How does He do it: A 'Face the Board' For Your Beliefs

[SithDoughnut]

Are you asking these questions to learn something? If you go to a bible study many of your questions will probably be answered.

There are no Bible studies around me, and I'm not trying to learn about the Bible - I'm curious about people's interpretation of the Bible. I went to a Bible study class a long time ago, and all it was one the teacher's interpretation of the Bible. I disagreed with him on many areas.

I'll go for a different question, perhaps that will help:

How far should the Bible be taken literally/metaphorically and why? Is all of it relevant nowadays (I'm thinking of lines like Leviticus 19:19 and so on)?

This question might be better.

 

[brinny]

you asked about me, as a Christian.....this is one of my worship songs.....about seeking God....and a verse that is especially dear to my heart....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZfsxydxEXA&feature=related
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. ~Jeremiah 29:13

 

[SithDoughnut]

you asked about me, as a Christian.....this is one of my worship songs.....about seeking God....and a verse that is especially dear to my heart....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZfsxydxEXA&feature=related
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. ~Jeremiah 29:13

She's a good singer, I like her voice a lot.

 

[brinny]

She's a good singer, I like her voice a lot.

that's the difference between you and me...i wasn't focusing on her voice

 

[SithDoughnut]

that's the difference between you and me...i wasn't focusing on her voice

I've never listened to lyrics in songs much - I'm more of a music person than a lyrics person.

 

[norswede]

I'm sorry if this comes across as too close to apologetics; this is best place I can find to put this seeing as I'm not allowed to post on the forums where this might be more appropriate. It will be exploring Christianity, after all, so I think it's safe here.

I'm not looking for a debate or for persuasion to become Christian. I'm less interested in Christianity and more about Christians - more importantly, what you all actually believe, and how far you've looked into the questions surrounding them. I've done this with my Christian friends and a local church and I've come up with all sorts of weird and wonderful answers.

I'll point out that I'm not trying to break your beliefs (I did this on another board and all I got were defensive replies and accusations rather than actual answers) or try and put subversive atheist thoughts into your minds. I actually found that the Christians I 'interrogated' (as they chose to call it - not in a negative way of course ) found out that they believed many things they did not know they did, and for practically all of them this did nothing but strengthen their beliefs, now strong in the knowledge that they'd chosen (or been forced to, depending on how you look at it) to properly think about it.

(Important Note: If you're not up for some pretty intensive questioning, then this might not be for you )

I know some of this may cover other threads - it depends on where it goes. If you've answered a question somewhere else and don't feel like answering it again, feel free to tell me where you answered it and I'll go find it myself.

OK, we'll start with a big overall question and I'll hope that this doesn't completely fail like the last time I tried:

What is God?

God is the energy that manipulated the world into existence. He is made up of the same energy we are made up of but on a much larger scale. As it says in Genesis, he created us in his own image and breathed life into us. We are like grains of sand taken from a desert. We will never equal the desert in size or greatness, but we are a little piece of it. If you understand this then it makes it easier to understand how our capacity for emotion is only a small fraction of the capacity of God's emotions. In other words as much as we feel love, God feels it infinitely stronger and as much as we feel anger he feels it infinitely stronger as well.

 

[Willtor]

How far should the Bible be taken literally/metaphorically and why? Is all of it relevant nowadays (I'm thinking of lines like Leviticus 19:19 and so on)?

I think it should be taken as intended. One doesn't read John Keegan's histories for their metaphorical value, nor T.S. Eliot's poems for their literal value. When one reads anything, one tries to identify with the author and understand what the author means to say. I don't see why the books of the Bible should be different. Now, it may be more difficult with the Bible since most of the texts are so much older than most other books one reads and the cultures into which they were written have died. But I don't think it makes sense to try to read something differently from what the author intended.

As for relevance, I think it is all relevant. But that is a matter of faith. I don't understand all of it (and there may be parts about which I am mistaken). But I do think I understand the prohibition against sowing two kinds of seed in a field (the last bit of Lev. 19:19): it was a preventative measure against a single family becoming an abusive monopoly. If you are growing barley and I am growing wheat, and I am really successful, I can't start growing barley and leveraging my wheat sales to undercut your prices. Ultimately, it's part of a more comprehensive legislation of "love your neighbor."

All that said, I don't know how naturally applicable everything is. In the aforementioned case, probably neither of us lives an agrarian lifestyle. And even if we did, agriculture is so different it might be that the application of the law were _detrimental_ to the intended purpose. The author, here, had never considered crop rotation. But, going back to the first paragraph, one tries to empathize with the author and understand the intention.

---

There is another dimension to reading the Bible, too, and that is with the openness to receive revelation from God. I hesitate to broaden the topic in that direction since that wasn't your question, but I don't like to talk about interpreting the Bible without mentioning that.

 

[ebia]

What is God?

To quote himself "I am what I am" or "I will be what I will be".

On what sort of terms - ie in relation to what - would you like that answered?

 

[ebia]

How far should the Bible be taken literally/metaphorically and why?

Any text should be read, so far as can be discerned, as the genre(s) it was intended to be treated as.

Is all of it relevant nowadays (I'm thinking of lines like Leviticus 19:19 and so on)?

First and formost it's a story. Leviticus is as much part of that story as anything else. However, the relevence of a story is not always that one should try to live in every different earlier part of that story; it's not true to the story to try to repeat the whole of Act 3 in Act 5.

 

[SithDoughnut]

To quote himself "I am what I am" or "I will be what I will be".

On what sort of terms - ie in relation to what - would you like that answered?

If you feel like it, please do.

 

[SithDoughnut]

I'm replying to your entire post Willtor even if I haven't quoted it all - I just want to not have stupidly long posts that don't say much new stuff. If I've missed or accidently ignored anything, please tell me.

How far should the Bible be taken literally/metaphorically and why? Is all of it relevant nowadays (I'm thinking of lines like Leviticus 19:19 and so on)?

I think it should be taken as intended... <snip>

How did you decide how it was intended to be read?

As for relevance, I think it is all relevant. But that is a matter of faith. I don't understand all of it (and there may be parts about which I am mistaken). But I do think I understand the prohibition against sowing two kinds of seed in a field (the last bit of Lev. 19:19): it was a preventative measure against a single family becoming an abusive monopoly... <snip>

All that said, I don't know how naturally applicable everything is. In the aforementioned case, probably neither of us lives an agrarian lifestyle... <snip>

So the Bible was written for the culture and society at the time? Would I be write in assuming that you believe the Bible was written by men? If so, would you view the whole Bible as being 'God inspired', or part of it, or none of it?

There is another dimension to reading the Bible, too, and that is with the openness to receive revelation from God. I hesitate to broaden the topic in that direction since that wasn't your question, but I don't like to talk about interpreting the Bible without mentioning that.

Broaden the topic however you like, I'm just bouncing my questions off of whatever you write. If you could explain that further, I'd appreciate it.

 

[SithDoughnut]

Any text should be read, so far as can be discerned, as the genre(s) it was intended to be treated as.

I'll ask the same question to you as I did to Willtor: How have you decided how the Bible was intended to be read?

First and formost it's a story. Leviticus is as much part of that story as anything else. However, the relevence of a story is not always that one should try to live in every different earlier part of that story; it's not true to the story to try to repeat the whole of Act 3 in Act 5.

So by that do you mean that different 'acts' deal with different messages?

 

[ebia]

If you feel like it, please do.

I think you missed my question. One can only describe something in terms of something else, so what would you like me to describe God in terms of? (E.g. "God is creator of everything" describes God in terms of his creation).

That's why the most appropriate description of God is simply the one he gave "I am what I am". Any other description is trying to describe him in terms of something far lesser than he is.

 

[ebia]

I'll ask the same question to you as I did to Willtor: How have you decided how the Bible was intended to be read?

By trying to understand about different genres of literature, especially ancient literature, how different people in different times used such writings, looking at the forms of the biblical texts and comparing them to the forms of other texts (biblical and elsewhere) etc. And yes, that's (a) an imperfect process and (b) requires some work - but its the kind of thing we have to do with any text. When you open the newspaper you don't read the letters page, the sports report, the editorial opinion, the front page news and cartoon in the same way - you respect the genre of each. There's no workable shortcut to that - however much people might wish there to be one.

So by that do you mean that different 'acts' deal with different messages?

I mean appropriate, even necessary, behaviour in one part of the story may be very different to another part of the story. Scripture is not a collection of timeless statements and commands, it's an ongoing story. A story in 5 acts:
Act1: God creates a very good creation with humanity as it's pinacle (Gen 1 &2)
Act2: Humanity surcomes to idolatory and it all starts to go horribly wrong (Gen 3-11 roughly)
Act3: God calls Abraham and his descendents (Israel), through whom he will work towards the redemption of humanity (the rest of the OT)
Act4: Jesus comes as the climax of the story and the fulfilment of God's work through Israel, anticipating the Kingdom and defeating sin and death. (The gospels)
Act5: The church contines the story by spreading the gospel and living in anticipation of the kingdom (Acts of the Apostles and the epistles)

And we are given hints of the final scene in Revelations 21-22, bits of Isaiah, 1 Cor 15, etc.

Our job is to improvise our little bit of Act 5. Not trying to live as though we were in Act 3 by living under laws designed for that part of the story, but still living in continuity with that story. Taking the story onwards in way that is in-character, not trying to repeat a earlier part.

 

[Willtor]

I'm replying to your entire post Willtor even if I haven't quoted it all - I just want to not have stupidly long posts that don't say much new stuff. If I've missed or accidently ignored anything, please tell me.

No worries!

How did you decide how it was intended to be read?

I am much in line with Ebia, here, in that deciding how it was intended is an ongoing process that uses literary research among other things. I will expand a little and say that it is nice that there are a number of near-contemporary commentators for the New Testament. Though, even in the patristic literature ("Church Fathers" -- people like Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, etc.) authors have cultural assumptions that are not necessarily consistent with earlier cultural realities.

I mention the patristics because they have had a significant influence on how I read the Bible. But, really, there are a lot of tools in the toolbox and they all have their methods.

So the Bible was written for the culture and society at the time? Would I be write in assuming that you believe the Bible was written by men? If so, would you view the whole Bible as being 'God inspired', or part of it, or none of it?

Yes, this is definitely a both-and for the whole thing. It really is a human work, and the fingerprints are all over it. But it was written by people who had divine inspiration to the end of writing it. It is God's chosen vessel by which He communicates His message.

Broaden the topic however you like, I'm just bouncing my questions off of whatever you write. If you could explain that further, I'd appreciate it.

Re-reading what I've written in this post, thus far, it looks like I'm heading in that direction, anyway.

 

[SithDoughnut]

I think you missed my question. One can only describe something in terms of something else, so what would you like me to describe God in terms of? (E.g. "God is creator of everything" describes God in terms of his creation).

That's why the most appropriate description of God is simply the one he gave "I am what I am". Any other description is trying to describe him in terms of something far lesser than he is.

I get it now. In that case, you answered the question with your first post - I thought that you'd just shortened it down but had a longer answer that you hadn't put down. Or at least that's how I read it.