The Four Assumptions

StormyOne · Jul 8, 2010

In his book "How to read the Bible," James Kugel states that ancient interpreters of the bible shared the same set of expectations about the biblical text. He states that even today we read the bible assuming basically the same 4 things and that those assumptions lead to faulty interpretations......

The four assumptions are:
It was assumed that the bible is fundamentally cryptic, that when it says A, it might often mean B...
It was assumed that the bible is a book of lessons directed to readers in their own time. The bible might talk about the past, but it is not fundamentally history.
It was assumed that the bible contains no contradictions or mistakes, that it is perfectly harmonious...
It was assumed that the entire bible is essentially a divinely given text, a book in which God speaks directly or through his prophets...

Kugel goes on to suggest that once biblical interpretation started along the path of these four assumptions it developed a logic, and a momentum of its own. He states that these assumptions color the way people read the bible.....

Kugel also states this
who decided what the bible should consist of? Not Moses, not Isaiah, not anyone we know by name in fact. The very idea of a bible, along with its present table of contents, is essentially an editorial decision......

here is a link to the book online (well most of the book), and you can get a feel for what he is talking about. The four assumptions are explained around page 16, but reading the info before would be helpful....

http://books.google.com/books?id=ms...q=kugel online how to read the bible&f=false

Kugel states:

Many modern day Jews and Christians continue to look to the bible as a guidebook for daily life (assumption 2), they do not read it as if it were just a relic from the ancient past...... Without saying so, quite a few readers also generally assume that the bible has some sort of coherent message to communicate and that it does not contradict itself or make mistakes (assumption 3).......

thoughts?

StormyOne · Jul 8, 2010

Kugel writes:

NT writers did more than just quote OT writers. They reinterpreted them, retranslated them, and entirely reapplied them to fit their new message and contemporary context. No, that doesn't mean the resultant product is "less meaningful" or "less inspired" but it does mean that writer A didn't necessarily foresee writer B's reapplication and probably didn't: "God's word for this time" derives as much meaning/sense from its relation to "this time" as from its relation to "God." Hence Daniel's sealing the book he didn't understand.

Perhaps most striking of all for the modern scholars was the whole matter of the sabbath. The sabbath they noted was a subject dear to priests. True it is mentioned outside of priestly texts as well, but in priestly writings the proper observance of the sabbath is stressed in a way not found elsewhere. When they considered Genesis 1 carefully, they concluded that the sabbath and not the creation per was was its true subject. This whole account of how the world was made, they said, had been set forth in this six day scheme so as to stress the importance of the seventh day sabbath. From the very beginning of the world this priestly author was saying the sabbath has existed, indeed, God arranged creation into six "days" so as to be able to rest on the seventh day, and so should you. That rather than a simple recitation of the facts of creation seemed to modern scholars to be the whole point of chapter

Byfaithalone1 · Jul 8, 2010

StormyOne said:
In his book "How to read the Bible," James Kugel states that ancient interpreters of the bible shared the same set of expectations about the biblical text. He states that even today we read the bible assuming basically the same 4 things and that those assumptions lead to faulty interpretations......

The four assumptions are:
It was assumed that the bible is fundamentally cryptic, that when it says A, it might often mean B...
It was assumed that the bible is a book of lessons directed to readers in their own time. The bible might talk about the past, but it is not fundamentally history.
It was assumed that the bible contains no contradictions or mistakes, that it is perfectly harmonious...
It was assumed that the entire bible is essentially a divinely given text, a book in which God speaks directly or through his prophets...

Kugel goes on to suggest that once biblical interpretation started along the path of these four assumptions it developed a logic, and a momentum of its own. He states that these assumptions color the way people read the bible.....

Kugel also states this
who decided what the bible should consist of? Not Moses, not Isaiah, not anyone we know by name in fact. The very idea of a bible, along with its present table of contents, is essentially an editorial decision......

here is a link to the book online (well most of the book), and you can get a feel for what he is talking about. The four assumptions are explained around page 16, but reading the info before would be helpful....

How to Read the Bible: A Guide to ... - Google Books

Kugel states:

Many modern day Jews and Christians continue to look to the bible as a guidebook for daily life (assumption 2), they do not read it as if it were just a relic from the ancient past...... Without saying so, quite a few readers also generally assume that the bible has some sort of coherent message to communicate and that it does not contradict itself or make mistakes (assumption 3).......

thoughts?

Have you found compelling evidence that the 4 assumptions are false?

BFA

StormyOne · Jul 8, 2010

Byfaithalone1 said:
Have you found compelling evidence that the 4 assumptions are false?

BFA

nope... I have found that most people who read the bible come with those four assumptions firmly entrenched....

AzA · Jul 8, 2010

James Kugel said:
NT writers did more than just quote OT writers. They reinterpreted them, retranslated them, and entirely reapplied them to fit their new message and contemporary context. No, that doesn't mean the resultant product is "less meaningful" or "less inspired" but it does mean that writer A didn't necessarily foresee writer B's reapplication and probably didn't: "God's word for this time" derives as much meaning/sense from its relation to "this time" as from its relation to "God."

This is an important point. I was talking with a professional memoirist this morning (a specific kind of non-fiction writer who deals with memoirs and biographies). It was interesting to hear him explain ways in which a "careful" writer must reconstruct his/her story from facts recalled, interpolating content where there are gaps, and re-imagining the coherence of the original experience. It is an incredibly creative process -- and, I think, both a beautiful and a sacred one. This is true when I'm reconstructing a conversation from earlier, and truer still when I'm reconstructing one from more than 1,500 years before my time (cf. Genesis 2-4 as attributed to Moses).

As a writer, I find it sort of tears at me when I see memoirs being treated like lab notes. There is a very significant genre distinction to be made between these kinds of writing.

The other issue I wanted to comment on from the Kugel quote is the idea that early church writers like Paul and Peter reinterpreted ancient Hebrew writers like Asaph and the prophets in ways that were not necessarily foreseen by those original writers or their scribes or prophetic contemporaries.

Re-purposing texts is one of the most basic features of Jewish religious discourse and instruction. If you have ever read from the Mishnah or any other rabbinical text like The Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, you will have some sense of the multiple interpretations and meanings drawn and in some cases wrung out of the Hebrew scriptures. These interpretations aren't pitted against each other to duke it out and "let the best interpretation win" as they would be in a Western classroom. Instead they are layered on top of and alongside each other such that the object of study is to be immersed in the sense of the elders and to make meaning today with and through them, and with thanks for their contributions.

This is, as I say, an entirely different objective than we have come to have in mainstream Christianity.

StormyOne · Jul 8, 2010

thanks AzA exactly... that was what jumped out at me as I was reading Kugel's book and how that if we could immerse ourselves into the mindset of that time and that culture we would not be making some of the statements we do about the bible.... that's what I think....

k4c · Jul 9, 2010

It amazes me how God can love sinful man.

StormyOne · Jul 9, 2010

k4c said:
It amazes me how God can love sinful man.

It shouldn't amaze you at all.... Let me be honest, your view is one I really don't understand.... Most parents love their children... even when those children have soiled diapers. Loving parents pick up that child and change the diaper... this belief that God finds it hard to love what he has created has to be self-hatred, that's the only thing I can attribute it to....

k4c · Jul 9, 2010

StormyOne said:
It shouldn't amaze you at all.... Let me be honest, your view is one I really don't understand.... Most parents love their children... even when those children have soiled diapers. Loving parents pick up that child and change the diaper... this belief that God finds it hard to love what he has created has to be self-hatred, that's the only thing I can attribute it to....

God's love is not perverted....

Just because God is creator of angels and mankind does not mean we are all His children.

Some are the children of the devil...

John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Believe it or not, God does hate.

Hoesa 9:15 "All their evil is at Gilgal; indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels."

Psalm 5:5 "The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity."

Psalm 11:5 "The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates."."

StormyOne · Jul 9, 2010

k4c said:
God's love is not perverted....

Just because God is creator of angels and mankind does not mean we are all His children.

Some are the children of the devil...

John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Believe it or not, God does hate.

Hoesa 9:15 "All their evil is at Gilgal; indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels."

Psalm 5:5 "The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity."

Psalm 11:5 "The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates."."

wrong.... everything that God has created belongs to him.... last I checked the devil has created nothing.... thus even the devil belongs to God... I know its hard for some to wrap their brain around that simple truth, but EVERYTHING God created belongs to him... we are ALL his children.... It is unfortunate that too many share your view k4c and promote the idea that some of us do not belong to God.... what makes it worse is the texts you sling to justify your view.... let's take your view to its logical conclusion.... since not everyone is a child of God that means those who are not I can treat them any way I wish because they aren't God's child...hmmm and that is exactly what you see christians "in the name of the lord' doing... scary....

As for God hating.... maybe the God you perceive does.... the God I believe in does not...

Byfaithalone1 · Jul 9, 2010

StormyOne said:
nope... I have found that most people who read the bible come with those four assumptions firmly entrenched....

Is that a bad thing?

BFA

Byfaithalone1 · Jul 9, 2010

StormyOne said:
It shouldn't amaze you at all.... Let me be honest, your view is one I really don't understand.... Most parents love their children... even when those children have soiled diapers. Loving parents pick up that child and change the diaper... this belief that God finds it hard to love what he has created has to be self-hatred, that's the only thing I can attribute it to....

I agree.

BFA

StormyOne · Jul 9, 2010

Byfaithalone1 said:
Is that a bad thing?

BFA

It all depends.....

Byfaithalone1 · Jul 9, 2010

StormyOne said:
It all depends.....

I suppose we all show up with assumptions.

StormyOne · Jul 9, 2010

Byfaithalone1 said:
I suppose we all show up with assumptions.

of course... however the assumptions will dictate how we view something... Kugel suggests that people who approach the bible with the 4 assumptions use them as a basis to say that the bible is... "the word of God."

Laodicean · Jul 9, 2010

StormyOne said:
of course... however the assumptions will dictate how we view something... Kugel suggests that people who approach the bible with the 4 assumptions use them as a basis to say that the bible is... "the word of God."

Does this mean that I don't hold those 4 assumptions, then, since I don't think that the Bible is "the word of God" in the sense that God wrote every word with His finger?

Since I hold that the Bible is the word about God, and I will add to that, that I also think it is the word from God, expressed in human terms, does that eliminate me from Kugel's stereotype? Just wondering.

StormyOne · Jul 9, 2010

Laodicean said:
Does this mean that I don't hold those 4 assumptions, then, since I don't think that the Bible is "the word of God" in the sense that God wrote every word with His finger?

Since I hold that the Bible is the word about God, and I will add to that, that I also think it is the word from God, expressed in human terms, does that eliminate me from Kugel's stereotype? Just wondering.

You've read what the 4 assumptions are, do you think you approach reading the bible with them? Of course its possible that you are in a gray area.... which isn't a bad thing...

Laodicean · Jul 9, 2010

StormyOne said:
You've read what the 4 assumptions are, do you think you approach reading the bible with them? Of course its possible that you are in a gray area.... which isn't a bad thing...

I do not approach the Bible with the first three assumptions. I do hold the fourth assumption, however.

StormyOne · Jul 9, 2010

Laodicean said:
I do not approach the Bible with the first three assumptions. I do hold the fourth assumption, however.

alrighty then....

Martinius · Jul 9, 2010

If I may jump in, having just seen this thread...

Today, I would not hold the first assumption, as I don't think the bible overall is that cryptic, considering how, when and where it was written. I would consider Shakespeare to be more cryptic, in general.

I somewhat agree with the second assumption, although there are so many varied writings in the Bible and some are not "lessons". But the intent of much of it is to teach, admonish, or encourage.

I cannot agree with the third, as there are way too many contradictions and outright errors in our current versions of the texts. We know from examination of discovered scrolls and manuscripts that there are thousands of variations between them. Most are not critical to our understanding, but they still exist.

I am also not certain about the divine origins of every book and word in the Bible. Much of it is inspired by God, but a lot of it reflects impressions and ideas about God and faith from the time the particular book was written.

Kugel is quoted as saying:

NT writers did more than just quote OT writers. They reinterpreted them, retranslated them, and entirely reapplied them to fit their new message and contemporary context.

This can be seen in the variations between what NT writers quote and the actual texts from the OT. I don't recall the exact chapter and verse, but in one of the Gospels there is a reference to an OT prophet that cannot be connected to that prophet, but seems to be derived from a different writing.

But let's consider why that might be. In those times, where did the disciples and authors of the NT get their OT scripture from? They didn't carry complete scriptures around with them, but heard it proclaimed in the synagogues. It was read to them, quoted orally, and remembered. So in quoting from scripture, it would not be surprising that the wording was not quite the same as the original or that it was perhaps paraphrased. They were not copying, they were recalling a recitation from memory.

The Four Assumptions

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