Jennifer Fagan
Ms. Weis - Course Facilitator
RE102 Old Testament Literature
Israelite 's Words change over time, making it difficult to understand because the original meanings don 't change, but people 's understanding can be changed as cultures change. There is only one correct way to interpret the Bible, however, there are many incorrect ways and much arguing over who is more correct. Most of this has to do with Satanists who go incognito as Christians in order to mislead man away from God. Many sincere people fall prey to these Satanists incognito, and through the sincerity of their belief, persuade others that their misunderstanding is the correct way. Do not trust a person 's sincerity. Read the Bible and pray to God for understanding and read the Bible again. It helps to understand each verse in the proper context. Understand who is being addressed. Understand the culture of the time so that you can better understand the parables. Look at several different translations in parallel. Many anti-theists point to Genesis to try to discredit the whole Bible. What they dishonestly don 't mention is that Genesis is a book with a unique history. It was passed down by word of mouth for many generations before writing was invented and it was written down. When it was written, different versions were written by different people and those versions were later merged.
The Bible was originally written in Hebrew by a series of many authors around the time of 1450-1410 BC (Holy Bible, Scofield). Moses who wrote Genesis, supposedly received direct information from God himself about how the world and man were created. This is the first point of interpretation because there is a need to have blind faith in Moses. There are many stories in Genesis that seem absurd and hard to believe really happened, unless you are someone who believes in the power of God and has this blind faith. For example, God gives Adam and Eve a garden and says not to take the fruit from one tree and when they eat the fruit from that tree, God punishes them, “Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (1:17, Gen). From a figurative standpoint we can
As Scott Duvall and Daniel Hays state in Grasping God’s Word, every copy of the Bible today is a translation, “unless everyone wants to learn Hebrew and Greek (the Bible’s original languages)… (Duvall and Hays 23). This being the case, people may debate which translation is more accurate; however, the best way to understand the Bible is by reading several different translations and comparing them to one another. The main reason several translations helps people grasp the full meaning of Scripture is because some translations are word for word, which is the formal approach in translation and gives a reader the closest possible words from when the text was written. On the other hand, the more functional approach in translation is thought for
scholarship. I feel that chapter four is more important than chapter three because the topic is
The word “Christian” in Colorado Christian University is more than just a belief shared amongst the Faculty and Student Body. It is the foundation on which all aspects of the educational experience are built. Beginning with a strong Statement of Faith, which aligns with core beliefs of the National Association of Evangelicals, the University proclaims its belief “in the Bible as being the only authoritative Word of God, that God exists in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as belief in the salvation and resurrection that is only found in Christ Jesus” (Statement of Faith at Colorado Christian University, n.d.).
Biblical wisdom emphasis is another approach in which one can investigate to see what reigns to be important. Like the wisdom approach, biblical share in the importance of seeking wise counsel. Horton (2009) states that in the biblical approach several areas are important in determining spiritual discernment. These areas consist of decision being determined by the guidelines in the Bible, common sense, individual gifts, God has a plan but do not reveal it, sovereignty of God, and free to make choices (Horton, 2009). One may object to the fact that God would want us to do something but do not give us the tools or clues to do it. God being sovereign is an area that many can agree on. Gill, (2006) states that it is through the sovereignty of God which is presented through the Holy Spirit that allows for us to understand God’s will for our life. Gill (2006) also implement the wheel of life for the coaching process whereas God is at the center. I highly believe that nothing happens without God ordaining it to happen. God is in control of all things. Roman 8:28 states that God works all things together for those who love him and who are called according to his purpose (NIV). Therefore God is in control and guiding us towards his plan or purpose for our lives.
The bible is an old book written a long time ago for an ancient audience. God is the divine author of the bible and he intended for us to be able to read and understand it, even in these current times. However, those ancient years in the time of the roman empire was were Christianity, as we know it, began its first steps. For this to happen, the authors who were inspired, had to make sure that their audience could understand and relate with their words. While we have learned to translate the language of the bible over the years the words and meanings are still the same. Which is why it is important to understand the context in which the Bible was written.
I am assuming you were already a member of the church, but not a part of the Senior's Bible Study. You used wisdom to evaluate the senior's class and sought out the missing pieces of the learning puzzle. It was great that God led you to use illustration materials for the seniors because everyone learns in a different manner.
First: to suggest that the Bible is true is to advocate that what it means is true; moreover, what it means is fashioned by the genres in which the Bible is spoken, the outlooks and its disposition it takes regarding history and the techniques by which cultural contexts were shaped and the meanings of the words that it uses.
Bible as the Inspired Word of God The Bible is the work of various authors, who lived in different continents and wrote in different eras. Furthermore, much of the text does not claim to have been 'dictated' by God and is not always God speaking to people. In parts it consists of people speaking to God, as in the Psalms, and people speaking to people, as in the New Testament letters written by Paul. In light of this, some maintain that it is not possible to treat the Bible as a book of divine oracles, delivered once by God and recorded by its authors through divine inspiration, since biblical authors were products of their time and subsequently their understanding of divine truth was culturally
“Everything good in life will be hard” that is what my mother always told me and that truth is what According to plan: the unfolding revelation of God in the Bible, by Graeme Goldsworthy, reveals. Reading the Bible in context is hard work and requires diligence. However, it is only when we have a proper understanding of what the Bible is saying, that we have a proper understanding of the Triune God. Graeme suggested, “that any Christian who wants to understand the reason for the differences, {within the bible} and who wants to develop a sound method of approaching the text of the bible in order to find out what it really says and means, needs an understanding of biblical theology.” Graeme defines Biblical theology as a means “of looking at
The Bible was written almost two thousand years ago, so the authors had no way to know how it would be interpreted in the future. I think they believed we would see it the same way they did, but views change over time. A lot of messages which may have been common in the past are irrelevant now, so we have to take another approach to what we read in the bible. By putting passages from the bible into context, you can interpret what they really mean, instead of having to see it word for word. The Bible is the inspired word of God, so the content is not always easy to understand. By taking a contextualist approach to understanding the Bible, you can understand some of the complex stories that otherwise wouldn’t have made sense if you took a literalist
Genesis 1-3 offered the very first outline of societal norms and therein introduced interpretations of norms related to family, gender, and sex. In our now-progressive society, the constraints of indubitable religion are removed and the differing interpretations of gender, sex, and family within religion are freely debated. Since the text of creation is divine and human logic cannot fully interpret or understand God’s word, there are copious, varying interpretations of the text. An essential starting point for interpreting the Bible is the understanding that misinterpretations are bound to happen. The difference in time and context alone is causation, let alone the factors of translation and transcription. Susan T. Foh and Carol Meyers, both graduates of Wellesley College, have very differing strategies regarding how to interpret divine texts. Meyers, a professor at Duke, directed attention towards the context in which the text was written. Since our societies are constantly in flux, the context from when the text was written is often different from the context in which predominant and accepted interpretations were fabricated. Foh’s strategy of interpreting and understanding the text is to utilize latter parts of the text, which were written with more recent contexts, in order to understand the text. Both of these methodologies set up the text to be re-interpreted, however, Foh’s methodology is more complete because it allows the text to speak for itself rather than bring in
Responding to such a question as the one stated on responding to a friend who asks you why you believe in the Bible, and asks "Isn't it a book just like any other piece of literature?" would be a difficult question, but let alone a very plausible question to be asked to a Christian in a one's lifetime. I have personally been asked this question before on multiple occasions, and there are many responses I have given as according to being sensitive to the circumstances upon which the question was asked. I believe in the Bible as being the authoritative word of God, and the divinely inspired, and breathed out word of God (2 Timothy 3:16). To use a response that would allow this message to portray itself accurately, I would likely use 3 main
To speak of the Hebrew Scripture is to speak of story, a story stretching from the very beginning of time to only a few centuries before the beginning of the Common Era. It is to speak of richness of content, of purpose and of reality and to engross oneself in an overarching narrative that, depending on your personal convictions, continues to the present day. Within this richness is found a wide variety of different events and experience, told through a series of genre ranging from foundational myth to apocalypse, law giving to poetry, genealogy to wisdom and many more. Within this diversity however, three broad sections can be discerned that speak to a shared purpose and content, these are the sections of Law, Prophecy and Writings. It
In its most basic definition, biblical hermeneutics refers to the art and science of biblical interpretation. It is considered an art because understanding, which is required for interpretation, requires a feel for the subject matter being interpreted, not just an analyzation of data. Biblical hermeneutics is also considered a science due to the fact that some aspects of the interpretation process resemble the activities of natural science. Because of this dual nature of hermeneutics, it is almost impossible for an interpreter to arrive at a neutral conclusion. Good or bad, most biblical interpreters translate scripture based upon