On Interpretation of Scripture

[enoob57]

HumbleThinker,
In reading all your post and replies I would like to point out to you some things you have revealed in your thought process:
-Your refusal to acquiesce to the defined element of hermeneutics changes nothing in the scholarship of hermeneutical purpose and design; it just
limits your reasoning at the table of our Lord's living bread being that of His Word...
-Your conflagration of the very foundation that is given by God for you to enabled yourself to pass through and endure will in fact judge to be of nothing. 
The Word of God 'IS' defined in the written format as:
First Creative and that account was given to Moses by God to write down Genesis
Then formed from living examples Exodus-Malachi
Then in living format of His Own Son Mathew-Luke
Then through living example Acts-3John
Then into Judgment Revelation
 
Let me put it another way-> God's Word 'IS' conclusively tied to His Creative acts in this way
 Matt 24:35
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
NKJV
so if creation through present science is the required interpretation of Scripture specific to Genesis 1 why is it passing away?

Love, Steven

[HumbleThinker]

Just one minor thing I want to say about your reply.  I never claimed that someone that doesn't believe in the literal interpretation of scripture is unsaved.  I never made that claim about you or Augustine.  I just said that yours is not a legitimate means of interpretation.  You are claiming that unbelief in part of the scripture is a legitimate means of interpretation, and I reject that.  I also reject the idea that if science supposedly proves something, I have to make scripture agree with science.  I will do no such thing.  I will reject the claims of science. 

 

The reason why mankind is in the condition we are in is because of original sin, committed by the first man Adam.  It is because we all come from the first couple, Adam and Eve, we need a savior.  To accept evolution is to reject major doctrinal positions we must believe to truly understand the condition of the human race.  Of course, all of this is of little importance since science is far from proving evolution to be true.  They offer a sliver of evidence, but nothing close to conclusive. 

You said, "It is possible people will claim things in scripture have been shown to be false, but they are liars.  I am not concerned with how unbelievers look at things, and if they ridicule the inerrancy of scripture." From how you're addressing my position, I cannot see how this would not apply to me or Augustine or Aquinas when I or they would abandon [a particular explanation] if it be proved with certainty to be false." I note you have still not addressed the difference I've brought up at least three times now between an interpretation, or explanation in Aquinas' terms, and Scripture itself. Rejecting the former is not rejecting the latter, yet you still insist otherwise. Why? In what way is rejecting an explanation held by one reader of Scripture equivalent to rejecting Scripture? The only way I see this as being logically coherent is if one presumes from the start that their explanation is the absolute correct one that cannot have any possibility of being overturned. If this is the case, this is clearly not supported by Scripture or reason; I have never heard a good reason to hold such a position. 

 

And perhaps evolution does butt heads with doctrinal questions, but we will never know to what extent nor the appropriate response (ie. if these doctrines are based more on our own fallible reasoning than on Scripture or our understanding of Creation is wrong) if all we do is dogmatically hold to own positions without question. Such a false sense of certainty is unpragmatic, for an unquestioning nature leads to folly. What if we unquestionably accepted a spirit as God that was actually from Satan? Then we would have failed to heed the words of 1 John 4:1. And since 100% certainty is not required by the Bible, nor is a literal interpretation, then there is no upside that would counteract the unpragmatic nature of this attitude.

[HumbleThinker]

If it is indeed the word of God, then it is the language of God, and one must have God's interpretation of his own words which only the spirit that proceeded from the Father who is now in us can lead us into.

And if He has led me to the conclusion that, for instance, Genesis 1 is to be taken as more mythical than historical?

[HumbleThinker]

HumbleThinker,

In reading all your post and replies I would like to point out to you some things you have revealed in your thought process:

-Your refusal to acquiesce to the defined element of hermeneutics changes nothing in the scholarship of hermeneutical purpose and design; it just

limits your reasoning at the table of our Lord's living bread being that of His Word...

And what would this "defined element of hermeneutics" be that I have supposedly refused to acquiesce to?

 

 

 

-Your conflagration of the very foundation that is given by God for you to enabled yourself to pass through and endure will in fact judge to be of nothing. 

The Word of God 'IS' defined in the written format as:

First Creative and that account was given to Moses by God to write down Genesis

Then formed from living examples Exodus-Malachi

Then in living format of His Own Son Mathew-Luke

Then through living example Acts-3John

Then into Judgment Revelation

Every instance of the phrase "word of God" that is in Scripture, save for perhaps one, does not refer to the Bible. They can only be construed to refer to the Bible if we accept a priori that the Bible is correctly called the Word of God instead of containing the Word of God. The Word of God became flesh, Christ. The Word of God did not become ink and paper, book. There's nothing in Scripture that says that. Now Scripture arguably does CONTAIN the Word of God just as consecrated wine and bread contains or symbolizes the body and blood of Christ, depending on your belief. But there is no transubstantiation of the Word literally being Scripture. At the very least, we can agree that the Bible does contain the words of God, those words God spoke to others such as Moses.

Let me put it another way-> God's Word 'IS' conclusively tied to His Creative acts in this way

 Matt 24:35

35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

NKJV

so if creation through present science is the required interpretation of Scripture specific to Genesis 1 why is it passing away?

Love, Steven

a) His "words" not "Word"

b) This is no way connects the Bible to these words, though they certainly contain the words He spoke to others that were written down.

c) Creation is required to interpret any scientific claims one things Genesis is making (ie. the age of the Earth or how it was actually created). If one claims that Genesis 1 must be taken literally, therefore the Earth was created in six days, then we see what the Earth says about that. It was created by God just as the Bible was written by authors inspired by God, so neither will contradict. The difference is Creation is physical, a natural things, and thus better able to tell us about itself than words are, particularly words who are more concerned with our soul than our intellect.

Thanks for the reply BTW.

Edited December 11, 2013 by HumbleThinker

[x141]

If it is indeed the word of God, then it is the language of God, and one must have God's interpretation of his own words which only the spirit that proceeded from the Father who is now in us can lead us into.

And if He has led me to the conclusion that, for instance, Genesis 1 is to be taken as more mythical than historical?

 

God speaks to us in picture form, cities, sons, mountains, fields, wilderness, serpent, brass, tree, cross, river, garden, sealed, enclosed, bread, meat, heaven, earth, etc. and how these things relate to the person, or persons that these things surround, all of which speak to the process of the son being revealed in us both individual and collectively, which is a coming out of one thing by coming into another, if it could be put into such feeble words.

We are living in the time where God is turning to us a pure language, a language he alone defines, and which is in the confines of every son, or as a tree whose seed or life is in itself.

As our Father ... we do not labor by thought to be, knowledge not being something separate from self. Neither do we prove that we are, which is the same temptation in a different form to eat of our own reasoning based on our five senses of an image that is without us which becomes the husband that is not our own (speaking from the feminine revealing, which equates to our soul, and finds its definition in the pictures found in the three's such as, Abraham's three men, Daniels three friends, Noah's three sons, Job's three friends, Nebuchadnezzar's three Hebrew children, or in the words of Leah when she bore Levi (priesthood), the third son, saying now will my husband be joined unto me ... the pictures of these things are endless, and come in exhaustive forms, both in the truth and the anti forms due to the perception given to us by the tree of knowledge).

The language of God is summed up in one word, which is God, and every son is a word of this language, as our thoughts equate to us.

With that somewhat said ...

The wilderness, depending on where one is viewing it in the moment, links itself with the second feast (all seven equating itself with the creative week of which the threefold manifestation of this is found in the book of Revelation), one is called up to Jerusalem to keep (first the natural) which brings confusion or a wandering around between two (dialectic) mountains, sons, or fruits of a tree, etc. which the true feast the wilderness represents (and the nakedness that is revealed in this as it was in the first garden, being a picture of the same thing in a different form) is found in the acceptable year as a place where we eat that which grows of itself, being the 50th year (Pentecost/knowledge) and equates itself with the liberty of a son, which is the perception given to us of our Father, as a feast that is internal and an unending fellowship.

The interesting thing about the knowledge of God is we must continually keep the feast of Passover which is seen in the words thou shalt not eat as it is in picking up our cross (being that there is a serpent in the path of every son), and the tree yields it's fruit to us without ever having touched it (a facet of Paul's touch not the unclean thing).

I have found to build a city out of any one truth cause our journey in to end, until we sacrifice that truth that became filled with worms by keeping it over a day.

 

Sorry its so long, but I didn't want to beat around the bush.

Edited December 16, 2013 by OneLight

[x141]

Shorter version ... To understand a language you must think in that language.

[enoob57]

Every instance of the phrase "word of God" that is in Scripture, save for perhaps one, does not refer to the Bible. They can only be construed to refer to the Bible if we accept a priori that the Bible is correctly called the Word of God instead of containing the Word of God.

I disagree with the direction of this thinking... as it lifts man to be able to pick and choose what is to be accepted as God's Word.

It is God Himself who has verified that which 'IS' His Word:

It is His Law (The Torah) Gen-Deut.

Ps 147:19-20

19 He declares His word to Jacob,

His statutes and His judgments to Israel.

20 He has not dealt thus with any nation;

And as for His judgments, they have not known them.

Praise the Lord!

NKJV

Prophets spoke the Words of God

Josh 23:6; Ps 119:4; Luke 8:21; 11:28; James 1:22-23

Daniel recognized the Scripture

Dan 9:2

2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood

from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord

given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of

Jerusalem would last seventy years

NIV

Paul a Hebrew of Hebrews recognized what was Scripture and testified so

Rom 3:2; 15:4

 

The Word of God became flesh, Christ.

And Christ verified The Scripture of Daniel

Matt 22:29-32 Jesus answered and said to them,

"You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power

of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are

given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 But

concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what

was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 'I am the God of Abraham,

the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of

the dead, but of the living."

NKJV

 

The Word of God did not become ink and paper, book. There's nothing in Scripture that says that. Now Scripture arguably does CONTAIN the Word of God just as consecrated wine and bread contains or symbolizes the body and blood of Christ, depending on your belief. But there is no transubstantiation of the Word literally being Scripture. At the very least, we can agree that the Bible does contain the words of God, those words God spoke to others such as Moses.

In the effort of man God's Word will not be found but it will be found where God Says it is and that is in Scripture!

A man must be born again to receive God The Holy Spirit within Him-> Who Teaches us The Written Word = Scripture...

2 Tim 3:16-17 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,

and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction

in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped

for every good work.

NKJV

John 16:13

13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all

truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He

will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

NKJV

  Love, Steven

[Qnts2]

HumbleThinker,

In reading all your post and replies I would like to point out to you some things you have revealed in your thought process:

-Your refusal to acquiesce to the defined element of hermeneutics changes nothing in the scholarship of hermeneutical purpose and design; it just

limits your reasoning at the table of our Lord's living bread being that of His Word...

-Your conflagration of the very foundation that is given by God for you to enabled yourself to pass through and endure will in fact judge to be of nothing. 

The Word of God 'IS' defined in the written format as:

First Creative and that account was given to Moses by God to write down Genesis

Then formed from living examples Exodus-Malachi

Then in living format of His Own Son Mathew-Luke

Then through living example Acts-3John

Then into Judgment Revelation

 

Let me put it another way-> God's Word 'IS' conclusively tied to His Creative acts in this way

 Matt 24:35

35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

NKJV

so if creation through present science is the required interpretation of Scripture specific to Genesis 1 why is it passing away?

Love, Steven

 

Just to confuse things.....

 

Jesus is called the Word of God. That doesn't mean Jesus is scripture.

 

In Jewish literature, there is something called the Targums. The Targums are Aramaic translations of scripture along with commentary. Prior to the time of Jesus, Judaism viewed God as being outside of His creation, and since creation is finite while God is infinite, God did not directly interact with creation. So, the idea of the 'Word of God' was to indicate whenever God interacted with His creation. The term starts in Genesis with the creation account. So, in Jewish thought of that day, the Word, or the Word of God, was when God interacted or manifest with/in creation. (In Aramaic, the term for 'word' is 'memra'.)

 

In the NT, I believe the best example of the use of this idiom is in John,

 

John 1:1 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.   

 

So, we do find the idea of the Word of God being Jesus, but that does not refer to Jesus being the words of God/scripture, but rather, Jesus was involved in Creation, as the manifestation of God on the earth.

 

I tend to go by 'whatever can be taken literally, should be taken literally'. But of course, that should take into account the historical, and what did these words mean to the authors and listeners of that time frame.

 

Since this is on interpretation of scripture,  I will add another rule. The scripture is spiritual too, so a single verse might have multiple levels of meaning. Since literal or plain meaning comes first, any additional level of interpretation can not contradict the literal or plain meaning.   

[HumbleThinker]

 

 

If it is indeed the word of God, then it is the language of God, and one must have God's interpretation of his own words which only the spirit that proceeded from the Father who is now in us can lead us into.

And if He has led me to the conclusion that, for instance, Genesis 1 is to be taken as more mythical than historical?

 

 

God speaks to us in picture form, cities, sons, mountains, fields, wilderness, serpent, brass, tree, cross, river, garden, sealed, enclosed, bread, meat, heaven, earth, etc. and how these things relate to the person, or persons that these things surround, all of which speak to the process of the son being revealed in us both individual and collectively, which is a coming out of one thing by coming into another, if it could be put into such feeble words.

We are living in the time where God is turning to us a pure language, a language he alone defines, and which is in the confines of every son, or as a tree whose seed or life is in itself.

As our Father ... we do not labor by thought to be, knowledge not being something separate from self. Neither do we prove that we are, which is the same temptation in a different form to eat of our own reasoning based on our five senses of an image that is without us which becomes the husband that is not our own (speaking from the feminine revealing, which equates to our soul, and finds its definition in the pictures found in the three's such as, Abraham's three men, Daniels three friends, Noah's three sons, Job's three friends, Nebuchadnezzar's three Hebrew children, or in the words of Leah when she bore Levi (priesthood), the third son, saying now will my husband be joined unto me ... the pictures of these things are endless, and come in exhaustive forms, both in the truth and the anti forms due to the perception given to us by the tree of knowledge).

The language of God is summed up in one word, which is God, and every son is a word of this language, as our thoughts equate to us.

With that somewhat said ...

The wilderness, depending on where one is viewing it in the moment, links itself with the second feast (all seven equating itself with the creative week of which the threefold manifestation of this is found in the book of Revelation), one is called up to Jerusalem to keep (first the natural) which brings confusion or a wandering around between two (dialectic) mountains, sons, or fruits of a tree, etc. which the true feast the wilderness represents (and the nakedness that is revealed in this as it was in the first garden, being a picture of the same thing in a different form) is found in the acceptable year as a place where we eat that which grows of itself, being the 50th year (Pentecost/knowledge) and equates itself with the liberty of a son, which is the perception given to us of our Father, as a feast that is internal and an unending fellowship.

The interesting thing about the knowledge of God is we must continually keep the feast of Passover which is seen in the words thou shalt not eat as it is in picking up our cross (being that there is a serpent in the path of every son), and the tree yields it's fruit to us without ever having touched it (a facet of Paul's touch not the unclean thing).

I have found to build a city out of any one truth cause our journey in to end, until we sacrifice that truth that became filled with worms by keeping it over a day.

 

Sorry its so long, but I didn't want to beat around the bush.

 

 

No problem at all. As you might have seen, my posts can be rather long as well. I find your approach interesting. It seems very much founded in the style of typology, which you don't see very much of these days. I'm also seeing shades of mysticism as well, which I border on at times depending where the conversation is going. Very interesting read.

[HumbleThinker]

I disagree with the direction of this thinking... as it lifts man to be able to pick and choose what is to be accepted as God's Word.

No, but it is up to us to decide what it means. Just because we want God's Word to be authoritative, inerrant, or whatever does not mean that we should build arguments around this want. Neither God nor the Bible has any need for such things to support them. The Bible says what it says, and unless God Himself reveals to us how we should interpret what it says, then we are left to figure it out for ourselves.

19 He declares His word to Jacob,

His statutes and His judgments to Israel.

20 He has not dealt thus with any nation;

And as for His judgments, they have not known them.

Praise the Lord!

NKJV

18 He sends forth His word and melts them;

He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow.

19 He declares His words to Jacob,

His statutes and His ordinances to Israel.

20 He has not dealt thus with any nation;

And as for His ordinances, they have not known them.

[k]Praise [l]the Lord! NASB

Does the Torah cause ice to melt? And the Torah consists a lot of what God said and those things that He has passed down to the present generations from the patriarchs. These things are indeed contained within the Bible as can be seen in the many places where it reads "Thus says the Lord." And for as long as I can tell, the Jews have been interpreting what these words mean. It's why they have an Oral Torah, which many, particularly Orthodox Jews, see as being necessary to understanding the Written Torah. So I'm not sure if this is the best choice for your position.

 

 

 

Daniel recognized the Scripture

Dan 9:2

2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood

from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord

given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of

Jerusalem would last seventy years

NIV

He's referring to Jeremiah 20:10: "For thus says the LORD, 'When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place." Again, these are words of God, which as I said are contained in Scripture.

 

 

Paul a Hebrew of Hebrews recognized what was Scripture and testified so

Rom 3:2

Much of the same. "Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God." Oracles of course can also be translated as words. And to add, these words spoken by God to specific people at specific times are not the Word that is with God and is God since the beginning. Neither is the Bible.

 

 

And Christ verified The Scripture of Daniel

Matt 22:29-32 Jesus answered and said to them,

"You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power

of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are

given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 But

concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what

was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 'I am the God of Abraham,

the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of

the dead, but of the living."

NKJV

 

 

The Word of God did not become ink and paper, book. There's nothing in Scripture that says that. Now Scripture arguably does CONTAIN the Word of God just as consecrated wine and bread contains or symbolizes the body and blood of Christ, depending on your belief. But there is no transubstantiation of the Word literally being Scripture. At the very least, we can agree that the Bible does contain the words of God, those words God spoke to others such as Moses.

In the effort of man God's Word will not be found but it will be found where God Says it is and that is in Scripture!

A man must be born again to receive God The Holy Spirit within Him-> Who Teaches us The Written Word = Scripture...

2 Tim 3:16-17 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,

and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction

in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped

for every good work.

NKJV

John 16:13

13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all

truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He

will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

NKJV

  Love, Steven

These last few seem to be straying farther from the point. What do any of these say about whether Scripture is the Word of God or contains the Word of God, and whether any or all parts of it should be taken literally. You seem to be equivocating God's words with God's Word. These are two distinct concepts.

Edited December 12, 2013 by HumbleThinker