OK.Sure, we could do one of those next, although it may need to be tomorrow or so since it's about time for me to sign off for the day. Let's take it up soon, though. It ought to be interesting and will give us a chance to explore some additional aspects of Hermeneutics and Exegesis.
"Out of context" is only absurd if it is being used as if it were some sort of magic spell. Failing to resolve the context is always an error.
No, I'm not a nuda scripturist. I embrace sola scriptura, and most of the work of recovering the context comes from studying the Bible itself, since it is the best source for information about the relevant histories. It's simply that it's not a matter of pulling individual tidbits out.
It's more of a process of argumentation than "holding all the keys." Any reader can resolve the context, it's simply a matter of putting in the work and treating the document as a whole rather than breaking it into unnatural parts.
Your test is decent, as simply declaring something to be out of context isn't an argument in and of itself. One of the most frequent examples I can think of is a common abuse of Romans 8-9 where God's declaration "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy" is treated as if God is limiting His mercy and excluding individuals from it, when the context of these passages is to explain how God remains just in expanding His mercy beyond national Israel. The different contexts give entirely opposite meanings to the same sentence.
That class you took does sound interesting, and I bet with the work you did in that class you became familiar with various nuances of Hermeneutics in the process.I took a secular religious studies course on early christianity in college. One of the few courses I aced, actually. The textual analysis was fairly interesting. I felt like I could keep going, but, it was too secular for my taste and I felt it would have eventually led me toward making compromises between analysis and faith, given that there were some things we had gotten into that I just couldn't bring myself to accept. To pass the course, though, I had to learn to compartmentalize. It didn't take long before I found I had a fairly decent knack for putting on my secular humanist hat, then apply methodology as if only to ask the question "what does this method tell us?," and then put on a completely different hat as a believing christian, and compare the two. That process led me to some fairly good inspiration for my papers which got the grade. Hermeneutics is interesting.
Oh, I agree. There is some amount of politicking that goes with the claims of being a "special interpreter" of this, that or the other, and of the Bible especially. But even with that being the case, I think we can say that everyone interprets the Bible on some level and thereby derives how they think certain principles they've gleaned from their reading will apply in their lives. The upshot to this, though, is that we each do it well or we don't do it well. Personally, I've never assumed that I do it well, which is why I've been an ongoing student of Biblical exegesis and also of the larger theoretical categories of Hermeneutics.In the world of christian religion, on the other hand, I don't really have the same impression. There's a bit of politicking wrapped up in it, and I guess it's understandable: to be an "interpreter" in christian religion is to hold a kind of position of prominence, even among protestants. We do need pastors and teachers after all.
This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say that citing someone else's use of some text is out of context, whether that of a bit of Shakespeare or a verse from the Bible, is a fallacy. That's an interesting take on the issue, especially since we have so many competing denominations who disagree about what various portions and verses of the Bible actually "mean." I'd think that, logically speaking, someone, somewhere is wrong because we can't all be right when advocating for an interpretation of a verse of the Bible when, at the same time, other Christians disagree with our interpretation.The world of debate, on the other hand, is where hermeneutics reaches the level of absurdity. Frankly, pulling the "out of context" card really ought to be considered a formal fallacy. It's probably the most common trick in the book, and eventually, I began to resort to excluding my exegesis, interpretation, and to just throw the book at them, almost literally, and let scripture itself argue for itself.
I'm not sure I follow your logic here. You might have to explain further the flow of your thinking on this point.In the process though, I do seem to have picked up a knack and appreciation for harmonizations, and also, for the existence of a cohesive, spiritual truth -- I mean, because, let's face it, if there isn't one, well, then nobody but the secular humanists really have any business interpreting the text.
I'm a little confused by what you are saying here. Are you saying you intentionally quote verses to use them in a way not matching the meaning of those verses within the particular book they are found in? Because that would be the definition of quoting out of context.So I often have need of quoting only one or two verses to show that, despite the intended meaning of those verses, scripture could not be foundational to a proposed interpretation as this would introduce an inconsistency in the belief system(s) of the authors.
The approach of Jesus and the apostles in quoting Scripture is certainly a great area for study, because it definitely raises issues with things like a strict historical-grammatical method of exegesis. Yet this is exactly why hermeneutics needs to be discussed, because they didn't simply haphazardly quote Scripture in a way that distorts the meaning to prove a point. They followed exegetical traditions and used methods of interpretation that were common in their day. There was always a connection between the greater context of the text and the quotes that they were using. For example, in the temptation in the desert Jesus only quotes from wilderness texts to refute Satan. Which some study reveals that this comes from a strata of prophecy and prophetic interpretation that the Messianic age would be inaugurated in a parallel manner to the Exodus including the testing in the wilderness. So where in the Bible the quotes are coming from are a major part of the quoting of them, not simply the particular words that are expressed.Ironically this is one of those scriptures I would probably disagree about, because of immediate and original context.
But it does bring me to a point: another defense of quoting even single verses is the use of the scripture by Jesus and the apostles themselves. By demonstration, they show that if christians cannot quote verses in the manner that they did, then they cannot practice their faith in exactly the same way. Further, if we cannot read scripture in the way they did, we cannot restructure their beliefs, their arguments or their perspective -- all being integral to the context of their writings.
Another hermeneutical point of awareness is for us to not expect that all questions can necessarily be answered from researching and reading the Bible alone. Sometimes, part of our Hermeneutical work can be more diversified and spread out by gathering commentaries for especially difficult or sparsely described ideas in the Bible (like the Mark of Cain). We may want to consult biblical commentaries, biblical dictionaries and encylopedia of cultural facts belonging to the ancient era of the Bible. We might also see if Jewish rabbis have any teachings on the subject within their respective tradition which might offer additional insight.
With me so far?
Now, in the case of the Mark of Cain, even after we go through all of these steps, we're probably not going to find a precise answer. And that's okay. It doesn't mean we did something wrong since there isn't always a positive or substantial answer to every question we can ask of the biblical text. And where the mark of Cain is concerned, we'll find that there have been various answers offered up, but none are definitive. All we can know is that the mark was some kind of signifier of God's protection for Cain.
I'm not getting what is egregious about being African, or the color of Africans?This would rule out really egregious interpretations like some people have attempted to foist upon the text in the past, one of which used to be that the mark of Cain was supposedly the dark skin that African peoples have.
I'm not getting why not? On what basis do we exclude such? What rules it out Biblically?By using substantial hermeneutics, we should at least come away in our reading **not** thinking that the mark has anything to do with an ethnicity of 'Cain's lineage.'
The thing to keep in mind is that we can ask our questions, and if we've more or less followed these kinds of steps, then we can come away justified that our search for an answer was at least substantial and that by applying these aspects of hermeneutics, we will help ourselves to read the texts more accurately if there is information to be found.
Keep in mind, too, that your other inquiries into 1 Peter 3:18-20 and the two trees and snake in Genesis might have different outcomes when we apply hermeneutics.
I took a secular religious studies course on early christianity in college. One of the few courses I aced, actually.
The textual analysis was fairly interesting. I felt like I could keep going, but, it was too secular for my taste and I felt it would have eventually led me toward making compromises between analysis and faith, given that there were some things we had gotten into that I just couldn't bring myself to accept. To pass the course, though, I had to learn to compartmentalize. It didn't take long before I found I had a fairly decent knack for putting on my secular humanist hat, then apply methodology as if only to ask the question "what does this method tell us?," and then put on a completely different hat as a believing christian, and compare the two. That process led me to some fairly good inspiration for my papers which got the grade. Hermeneutics is interesting.
In the world of christian religion, on the other hand, I don't really have the same impression. There's a bit of politicking wrapped up in it, and I guess it's understandable: to be an "interpreter" in christian religion is to hold a kind of position of prominence, even among protestants. We do need pastors and teachers after all.
The world of debate, on the other hand, is where hermeneutics reaches the level of absurdity. Frankly, pulling the "out of context" card really ought to be considered a formal fallacy. It's probably the most common trick in the book, and eventually, I began to resort to excluding my exegesis, interpretation, and to just throw the book at them, almost literally, and let scripture itself argue for itself.
My experience and conclusion precisely!In the process though, I do seem to have picked up a knack and appreciation for harmonizations, and also, for the existence of a cohesive, spiritual truth -- I mean, because, let's face it, if there isn't one, well, then nobody but the secular humanists really have any business interpreting the text.
That class you took does sound interesting, and I bet with the work you did in that class you became familiar with various nuances of Hermeneutics in the process.
I am wondering, though, was the class as a whole focused mainly upon 'textual analysis,' covering many of the aspects of the field of Hermeneutics, or was the class more of a survey of religions in general with a unit on interpretive methods being but one within a broader spectrum of topics that the professor covered?
I can very well understand the feeling that some things presented to you in that class seem to force to you compartmentalize in order to work through the lessons while, at the same time, keeping together your own Christian sensibilities. You're right to be wary of some of the theories that come forth from various Hermeneuticists, especially those promulgated by those who aren't (or have never been) Christian in the first place (like Derrida, for instance).
This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say that citing someone else's use of some text is out of context, whether that of a bit of Shakespeare or a verse from the Bible, is a fallacy. That's an interesting take on the issue, especially since we have so many competing denominations who disagree about what various portions and verses of the Bible actually "mean." I'd think that, logically speaking, someone, somewhere is wrong because we can't all be right when advocating for an interpretation of a verse of the Bible when, at the same time, other Christians disagree with our interpretation.
What do you mean when you say you "throw the book at others"? How does Scripture "argue for itself"? I could be wrong here, but it almost sounds like you're alluding to the principle of "Scripture interprets Scripture" as one of your own priorities in your own position on Biblical exegesis.
Moreover, I posted the video in the OP for a purpose in our discussion in this thread, so I'm wondering where you either agree or disagree with Jens Zimmerman and why?
Thanks!
I'm not understanding your question, Clare. I didn't say that there was anything egregious about being of African descent. Where are you getting that I said something like that? That's not in any way, shape or form what I said. Please read what I said earlier about this again.I'm not getting what is egregious about being African, or the color of Africans?
We're all born as God's enemies (Romans 5:10), so what is this egregiousness based on?
What if Cain were marked with Oriental traits? What does it matter? A mark is a mark.
... the mark of Cain isn't described, and it has always been an exegetical mistake for Christian ministers from the past to think that either the 'Mark of Cain' (or the Curse of Ham, for that matter) had anything to do with African peoples. There also isn't anything in Scripture that is racial or that tells us that African peoples were somehow meted out by God to be slaves of the rest mankind, but that is how the mark of Cain and the curse of Ham have been mistakenly interpreted and applied in the past, even among some Christians in good ol' America during the Atlantic Slave Trade. This kind of interpretation is not only racist, it's just plain incorrect and has been grossly misapplied.I'm not getting why not? On what basis do we exclude such? What rules it out Biblically?
I'm a little confused by what you are saying here. Are you saying you intentionally quote verses to use them in a way not matching the meaning of those verses within the particular book they are found in? Because that would be the definition of quoting out of context.
The approach of Jesus and the apostles in quoting Scripture is certainly a great area for study, because it definitely raises issues with things like a strict historical-grammatical method of exegesis. Yet this is exactly why hermeneutics needs to be discussed, because they didn't simply haphazardly quote Scripture in a way that distorts the meaning to prove a point.
They followed exegetical traditions and used methods of interpretation that were common in their day. There was always a connection between the greater context of the text and the quotes that they were using. For example, in the temptation in the desert Jesus only quotes from wilderness texts to refute Satan. Which some study reveals that this comes from a strata of prophecy and prophetic interpretation that the Messianic age would be inaugurated in a parallel manner to the Exodus including the testing in the wilderness. So where in the Bible the quotes are coming from are a major part of the quoting of them, not simply the particular words that are expressed.
ok. I'm fairly familiar with that area of study. Which texts did the professor who taught our class choose for your all to read and study? Who were the main theorists and/or scholars that you covered in that class?It was not a survey course, though it was an undergrad introduction to early christianity using textual analysis, and it was writing intensive. We went over basically the model of the early christian faith constructed by the methods of secular textual analysis, including a reconstruction of Q, etc. Their model of the early christian religion is not a model faithful christians would accept -- we were basically told to leave our preconceptions at the door -- but it was an interesting thought exercise that could be drawn from to inspire additional critical thought on restructuring the invisible context of some things.
...mmm, maybe. I'm not so sure about just 'how different' they were, but yeah, I understand what you're getting at. I've studied that too.I would say this including a reading from the didache inevitably helped lead me to my hypothetical model of the early church, which to me suggests that the church in Jerusalem, while similar, was markedly different than the churches being founded by apostles elsewhere.
Oh, yeah. There's a lot of that kind of thing that goes on around here, but the approach I'm referring to in being more aware of Hermeneutical and Exegeticam measures is for the opposite reference than the one you're citing.You've perhaps misunderstood me. I'm referring to hasty attempts to make the "out of context" claim which basically disregard the point that was made, or the intent of the selection of the quoted passage.
I think you have to be vary careful when you do that kind of thing, otherwise we might end up extracting some supposed meaning we think we're drawing from some bit of Scripture when the writer (like, say, Paul or Peter) may have never intended for that supposed meaning to be drawn from his message.Sometimes I may even quote a passage not for the message it conveys or its meaning, but for some small piece of information which can be extracted from it, and opponents in a debate who are too hasty can be way too quick to make an "out of context" claim which defies all reason and entirely misses the point.
I think I agree with these points, but there is that subset topic of inquiry that focuses on the New Testament writers use of the Old Testament, and I've also studied this as well. And through that study, I've come to realize that we need to be careful in handling Scripture, whether it's the O.T. or N.T., because there may have been ways in which certain verses where handled by N.T. writers the way they were because they had either special revelation into the insights they gained or they were individuals who lived in proximity to those who had that level of special revelation (~ e.g. Mark or Luke). We, on the other hand don't live in that same social and cultural proximity, and not only that, we live 2,000 years after the fact within cultures that are foreign to the N.T. writers.In the context of debate where politicking is taking place because opponents are apparently too invested, and they are showing a disregard for following the logic of an argument, at some point it ceases to be worthwhile to continue to reason with them, at which point, the scripture maintains a weight in a theological debate which they cannot deny as much as they may try. Scripture interpreting scripture would be something else, though I think that naturally follows as one reads the authors of the NT, who interpret scripture for us in a few places.
Ok. I get what you're saying, but I'm more of the mind that Hermeneutics as Jens Zimmermann (and other Christian scholars I rely on) describes it isn't a monolithic field, but rather a philosophical approach employing Critical Realism by which we discern various positions and types of hermeneutical frameworks. It's not like there's just one. Did you by chance watch the video in the OP?I'd say hermeneutics is more of a subset of the analysis employed by secular humanists. IIRC, things like cultural context, etc, while important, are especially tricky given that the best source of information we have on the early church, is the body of texts they wrote, so many of these things we were taught to be matters of analysis.
The question of Scripture is turning out to be more difficult than I thought a few decades ago. From what I know of Jewish interpretation, both in the 1st Cent and now, Scripture is interpreted by the community. In many cases the result isn’t what I would say the original authors would have expected. Jesus and the NT authors sometimes use the same approach. Of course the Catholic tradition did as well. I’d describe the approach as traditional interpretation. It works, when it works, because the community is sensible, and guided by the Holy Spirit.
I am convinced that the critical method as used in mainline and Catholic scholarship is the best way to find the original intent of the authors, but we need to ask whether that’s the goal. Many of the OT authors thought God wanted his people to slaughter the infidels. They regarded women as inferior. Yes, I think they experienced God and we can learn from that. But I would not want to accept their views as binding on the Church. The same is true to a lesser degree of the NT authors.
Historically situations like this were dealt with by non-literal interpretation, or by traditional readings that misread the original intent. The expectation that the plain meaning of the text is authoritative seems to have been pushed by the Reformers. It’s easy to see why. They thought the Church had departed from anything Jesus or the apostles would approve of. I agree. But with traditional interpretation Jesus and the Apostles can be made to say anything the Church wants. Hence a commitment to the plain meaning of Scripture seemed the only way to shake traditional readings. I think they assumed that the plain reading was the meaning of the original authors, though I’m not entirely clear on that.
But making the plain meaning authoritative returns us to the problem that the plain meaning is often not a Christian meaning, sometimes even in the NT. The current approach in the mainline churches appears to be novel. We do our best to understand the meaning in its original context, but have a second step of deciding how to deal with that. We consider Jesus’ teachings to have priority, and we are willing to disregard things that seem to have been inherited from the culture, and do not bear any relationship to the Gospel. This deals with the fact that that literal meaning is often not edifying, but it does so differently than the traditional approach. I think it’s safer. I think we’re much better to acknowledge explicitly when we’re departing from the original intentions. That gives us a chance to review the situation and consider whether we really want to do that. The problem with the traditional approach is that you can use non-literal approaches or traditional readings to prove anything.
But now we have the question of how to control the interpretation. I think in the end the only answer is the traditional one: we have to assume that the Church is sensible and guided by the Spirit. Where this differs from the Catholic tradition is that we’re aware that we can err, and we accept it as valid to challenge the current consensus. One major way to do that is by looking at the results of critical scholarship and pointing out where we’re departing from what the Apostles would have accepted.
This isn’t a risk-free approach. We have to balance the original reading, the Spirit-guided interpretation of community, and the right to challenge the concensus. But it’s the best approach I’ve seen so far in Church history.
ok. I'm fairly familiar with that area of study. Which texts did the professor who taught our class choose for your all to read and study? Who were the main theorists and/or scholars that you covered in that class?
i think I misunderstood you.I'm not understanding your question, Clare. I didn't say that there was anything egregious about being of African descent.
You know, it's been more than a decade since I set foot in that class and I did not continue with the religious studies -- I had a different major. I would have to brush up to go into more detail, but we covered some central theory, and might have had a text book but as I recall we never used it because we were taught directly. I kind of wish I had known this at the time but as it turns out my school was fairly well known for its religious studies, and my professor while maybe not very well known outside of that circle, was well published, teaching in association with Ehrman at that time if I'm not mistaken.
Right. It is egregious to hold an interpretation that Cain's mark had anything to do with African peoples, let alone to erroneously think (as some Christians have done in the past) that Cain's mark was somehow the cause of the dark skin that African people have. Why?: 'cuz it's FALSE!From yours following:
"This would rule out really egregious interpretations like some people have attempted to foist upon the text in the past, one of which used to be that the mark of Cain was supposedly the dark skin that African peoples have. By using substantial hermeneutics, we should at least come away in our reading **not** thinking that the mark has anything to do with an ethnicity of 'Cain's lineage.' "
Have you ever heard the term "rationalization"? I hope so, because that's what you're doing. We don't know what the mark was. You don't. I don't. Period. So let's not guess about it and just admit that neither of us knows, and due to this lack of information neither of us has any grounds upon which to believe anything about the 'mark' of Cain, other than that God gave Cain some kind of mark.Nr anything that precludes changing his features to that of another race.
Giving Cain different racial features is not racist.
Race is a neuter word.
Nor is my question about a specific race.
My question is why could God not give him racial features different than those around him, to mark him out?
Where is that excluded in Scripture?
That statement was not in post #170 which I addressed.
In post #170 which I addressed, your statement was:
"the mark of Cain was supposedly the dark skin that African peoples have."
It's called the act of clarification, Clare. It's what people do when others who hear us or read us may misunderstand the first set of statements we've made; we then write a more extensive and intensive set of statements to help correct their misperception about what it is they think we orignally meant.This differing concept of causality was not presented in post #170, to which I was responding, nor have I ever heard that allegation before.
Why did you add/include it now?
I am free to qualify and make clearer any statement I've previously stated. I do so all the time and, in fact, I expect other people to do the same.Hardly.
Would you spell it out for me, not omitting the change you made in your quote above, because I can't see any "rationalization." in my response to your post #170
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