Do you dare?

[Akita Suggagaki]

So I agree. Hermeneutics are hugely influential in all kinds of ways ...

An most of us seem unwilling to review or devise our interpretations of anything. "Double down" seems the key phrase anymore.

 

[Derf]

No.. I think for many on this form, in their minds, the Literal view is the "established view". Anything else is alternate.

That sounds opposite of what you said before. After all, most here are Protestants and Catholics.

And, I tried to be clear that I am not interested in disputing which view is more accurate or correct. Rather, I am more interested in exploring aspects beyond the literal. So far it has taken us to some very challenging and inportant concepts of hermeneutics.

So, if the literal is correct for any particular passage, you’re happy to ignore it. That may be both important and challenging, but it seems foolish.

 

[Derf]

An most of us seem unwilling to review or devise our interpretations of anything. "Double down" seems the key phrase anymore.

Again, isn’t this what you are doing when you discount up front the literal that you already disagree with.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

So, if the literal is correct for any particular passage, you’re happy to ignore it. That may be both important and challenging, but it seems foolish.

Why would you assume I ignore it? Literal interpretation is not the only option.


Have you plucked your eye out or cut off your hand? Surely they must have offended you by now.

What you have done and what we all must do is make a decision for ourselves about what is to be taken literally and figuratively. I do that with the help of all we have learned as a faith tradition, including scholarship in the last 300-400 years

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Again, isn’t this what you are doing when you discount up front the literal that you already disagree with.

I don't double down. I consider most likely options.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I basically agree with your thoughts here. And like you, I am not interested in convincing others that they should adopt this posture towards scripture.

And for me, a turn towards embracing biblical scholarship helped both my faith and my ability to even read the bible on my own again. It was tremendously helpful to learn that most scholars agree that the archeological evidence doesn’t support the biblical narrative of the Canaanite genocide. So now I can read those accounts and try and understand what this narrative may have meant to the ancient writers and audience, instead of having a crisis of faith over God having thousands of children slaughtered by sword and spear.

..... man, you guys .... this is where I have to admit that where Hermeneutics is applied I get torn between putting a foot over on @Derf's side of things and the other foot over on @Akita Suggagaki 's and @okay's side of things.

It's in trying to sort these kinds of issues that, for me, I actually swallow the horse pill so many can't. Otherwise, I'd have to jettison Moses and the Exodus by the same interpretive considerations as those pertaining to the Conquest.

And yeah. I know. By today's ethical lights, it all gets very ugly very fast.

 

[AV1611VET]

..... man, you guys .... this is where I have to admit that where Hermeneutics is applied I get torn between putting a foot over on @Derf's side of things and the other foot over on @Akita Suggagaki 's and @okay's side of things.

There was a statistician who was one standing with one hand in a bucket of ice and his other hand on the hot stove.

His wife asked him, "How do you feel."

"On average," he replied, "I feel just fine."

 

[2PhiloVoid]

There was a statistician who was one standing with one hand in a bucket of ice and his other hand on the hot stove.

His wife asked him, "How do you feel."

"On average," he replied, "I feel just fine."

That actually makes me chuckle, AV. That's about how it feels ... on average. It's a painful consideration on both sides. I want truth, but the truth is at times uncomfortable.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

..... man, you guys .... this is where I have to admit that where Hermeneutics is applied I get torn between putting a foot over on @Derf's side of things and the other foot over on @Akita Suggagaki 's and @okay's side of things.

It's in trying to sort these kinds of issues that, for me, I actually swallow the horse pill so many can't. Otherwise, I'd have to jettison Moses and the Exodus by the same interpretive considerations as those pertaining to the Conquest.

And yeah. I know. By today's ethical lights, it all gets very ugly very fast.

My main take away is always, "What does this text tell me about God and what does it tell me about the author?"

And literature can be so rich and beautiful and frightening and provoking even if "fiction".

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

That actually makes me chuckle, AV. That's about how it feels ... on average. It's a painful consideration on both sides. I want truth, but the truth is at times uncomfortable.

Hah. Just kidding. But I think it may be true for all of us. We all have our limit.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

So it reminds me, how we interpret is closely related to what we believe. And I guess that is part of what Gadamer claimed, We are shaped by history and it then shapes our hermeneutic. Maybe I learned something after all that reading. But then, didn't we already know that?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

My main take away is always, "What does this text tell me about God and what does it tell me about the author?"

And literature can be so rich and beautiful and frightening and provoking even if "fiction".

But we don't know that it is merely "fiction" through and through, in every semantic nuance, in every sentence, in every book.

It could be that as difficult as it is to accept, some substantive historical information is actually being communicated and carried along, however partial, and not simply as a "poetic expression" from the Old World.

What does the text tell me about God?

I know what it doesn't tell me: that He's just another 'Joe,' to be evaluated as if He is just another 'Joe.' But so often, that's exactly what we do. In fact, these days, we demand that we do.

 

[AV1611VET]

That actually makes me chuckle, AV. That's about how it feels ... on average. It's a painful consideration on both sides. I want truth, but the truth is at times uncomfortable.

Fret not, my friend.

Our pastor says one of the things we should thank God for in our prayers is our future!

 

[AV1611VET]

So it reminds me, how we interpret is closely related to what we believe.

Yup ... Nadab and Abihu found out the hard way that you don't take God's word liberally.

You take it literally.

So did the man who was picking up sticks on a sabbath day.

 

[AV1611VET]

What does the text tell me about God?

Can you imagine an academian going into a restaurant and employing these critical tactics on the menu handed them?

I usually get a chuckle thinking about it.

"Who wrote this menu?"

"This steak here, do you know steak in Swahili is pork in Chamorro?"

(Okay, I made that one up. )

"This 16oz steak, is that avoirdupois, troy, or apothecary?"

"Et cetera."

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

It could be that as difficult as it is to accept, some substantive historical information is actually being communicated and carried along, however partial, and not simply as a "poetic expression" from the Old World.

Yes, I think there is a historical basis for a lot of it. But the details? who knows? But Genesis creation accounts seems pure mythical to me.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes, I think there is a historical basis for a lot of it. But the details? who knows? But Genesis creation accounts seems pure mythical to me.

When comparing it to the Mesopotamian and Babylonian Creation myths, and if we also add in today's scientific account about terrestrial and biological existence, the book of Genesis begins to look a bit more...............how do I say this?................representational and poetic of reality than the oldest myths do. Genesis is a prophetic book, however we appraise it, and I'm going to assert that we owe it to ourselves as those who follow Christ to take it in the vain in which it wasn't given, literal or not.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Can you imagine an academian going into a restaurant and employing these critical tactics on the menu handed them?

I usually get a chuckle thinking about it.

"Who wrote this menu?"

"This steak here, do you know steak in Swahili is pork in Chamorro?"

(Okay, I made that one up. )

"This 16oz steak, is that avoirdupois, troy, or apothecary?"

"Et cetera."

In my case, brother AV, critical methods, once completed upon my engagement with the Bible, are then turned immediately upon the surrounding claims of the world. And let's just say, I'm sure Satan will not like what I do with it.

Do you catch my drift?

 

[AV1611VET]

When comparing it to the Mesopotamian and Babylonian Creation myths, and if we also add in today's scientific account about terrestrial and biological existence, the book of Genesis begins to look a bit more...............how do I say this?................representational and poetic of reality than the oldest myths do.

Are you saying that science thrown into the pot of Genesis 1 & 2 put the Creation Story on the same plane as the Mesopotamian and Babylonian creation myths?

 

[AV1611VET]

In my case, brother AV, critical methods, once completed upon my engagement with the Bible, are then turned immediately upon the surrounding claims of the world. And let's just say, I'm sure Satan will not like what I do with it.

Do you catch my drift?

Sounds promising.

Which form of criticism do you use? higher or lower?