Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Study Method

  • Of Trees, Forests, and Bible Study

    I was impressed recently while reading several different blog entries about the importance of the way(s) in which we look at Bible passages. Now I certainly emphasize looking at the forest–at the broad sweep of Biblical themes. One way of looking at themes is in terms of trajectories–which way is the Bible story going.

    For example, we know that as the Israelites leave Egypt, God doesn’t intend them to remain a nomadic band wandering in the desert. Slowly he gives them additional laws. Included in those laws are some that look forward to possession of the land. As Christians, we ultimately look at a trajectory that leads to Jesus Christ, and even through him to the church, which is to embody Jesus in the world.

    Another way to look at themes is in terms of doctrinal statements or confessions. In this case we look at the doctrinal statement of our church, for example, and look at how scripture fits into this larger doctrinal whole, which is a light form of systematic theology. I think this is so important that when teaching interdenominational classes, I ask the students to be aware of their own church’s doctrinal statement as they study. This gives focus from the community of faith to which someone belongs.

    But all of these elements can cause problems. When looking at trajectories, it’s quite easy to go off on a trajectory, and perhaps head for interstellar space without a guidance system. It’s quite possible for me to imagine that the intention of a Biblical writer is to go to some point that I prefer, while ignoring what the writer actually says, and where God’s people actually went. It’s quite possible for me to reinterpret scripture to support my preferred doctrinal statement, rather than going back to the source.

    Recently, Molly Aley posted this article on the Complegalitarian blog dealing with the Hebrew word “ezer” in Genesis 2, and how it should apply to male-female relationships. Now I should make it clear that I’m egalitarian, so I have a bias here, but I think both sides have tended to be more concerned with hearing what they want to hear in Genesis 1 & 2 than they are in listening to what the text actually says.

    Molly has broken out of that and pointed out what this text does and does not say specifically. Now can that answer tell us the answer to all debates about complementarianism vs egalitarianism? Hardly! What it does is get us one anchor point. How that unfolds in a broader theme requires further study.

    The study of a forest has to move from the individual cells in the trees to the trees themselves, to the ecology of the forest as a whole, and also to the many beasties, including human beasties, who use the forest. There is a place for word by word dissection of a passage, and there is a place for broad, sweeping overviews. But they have to be tested against one another on a regular basis.

    In terms of Bible study, this means that there is a place for reading the whole Bible, whole books, individual passages, individual verses, and even individual words. There is a place for spending hours, days, and weeks on a single word. But if we get unbalanced about it, we’re going to produce nonsense, and nonsense in the study of God’s word is a pretty dangerous thing. One important way to avoid nonsense is by sharing. A blog is one way of sharing. Commenters come by and point out your mistakes, or add pieces you never thought of to the puzzle.

    The forest ecology, for Bible study, extends to the church fathers, to other commentators, to your pastor and fellow church members, to members of the academic community, and even to members of other faith communities. I have received great blessing from reading Jewish commentary along with the Hebrew scriptures.

    Listen, read, change focus, change perspective, and then listen some more. It’s a great joy to find something new, or more importantly to find yourself in a new, growing relationship with the Word Giver as you do so.

  • Rose Colored Glasses?

    I’m working on a long post on 2 Corinthians 5, but in the meantime, try answering some of these questions.

  • Tool: Resurgence Greek

    Via John Simons – Theology, Technology, and Stuff, I discovered the new location for Resurgence Greek (ReGreek.com). It’s now being maintained and further developed by Mars Hill Church.

    Resurgence Greek is not a general Bible study tool, but rather a specific tool for folks who know some Greek and want to be able to read and research a bit more quickly. It has a simple interface that allows you to perform the major functions that you will need in quickly studying a passage in Greek. You can click on any Greek word to get a very basic (and I emphasize basic) gloss. In that window there is a magnifying glass icon, one of the few graphic features, that you can select in order to highlight all usages of that word.

    Selecting pros in John
    Regreek Bible showing John 1:1-18 in Greek with the word pros highlighted
    John 1:18 and word highlighting
    in right column

    In the example that I show here (click on the thumbnail for a full size view), I have highlighted the word proc throughout the book of John. Normally you wouldn’t want to do that with a very common word in a large amount of text, but in this case I wanted to see how long it would take. There was a noticeable, but not annoying delay compared to other actions, which shows that the interface here is quite efficient.

    The English Bibles available are the NASB, ESV, and KJV. What might be an annoyance in a more general Bible study tool is appropriate here. For those seeking aid in doing a more rapid study of the Greek text, these versions will be very helpful with their word-by-word literalism.

    There is a tutorial and also a concordance page, but you can type in the text you want to view using pretty free formats. Adding new text simply adds columns, though you can conveniently remove them as well. In my testing, all results were very quick.

    A standard caveat is required on any such tool. Glosses, such as those provided by clicking on words, are not the same thing as understanding the word in the original language and context. Quick checks with parallel English versions are also not the same thing as understanding the text. A little Greek can be dangerous, if you “[do] not yet know as [you] ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2). The best corrective is realizing just where you are, and depending on yourself just that far.

    Within that caveat, however, this tool will be a welcome one, especially to those who do not have more advanced Biblical languages in their own Bible software.

    For developers, this project will be open source, and there is a full page on collaboration on the ReGreek.com site.

  • Re-presenting a Parable

    Through my watch on the lectionary tag on Technorati, I found another excellent example of finding a new way of presenting and/or thinking about a parable. In this case it’s in a sermon about the Pharisee and the Publican, and the illustration has a Red Sox fan and a Yankee fan go to Cooperstown . . .

    For the rest you need to check out this sermon (Demonizing of Yankees) by Rev. Mindi on Rev-O-Lution.

    It’s not just this particular presentation I hope you see. It’s the whole idea of finding new ways to present the parables, so that people identify with them and get involved in thinking about them.

  • Thinking and Expressing – Haiku

    OK, no, I’m not writing a Haiku myself, though perhaps it would be nice if I could master the form, but thus far, no, not so good . . . But I’m always looking for new ways of thinking about and re-expressing Biblical thoughts.

    Through a comment on my Threads blog I found the Among the Hills blog, and an extremely interesting idea–lectionary Haikus.

    Go check out Lectionary Haikus: The Persistent Widow and Lectionary Haikus: Ten. They should stimulate your imagination at a minimum.

  • Retelling and Rethinking the Unjust Judge

    This week’s lectionary readings included Luke 18:1-8, the story of the unjust judge. One of the problems many people have with this story is relating the unjust judge to God, but as I pointed out in a devotional one thing we are supposed to hear from the story is how God is different from the unjust judge.

    One approach I like to reading stories, and this includes historical narrative as well as parables, allegories, and fictional stories, is to retell the story for various purposes. I decided to try this after asking the question, “What happened afterward?” The widow got what she wanted, but what happened afterward. I wrote a short story based in a fantasy background, looking at that question, and posted it on my Jevlir Caravansary blog. But since that one is there for fun, I didn’t really go into any of the thinking that went into the story or how I would use it in teaching.

    I personally haven’t used this or any other stories I have written in teaching, though I’m planning to try it some time. The way I usually approach it is to call for ideas right in class, and help people use their imagination to build other stories around the one we’re studying. I think that imagination is an important element of Bible study.

    Now let me make it clear that I don’t mean that you should imagine what the story might mean and take that as the interpretation. What I suggest is that you imagine how things might be, and then use that to put the story into a context. How much like our imagained story is the original story? How is it different.

    The following questions won’t make sense if you haven’t read my short story related to Luke 18:1-8 or if you are not acquainted with the parable.

    1. Many people have trouble relating the unjust judge to God, while others don’t believe he is related at all, and that God is to be contrasted to the unjust judge. Do you find the character of Sir Frederick in the story easier or harder to relate to God? Why?
    2. Sir Carl in the story could be regarded as a God-figure in some ways. Does having a just judge in the story change your view? Why does Jesus leave the story so brief, with the questions open?
    3. Would you prefer if Jesus told stories that were a little bit longer with more things explained?
    4. How do you think other people would have reacted to the widow’s success, if we heard “the rest of the story”? Would it be similar to my short story in which they basically assume that hers was an isolated success? Can you relate this reaction or any other reaction you imagine to our responses to God and to testimonies about his care?
    5. Might the other people who were treated unjustly by the unjust judge have felt that the widow’s success was unfair?

    Finally, of course, does answering these questions, and or reading my short story change your understanding of the parable in any way? Realize, of course, that if I were actually teaching, the alternate story would be built from questions asked of the class and combined into a story as a group. That process of thinking has value in itself, I think.

  • A Lab for Parables

    I like to use Luke 16 as a training ground in interpreting parables, because so many of the possible problems are presented within a few verses. On Monday, I wrote a devotional, Outside the Box, in which I use what I believe is the primary focus of the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-9) in challenging Christians to think outside the box.

    In my essay Interpreting Parables I state that the primary key to interpreting a parable is to discover what the single point of that parable is. This could be stated in a different way by asking just what question is the parable intended to answer.

    In the case of the Unjust Steward, try reading the parable as an answer to two different questions. 1) What is proper behavior for a steward? or 2) How diligent and creative should a follower of Jesus be in building the kingdom? If the parable were intended to answer the first question it would give an answer that is contradictory to much of the moral basis of scripture. If taken as an answer to the second question, the parable tells us to exercise great diligence and to be willing to think outside of our normal parameters–outside the box–in order to build the kingdom. (Note here that I believe verses 10-13 are not part of the parable itself, but are a collection of sayings that Luke placed here because of the theme.)

    An additional issue that a Bible student should address is the difference between an allegory and a parable. In simplified terms, a parable is intended to make a single point, and that other elements of the story need not have specific meaning. An allegory attaches meaning to many elements of the story.

    The first response of new students is to believe that the idea is to achieve high accuracy in identifying which is which. But in fact, the boundary is not nearly so clear. The question is important because it gets the student to consider just what is and is not part of the purpose of the story.

    And that is where the next parable comes in, The Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-30. Often it is interpreted more as an allegory, and arguments can be made in favor of that interpretation. In order to examine this issue, let’s ask just what it is that Jesus is trying to teach, or what question he is answering.

    Let me suggest some questions:

    1. What is the fate of those who die?
    2. Can people in hell communicate with those in [tag]heaven[/tag] (or paradise as the case may be)?
    3. Is a reading of the Torah (Pentateuch) equal to the presence of someone raised from the dead in convincing someone to believe?
    4. Do riches show that one is especially blessed by God?
    5. Is indifference to the poor a sin?

    Now I would suggest that Jesus is answering something between questions four and five. You can look through the parable at other elements and decide whether the parable should be regarded as the final answer on those particular points. I personally would not use this parable as a proof of heaven, hell, or any communication between them. I would say that judgment and final reward and punishment are strongly implied, but the details should be found elsewhere.

    I have, however, heard this parable preached as the one final proof of an eternally burning hell. But you will not find people who make that argument arguing equally forcefully that people in heaven can communicate with those in hell. If you make one argument and not the other you should ask why one element is has meaning while the other doesn’t.

    But a more interesting point is the meaning of verse 30: What is it that the brothers will not believe? Apparently the testimony of of the law and the prophets should make them believe something they will not believe even should someone rise from the dead. What is this?

    It’s easy to think something like “believe in Jesus” or even “belief in God” but those do not fit with the question. How about acceptance of the truth that caring for one’s neighbor is the basis on which one will be rewarded or punished?

    This is just a suggestion and hopefully a pointer toward how to work it out.

  • How to Get it RIGHT!

    Start up your sense of humor and then go read this!

    HT: Kouya Chronicle.

  • Rightly Dividing or Slicing and Dicing – Jeremiah 4:23

    In debates on creation and evolution I have occasionally encountered the ruin and restoration theory. This view allows an old earth, but does so in a different way. Genesis 1:1 is viewed as an original creation, and then the word in 1:2 normally translated “was” is instead translated “became.” I discuss the details in the article above.

    But what I find even more interesting, and certainly more relevant to this Bible study blog, is the slicing and dicing that must be done on verses elsewhere in scripture in order to make them fit with this theory. In fact, one of my major complaints about dispensationalism is that it tends to make it next to impossible to read contextually. The context is created by the dispensations, but clearly not recognized by the writers of the text.

    An example of this tendency is Jeremiah 4:23. This is summarized in a note in [tag]Scofield[/tag]’s Reference Bible: “Cf. Gen. i.2. “Without form and void” describes the condition of the earth as the result of the judgment (vs. 24-26; Isa. xxiv. 1) which overthrew the primal order of Genesis i.1.”

    But if you look at Jeremiah 4, you find that the topic has nothing to do with any original creation, nor with a primal judgment but rather with a judgment on Judah for its sins. The prophet goes on to depict the destruction that will come on the land. There is no literary division between verse 22, clearly about Judah, and verse 23, which Scofield is claiming refers to another time and place.

    The argument is that “without form and void” refers back to Genesis 1:2, as surely it does. But for what purpose does it make this reference? It intends to compare the judgment to a removal of all the blessings of creation and to evoke that primal emptiness as a hyperbolic description of the destruction to come to Judah. Is there justification for calling it hyperbole? Absolutely. First, I would accept this as hyperbole based on the context alone. The context clearly indicates the destruction of Judah by Babylon, and “without form and void” is hyperbole in connection with that destruction. But further, in verse 27, after providing this description of absolute destruction, we find this: “. . . yet will I not make a full end.” “Without form and void” is pretty complete. This is all allowable in poetic language.

    To understand this as referring to another time and place is to take it completely out of the context of Jeremiah. Such an interpretation would mean that Jeremiah suddenly, in the middle of a comparatively coherent discussion of one topic, changes subjects for several lines without any indication that the subject has changed, and then switches back. Verse 28, for example, again speaks of this destruction as future.

    If one can do that, then one can take any phrase or clause of scripture and force it to mean anything one desires.

  • Genesis 10: The Table of Nations

    Genesis 10 is one of those chapters that Bible students often try to avoid, because it is filled with names that are difficult to pronounce, and it’s hard for our modern ears to hear it as anything other than an interruption. But to the redactor of Genesis, these genealogies were serious business.

    Genesis 5 provides a key genealogy, and its major purpose is to show the preservation and continuity of the patriarchal line. We will see another genealogy much like it in Genesis 11. But Genesis 10 provides genealogies that deal with a number of people and nations.

    The key point here, I would suggest, is to show Israel as part of the world, related to those with whom she would interact over the centuries. As suggested in the Interpreter’s Bible (Exegesis on Genesis 10:1-32), this may be the beginning of Israelite universalism. God (YHWH) is not just interested in Israel, he is interested in the whole world. All the world’s peoples are in one family, however distant they may be. This idea is fairly weak in Genesis, but it will get stronger, especially in 2nd and 3rd Isaiah (40-55; 56-66).

    The Bible Knowledge Commentary comments:

    The table of nations is a “horizontal” genealogy rather than a “vertical” one (those in chaps. 5 and 11 are vertical). Its purpose is not primarily to trace ancestry; instead it shows political, geographical, and ethnic affiliations among tribes for various reasons, most notable being holy war. Tribes shown to be “kin” would be in league together. Thus this table aligns the predominant tribes in and around the land promised to Israel. These names include founders of tribes, clans, cities, and territories.1

    Other commentators generally agree on the purpose of the list, but vary in their view of the historicity.2

    There is a final question of historicity. I think this is really the wrong question to ask here. The story thus far tells us of the population of the earth. If the flood is to be regarded as a large, but nonetheless local event, then the issue is one of the groups of people most closely related to Israel. I believe there is good reason to expect that these lists arose from traditions, and not from some kind of direct revelation, and thus should be seen to paint a general picture and not to provide historical details.

    In particular, the interchange of personal names with the names of people groups is a key. The interest is less with the historical descent of the people involved than it is with the way the land is divided and their relationship to one another, and particular to the chosen people.

    Chapter 10, combined with chapter 11, forms a bridge between the history of the world in general that runs from Genesis 1-11 and the very specific history of Israel that begins in chapter 12 with the call of Abraham.

    I have only a small number of notes on this chapter. If you are looking for details on the various names, you will need a Bible dictionary, and even there facts will be a little bit scarce. I based the following working translation on the ASV simply to save myself the trouble of getting the transliteration of all the names in standard form. None of the transliterations are mine.

    Finally, this is an excellent example of Biblical criticism, particularly source and redaction criticism, in action, though one shouldn’t assume that there is sufficient information in this one chapter to build a character of the sources. Nonetheless there is a critical pattern in the language used that helps identify the sources, in this case J (Yahwist) and P (Priestly). I will use blue text for P, and black text for J. In addition, I will underline the key introductory phrases that separate the sources.2

    It is very likely that each source contained overlapping material, but the redactor combined all of this information into a single picture suitable for his purpose–displaying Israel as God’s servant in the broader world.

    The translation and notes will be below the fold.

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