hmm. ok, i guess id figured out what some of those were.
Remember, when interpreting
any text, one of the rules is to put the text in the historical and social context. That means, in this case, understanding what was happening at the time it was written.
is the idea that 'god' wanted us to get this message, or someone(s) else's idea?
That depends on your belief. Judeo-Christians believe that Yahweh (God) inspired the authors to impart these messages. I suspect your belief is that the authors made up the message.
also, i am curious why are things stated so clearly like the ten commandments in one place, and left so open to interpretation in others?
Even the 10 Commandments are "open to interpretation". It's just that sometimes the interpretation is very clear.
However, there is some ambiguity even in the 10 Commandments. For instance, the Commandment "You will not kill" is often interpreted as taking any human life. However, the original Hebrew is "You will not murder." That's a subset of killing.
Or take the First Commandent: "You will have no other gods before me." At the time that meant the Hebrews could not worship any other gods. At the time (Exodus comes before Genesis 1 in terms of when it was written), those other gods were thought to exist. But Yahweh was the god of the Hebrews, so they were forbidden to worship any of those other gods. Today in the USA, where most of the people are Judeo-Christian, it is also interpreted as meaning don't place the desure for money, power, sex, drugs, etc. above God. The idea is that a person can make those things into "gods" for them and place them above God. The main theological argument against creationism and Biblical literalism is that it is bibliolatry: making a literal, inerrant interpretation of the Bible into a god, thus violating the First Commandment. That interpretation goes beyond the meaning at the time Exodus was written of "gods". Is it a valid interpretation, tho?
At other times, the interpretation is going to be unclear because, according to Christian belief, human authors are trying to grasp concepts and attributes of a being that is 1) not human and 2) beyond human understanding. So the inspiration is hazy, incomplete, and perhaps chaotic because their human minds cannot grasp the totality of Yahweh.
This happens also in personal experience of God. People who report such experience are very clear that "though they think their experience really is of God, it is, even at its clearest and best, only a partial, human, inadequate view of what God really is and what God is really doing."
So, when the authors of the Bible try to put down this "inadequate view" on papyrus, it is going to be vague and thus open to many possible interpretations. Which is why it is dangerous to take verses out of context. You need to put them at least in the chapter and better yet, in the book that you find them.
