" and what YOU think that symbolism means. I have not seen a competent use of historical/cultural context as it applies within the framework of a practical application of biblical hermneutics. What I have seen is an appeal to historical context as a means of skirting around having to deal with the intent of the author.

Historical context allows us to see how the Bible is flavored by those things happening peripheral to the events depicted in Scripture. Extra-biblical religious documents have no significant impact on Scripture. Scripture is not an amalgamation of the popular myths of that time period contemporaneous with Scripture. It is not a retelling of those myths either. As I stated previously, the principles laid out in Scripture deviate so far from preexisting mythologies and ancient pagan religious documents, that it is impossible to use those documents to interpret Scripture.

I don't totally disagree with this statement but this absolute truth is not on the surface of the text.
It most definitely IS on the surface of the text. The Bible refers to itsself as truth, and truth, by nature is always absolute. There is no other kind of truth.

It takes a lot of work with other sources in order to understand the culture and thereby context in which it was written.
There is only one scource for Scripture: The Holy Spirit. As I stated previously, the Bible is not an amalgamation of other text. Moses did not create the story of Genesis by reading other mythologies. I realize that liberal scholarship thinks that he did, but they are mistaken.

The Bible is a library containing many types of literature written in different languages different cultures and therefore different context in which the scriptures should be interpretted.
The Bible reflects only one culture, the hebraic one. The Bible was written by Jews who lived and thought like Jews. This is true in both Old and New Testaments. The prophets and apostles were all Jews and God used only ONE culture as a vehicle through which to communicate His Word.

You are still under the mistaken notion that interpretation is a subjective practice. You don't seem to understand how geniune interpretation works. You are caught in the confusing fog of liberal, higher criticism. Higher Criticism is not indicative of competent, genuine Christian scholarship.

This isn't easy to do and relies on experts in language, culture, history, and contemporaneous texts, and traditions.
Wrong. God has not made His Word hard to understand.

The reason you need to do all that extra work is that you are not satisified with believing the text has God inspired it, so you need help to change the text into something you are willing to accept. You are making the text of Scripture a servant to your presuppositions about it. In affect, you have assumed the correctness of your beliefs, and now you set about trying to mold the Bible around your beliefs. Instead of allowing yourself to be transformed and guided the truth of Scripture, you are attempting to change the Bible into something that suits you.

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"Actually, you did say that. You said that without these pagan religious writings, the character and nature of God would be very hard to decipher. That is where we disagree. The Bible deliniates God's character and nature in the Bible, and the pagan texts have nothing to offer us in that regard."

They create a context from which to understand the reasoning behind the stories in the Torah and the levitical law. Without this context one could use the Torah to show that God is this vengeful, wrathful, sadistic God. But by contrasting the God of the Bible with paganism God's true character and nature comes shining through the text as a personal, loving all powerful God.

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