High School Bible Classes Again
In a previous post, The Best Place to Teach the Bible, I discussed my view that home and church or other private organizations were the best way to teach the Bible. I’ve had a couple of comments to that post that I think deserve some comment, and since I don’t like to make post-length comments here on my own blog, I’m going to comment in another post.
First, Dave L. comments:
Henry, I agree with your position concerning keeping the Bible out of schools, but had a question for you on one of your responses above, namely, just because someone reads Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek [doesnt mean] they will agree on what the Bible says.
After thinking about it since my comment, I realize more and more the problems with a straight read through of the Bible which you’ve echoed above. If one had an audiobook of even just one of the gospels and had limited knowledge of anything else concerning the Bible, I think the interpretation of what that gospel was about to that person would be quite different from what the popular interpretations are. Not only are there translation issues, but there are references to parts of the Old Testament, and the usage of some terms that I at least find somewhat unclear, such as ‘Son of Man’, to contend with.
At first I had thought it inconsistent that if one believed that the Bible was the word of God that it would rely so much on interpretation and require so much study; does God expect everyone to put in the amount of work as has been put just in to this website to understand his word? I think a more realistic way to look at it, for me, is to liken it to music, or any art I suppose; you can get the gist of the song with one listen, but good music, like the Bible I would guess, is something you can keep going back to and find something new and fresh that further illuminates the whole piece.