Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Study Method

  • Gender Accurate Translation and Interpretation

    Wayne Leman has an exceptional post on women and Bible translation. We talk a great deal about gender accurate (or I still like gender-inclusive) language, but it’s men that are doing most of the talking. That’s because there are more men than women involved in translation. I’m in full agreement with what Wayne says in his post, but I want to carry things just a step further.

    First, however, I want to make sure you understand what I mean when I say I’m an egalitarian. It doesn’t mean that I believe men and women are the same. Thank God they are not! What it means is that I believe that each person should be start on a level playing field and be appreciated and used in accordance with their gifts. So how could I support putting more women on Bible translation committees any more than I could support putting more men on them? The problem is that we are human, and some of us are guys, and we may not think of all the gifts. Since I believe men and women are different, we need to go out of our way to hear what the other gender is thinking. Since translation is dominated by men, as is interpretation, we may tend not to think of the need for women’s gifts in our activity.

    There’s no big wall here. Men can have some of these gifts, just as women can have gifts we consider the province of men. My wife and I reverse some of the activities that you might expect. In the properly male dominated home the guy drives, I’ve heard. I generally let me wife drive. She likes to, I don’t. We divide financial responsibilities. But stereotypical folks do exist, I suspect. The best way to be sure is to be inclusive.

    I stated this in book on Bible translation:

    I believe that the best translation is likely to result from a committee of persons with diverse beliefs, all of whom are committed to translating without allowing those beliefs to interfere. (A bias in favor of accurate translation would be entirely appropriate, and could not be said to interfere.) Since I believe nobody is entirely free of bias, the best defense against bias is diversity. However, diversity in which one simply averages out the results of the various biases still leaves too much room for inappropriate results, so I believe the one commitment all members of a translation committee should make is to accurate translation within the context of the methodology they have chosen. (This extract from pages 39-40 can be found at the Energion Publications Announcements Blog.)

    I now believe this diversity should definitely be extended to include gender.

    But shouldn’t this be extended to interpretation? If the Bible message was presented only to men, then perhaps only men should listen and understand. But if that was not the case, perhaps we lose something by not including the voice of women in our interpretation.

    The last step of my method of interpretation is sharing. Some people wonder why I include sharing as part of the method of interpretation. There’s a level of accountability that results simply from expressing your understanding of scripture and listening to other people’s reactions to it. You can learn how you might be misunderstood. Others may point out things you had missed in studying the passage. You may learn of implications of your interpretation that you hadn’t comtemplated.

    Ideally such sharing should include the entire community so that diverse people are heard from. Not just men and women, but people of different ages, races, and cultures should be included. Many errors of Biblical interpretation might be avoided if we learned to listen to the broadest and most diverse possible community.

  • Another Set of Posts on Principles of Interpretation

    Since I responsded to a post on principles of interpretation, and Bruce Alderman also weighed in on that topic, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for more interesting discussion.

    Today I found a couple of posts by way of a trackback to my threads blog, in which the author notes that he recommends my article to stimulate thinking, even though he clearly disagrees with it. I actually can’t think of a better reason to recommend reading a post, so let me recommend a couple of his on the same basis. Well, let me add that his first principle of “context, context, context” receives my complete agreement, though I disagree on some details. At some point I hope to respond to his second post on interpretation in accordance with the gospel, but I don’t have time right now to do it justice.

    As of now, I’ll have to be satisfied with strongly recommending that you read it and think about it.

    These two articles are actually part of a broader series. The first is Part Two – The Christian WorldView – Interpreting Scripture, which contains “context, context, context”–enough to recommend it as reading, though I would differ on details about context. The second is Part Three – Interpreting Scripture – Gospel Hermeneutic. I would find a bit more to disagree on in the second, but I believe it is not unrelated to my own view in Hanging Biblical Interpretation.

    Read and enjoy!

  • Biblical Languages: Balancing Fast Reading and Slow Study

    Continuing my suggestions for maintaining Biblical languages skills, I want to discuss briefly the balance between fast reading and the more serious, detailed, grammatical study.

    Most students who make an effort to maintain their Biblical languages skill–and unfortunately small percentage in my experience–set out on each passage of scripture to study the text as though preparing to face the professor’s interrogation. Some of you may have had relaxed Greek or Hebrew teachers. I had one in undergraduate Greek and one who covered both Hebrew and Aramaic when I was in graduate school who had high expectations of what you should know about the text. I remember quite clearly the day in Aramaic reading when I had correctly parsed a verb form, and then the professor asked me what it would be in a completely different stem, person, and number.

    If you’ve had that type of learning experience with any of the Biblical languages, you may have gotten into the habit of lingering over each and every word until you hope you know every detail. There is a place for that, and when I’m teaching, I will sometimes ask questions like that especially of students who tend to neglect details. But let me point out that you didn’t learn English that way, assuming it’s your native tongue. Instead, you were exposed to a great deal of the language and absorbed quite a bit of vocabulary and structure before you studied it more formally.

    Most people will face discouragement in their study of the Biblical languages if they proceed at the slow pace required to study out every form in detail. That is why I recommend dividing your time between some serious study, and a program of faster reading. Faster reading will require good tools, such as Bible software of various types, reader’s lexicons (Greek or Hebrew), analytical lexicons (Greek and Hebrew). These are not tools that most Biblical languages teachers will encourage you to use for class, but they will help you cover more ground and expose yourself to more of the language. Accompany these with good English versions, and your reading speed will improve.

    Each person will have a different balance between these two parts of study, depending on your own personality and your goals. If you eventually want to be able to debate serious grammatical issues, you need to lean more and more to serious, detailed study. If you’d like to read devotionally, spend more time building your own speed.

  • More on Principles of Biblical Interpretation

    Bruce Alderman disagrees with some of the principles of interpretation from Trivium Pursuit, which I referenced earlier, and has started a series on the same topic. His first principle is:

    All this is a long way of introducing my first principle of biblical interpretation: “God, what are you trying to tell me through these scriptures?”

    That sounds like an excellent question. I’ll be watching for the continued discussion.

  • Principles of Interpretation or Conclusions?

    I’m always happy to see discussion about principles of interpretation of scripture, because in general when we have large differences of opinion between Christians they can be traced back to our approach to interpreting scripture and more broadly to our understanding of how doctrine is formed. Thus I was delighted to see General Principles for the Interpretation of Scripture listed in this week’s Christian Carnival.

    I’m responding here to a couple of potential points of disagreement, but I don’t want this to overshadow my appreciation for having someone lay out their principles so they can be discussed. It is so incredibly important that we talk about how we come to an understanding of scripture and acknowledge those principles. In pursuit of that, my own principles can be found in extended form in the participatory study method, and one of my key principles in Hanging Biblical Interpretation. The latter essay is subject to the same criticisms I’m expressing here–in fact, I’m not sure we can avoid these criticisms.

    The issue can be illustrated very simply. Quoting:

    The Scripture is infallible.

    John 10:35 (Very Literal)
    . . . the Scripture is not able to be broken.

    What we have done here is interpreted the text in order to produce a principle of interpretation. Now if you think about it, you are likely to believe I’m being quite unfair. If you read my own essay, listed above, you will be even more convinced I’m being unfair. How else does one proceed? It’s a fundamental of inductive Bible study. But at the same time it’s one of our problems.

    I recall a visit from a very earnest young couple who wanted to save my soul. Their ardor for this task was not dimmed when I told them that I was a Christian and involved in a church. I didn’t mind talking with them, so we settled in to talk about salvation and eventually the topic worked its way around to faith and works. (You can see some of my own thoughts at A Fruitful Faith.) At one point in the argument he separated out a single phrase in a text and said that it applied to a different dispensation. He further claimed that his dispensational view was totally derived from scripture. In my experience, however, what is derived from scripture through a fully dispensational approach differs quite a bit from what others derive from scripture.

    In the case of the particular argument before us, can one justifiably move from the text to infallibility and make that a fundamental principle of Bible study? I think one would have to ask precisely what the scripture was intended to accomplish and how. The phrase “broken scripture” cries out for definition. In the case of John 10:35 it was a particular application to Jesus that could not be broken. But how does that become a basic principle of interpretation?

    I would suggest that it has to go through testing. In other words, I don’t have to begin my approach to scripture with the view that it is going to produce no errors or contradictions, or that it will provide me with true propositions. I would take John 10:35 with me to many different scriptures and ask just how it functioned in those contexts. I’m assuming that Mr. Harvey Bluedorn, who wrote the article I’m referencing, has done precisely that, and has found through testing that this principle continues to apply. Some may think that is a bit circular, but I would suggest it’s no more circular than life. If I touch a hot stove and get burned (hopefully only when I was younger!) I may conclude that the single object in question is dangerous. Through testing of that principle, perhaps a bit more carefully, I’ll find out just how universal my insight is, and how it applies.

    But for those who are just starting out perhaps that principle will require some testing. I think I come to some different conclusions along the line. The key here, however, is to know the principles you are applying, and to test them, especially by interacting with others to test your conclusions. Can you back them up?

  • Bible Study, Community, and Agendas

    I have written previously about community and Biblical inspiration and more recently about fear that pushes people away from studying the Bible for themselves. So how about a note on some of the dangers of Bible study?

    My attention was called to this topic by this post on Thinking Christian, in which the basis for anti-semitism in the gospels and Paul’s writings is discussed and to some extent despatched. There were two passages in that post that set me to thinking just a bit. The first is:

    None of these verses suggest that the whole Jewish nation is responsible for Jesus’ death and none of them promote the idea that Jews should be persecuted. Dowling is clutching at straws here and reading into the text what he clearly wants to see. The texts are so clear, in fact, one wonders whether he has actually studied them with a sceptical view! [emphasis in original]

    And this is the second:

    Although Dowling’s argument is completely flawed, it is true to say that the Bible has been used by those who wish to promote persecution of the Jews. But this is not the fault of the Bible. It is the result of distorted readings of the text. Unfortunately, ‘the history of the church is about as long as the history of anti-Semitism—if not in the overt acts of Christians, certainly in their guilty silence.’ (Wilson 1984) So the Christian Church has certainly been guilty of perpetuating anti-Semitism by commission or omission. But the actions of the Church must not be equated with the teachings of Scripture.

    Now don’t come to any conclusions about Steve Parker’s material without reading it completely. But what interests me here is that he says that it is very clear, even emphatically clear that these texts do not support putting the blame for the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole, and do not support persecution on that basis, and yet, as he acknowledges in the second quote, these texts and others have been used in precisely that way.

    So what happened on the way from the first to the second? Generally, some very bad Biblical interpretation, and more specifically application has taken place. The reason for this is that the Bible has been given to us not in a neat, systematic fashion designed to give you direct answers for your moment by moment decisions. Instead, it is presented in people’s experience of God in a range of situations over an extended period of time.

    We are always in danger of misapplying scripture simply because we have our own agendas, and we tend to read what we think should be there. I’m always fascinated in my own reading to look at my previous marginal notes and underlining. Different aspects of a passage strike me at different times. There’s no problem with this. We’re human and we can’t keep our attention on everything at every moment. But our human nature also gets us to focus on how the Bible might apply to someone else, or on those aspects that support what we want to do. We can even believe that we are being quite scriptural because we have a Bible verse to quote for every occasion. We might even have reduced it to a simple reference.

    In the particular scriptures that caught my attention here, there was probably a very simple process of misapplication. Some Christian in the early, but not too early years of the church was angry at some Jews, perhaps at the Jews, possibly because he simply couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t accept what, to him, was obviously the truth. He wants to force them to believe, and it’s only a short step from forcing people to believe to using force and killing them if they continue to refuse. He looks for justification. “Aha!” he says, “we have it right here in Matthew 27:25. They admit to being guilty of killing Jesus–killing God!”

    The text doesn’t actually have to say that. It just has to provide one little wedge of scripture for the action that our hypothetical Christian already wants to take. Very unfortunately, though the specific thought processes are hypothetical, the result is not, and many Christians used the verse in question in precisely that way.

    We can easily wonder why there isn’t some kind of footnote or parenthetical remark that God would provide saying, “Don’t take this to mean that all Jews are guilty of the death of Jesus.” That simply wasn’t the issue at the time. I know that there are scholars who believe that this passage was penned precisely with the purpose of placing the blame for the death of Jesus on the Jews rather than the Romans. But even if that was the case, the historical context was a situation in which Christians were distinguishing themselves from Judaism more and more, yet it was still closer to a family fight with many Christians also considering themselves Jews, and thus requiring great care in application in any other situation. It’s quite possible that we should say that Jesus did provide a footnote, in Matthew 5:43-48–“Love your enemies!” Even if this verse did indicate a national guilt, and even if it did allow us to regard the Jewish people as our enemies, we’d still be commanded to love, and love would surely exclude persecution.

    I have written about each of these elements before, but I think this brings them into focus:

    • Read broadly, considering all aspects of context. The counterpoint may not be right there.
    • Read in community, with accountability. There’s a place for standing for your principles no matter what, but there’s also a place for being accountable to others.
    • Drop your agenda, and let God provide you with his agenda.
    • Always look for the things that correct you rather than for the things that correct others.
    • Listen to the Holy Spirit in the present.

    As a final note, I believe that God gives us the scriptures as part of the experience of the community because he wants us to experience him in the present as a community. We might want a book of facts and detailed instructions. God wants to provide us with a guide for coming into relationship to him and experiencing him in our daily lives. The greatest antidote to hatred in our lives, I believe, is the regular experience of God’s love. When you constantly experience God’s loving presence, you will find it harder to believe that God is justifying hatred.

  • Fear and Bible Study

    I was preparing a devotional for my wife’s devotional list on facing fear when it suddenly occurred to me that the verses I was using could also apply to Bible study. I regularly encounter Christians who are afraid to study the Bible. Their concern is that they will get it wrong, but more especially that they will teach someone else wrong.

    It’s not surprising that they get to feeling this way, because we do quite appropriately put a great deal of stress on correctly understanding what the Bible has to say. When you add to that the nice note in James 4:1, “Not many of you should become teachers . . .” and the fear becomes set in concrete.

    The questioner generally also asks me how the great scholars, you know, the ones who wrote the notes in their study Bible, manage to figure out what the text means. “I read the text, and then I read the notes,” they say, “and I just can’t see how they got the note out of the text!” I have to tell them that sometimes the note isn’t right either. I have quite a collection of Bibles with study notes, and I can tell you that there are substantial differences in what they say.

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  • The Concept of Trajectories

    I like to talk about trajectories in scripture. This may sound odd to some. A trajectory, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a path, progression, or line of development resembling a physical trajectory.” When I talk about scriptural trajectories, I’m referring in particular to the last part of that definition–a line of development. (Compare also the use of this term in the Wikipedia article on Biblical Theology.)

    Many Biblical passages need to be read not simply to find out what the say, and who they are saying it to, but also to discover where God is going with a particular set of commands. In Christian theology we might identify a trajectory in a tabernacle and a sacrificial system that leads eventually to direct, personal access to God’s throne as described in the book of Hebrews. The command to offer a lamb might seem to merely indicate that God likes animal sacrifices. If we view it in the light of the trajectory, we may find that God does not like sin, and likes us to be reminded of it each time. In addition, it can remind us of the cost of sin on a regular basis, and also tell us that even if we are very far from God, he is nonetheless willing to make a way for us to approach him.

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  • Prayers for Bible Study

    One of the key elements of participatory Bible study that I advocate is prayer with Bible study. Brian at RealMinistries.org has posted a number of prayers for Bible study from church fathers. I recommend reading this post.

  • The Camp and the Cloud

    Yesterday and today I wrote devotionals for my wife’s devotional list that drew lessons from the movement of the cloud and fire over the tabernacle in the wilderness. These devotionals are not truly exegetical exercises, but rather draw on the approach I call “listening to the conversation.” The command here is clearly directed to Israel at a specific time and place. There is no direct application. At the same time we can draw lessons by looking at how God deals with people. For this post I’m presenting the scripture once, and then combining the two devotionals.

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