okokokok So I have no real skills that the internet/ESPORTS/SC2 need and I feel really worthless in this community sometimes.
BUT I do have education and training in an area that a lot of people do not and in an area that is often misunderstood: biblical exegesis. This guide isn't meant as a conversion piece, it's simply me kicking some information out there that I know and others may find handy at times.
Ever hear someone quote the Bible and your just like "what in the honest fuck"? Yeah, me too. It drives me nuts. So here we go with my guide and I hope you read it: at least as an educational piece :D
Biblical interpretation is widly regarded as both an art and a science. it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation. It is an art because it requires flexibility, at times inprecision, and (admittedly) creativity. Exegetes of the Old and New Testament must be able to piece together all available information to best discover the meaning of the text to both the ancient reader and to the modern 21st century reader.
It is a science, however, because there is usually one right answer. The most annoying thing someonme can say to a biblical scholar is, "Here is what the text means to me..." This is actually really annoying. Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example. Situations are specific and instructions are given to these specific situations. As you'll see, context is everything. Reading about how we should "rejoice in suffering" doesn't mean that we should deal with going to church when we don't want to, or seeing people we don't want to. It means something far different.
I deliberated for a bit on how to best start this guide. I debated between starting with genres, major themes, historical criticism, everything. But I decided on context. Why? Because it must be understood that context is literally everything when interpreting any piece of prose, especially ancient documents.
The analogy I like to use when talking to other bible students is this: when you read the paper and hear that "Alistair Overeem kicked that shit out of Brock Lesnar" there could be several scenarios. 1. Overeem is a criminal and attacked Brock Lesnar and beat him up. 2. Brock Lesnar tried to start stuff with Overeem and Overeem fought back. 3. The two were participating in a sporting contest known as mixed martial arts and Overeem bested Lesnar in the contest.
Quite apparently, context is everything in this news story. The exact same goes for biblical interpretation. You can quote anything out of the bible and make any claim you want to. I could quote, for instance, 1 timothy 2:11-15
"11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."
One could read this and say "Wow, Paul was a misyogenist." And that is a highly inaccurate statement. Paul was simply acting within his historical context.
There are various types of context.
There is historical context. Historical context deals with understanding the culture/historical events going on at the time. The type of world the people lived in. For instance, in our 1 Timothy 2:11-15 example, Paul's culture taught that women were subordinate to men. Paul was attempting to act within the culture of his people in order to most effectively minister to them. Social reform could take place after they had accepted the news he had to bring and the standards that the message brought.
There is grammatical context. This one makes sense enough. What is the relationship between the nouns, verbs, and adjectives? This is best seen in the Greek New Testament as all grammatical relationships are best seen in the original language.
There is also literary context. What genre is the text? I will discuss various genres in another section, but the type of genre that a piece of writing is heavily influences how it should be interpreted.
There are several types of genres in the Bible and I will focus on the main ones found in the New Testament.
Narrative: the most basic type of genre. These pieces of literature were simply stories. Think of the life of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and the acts of the Disciples (Acts). These are basic narratives that cover a specific story (life, death, ressurection, subsequent ministries). You can read this just like you would a story. No hidden meanings, just a recounting of the events as they occured.
Epistle: Epistles are letters. The epistles in the new testament were either written to individuals (1/2 Timothy), churches (Philippians), or wide groups of people (Hebrews, 1/2 peter, etc.). You can typically tell who the letter is to by the introduction; the introduction is usually the first one or two verses of the book. These letters were often written to address specific circumstances. The ancient reader would have understood the contents of the letter writer exactly. The modern reader, however, must do a bit of interpreting. How can the situations the ancient writers were addressing be paralled in my daily life? Where can I insert society, myself, or others into this situation. Once the comparisons are made, applications can be made. If Paul instructed a group of people to do something that found themselves in a similar circumstance that I find myself in, I can apply the information to my own life.
Prophetical literature: Ahh, good old revelation. The topic of many history channel episodes. This is, obviously, the hardest to interpret. The best way to look at this genre of literature isn't "what does it mean for the end of the world". I like to look at it in it's historical context (see, I told you context would be important). What message was the author trying to convey to the original readers? Be constantly prepared for the end? Don't give in to the authorities around you concerning your faith? I realize this is a mega-vague overview of prophetical literature, but i want to give a survey of some various genres and I could write all day on prophetical literature.
So what is the actual method for interpreting various scripture? Here it is, in as close to step-by-step instructions as I can give.
1. Select the text you want to study. Typically a 6-8 block of verses is appropriate. How do you choose this? Well, pick whatever you want. Have a friend that constantly throws bible at you? Look up some of the stuff he says and pick a couple of those verses.
2. Read the entire book in which your verses are located. Did you pick 1 timothy 2:11-15? Read all of 1 Timothy! Remember, context is key.
3. Construct an outline of the entire book you are studying. This helps you be able to review the book at a glance. What are the major themes and then sub-themes in the book?
4. Construct a verse-by-verse outline of the verses you are studying. This helps you see the flow of the passage you are about to exegete.
5. Identify the genre of your book and verse. Most basically, is your verse contained in a letter or a narrative? Secondly, what is the specific purpose of your verses (to instruct, congratulate, or otherwise)? (Note: this step may require sources mentioned in step 6).
6. Consult several biblical commentaries(. These range from secular to ecclesiastical in nature. Consult several and read the parts that deal with the authorship, place of writing, and time of writing. After consulting several commentaries, draw your own conclusion about the who, where, and when based on the evidence you have seen.
7. Consult the biblical commentaries again* and see what they have to say about your verses. Often, these commentaries are broken down by chapter/verse so just look up what they have to say. What do all of the commentaries tell you about the intricasies of your passage? Anything you wouldn't have guessed because of historical/grammatical information you couldn't have gotten after a simple read through? After consulting several commentaries, follow the same procedure in step 6: draw your own conclusions on what the passage means after digesting all the information.
8. Compile all the infromation you've learned. this way, you have a record of your research.
9. ???
10. Profit
*For a list of bible commentary series that I recommend, see "Bible Commentaries" section below.
Exegesis: The art/science of biblical interpretation. "THis is a quick survey of biblcal exegesis" exegete (noun): one who practices exegesis. "I am an exegete" exegete (verb): The practice of interpreting a text. "I am currently exegeting 1 timothy 2:11-15"
I've done a fair amount of reading, incluiding the totality of the NIV version of the bible, Greek New Testament, and several commentaries (think hundreds). here are some amazon links to sources I've read that you may find interesting):
I recommend the following series if you ever go to your library for various books. Yes, they're all published by ecclesiastical organizations, but the authors themselves may/may not be religious.
*Sacra Pagina Series *New Beacon Bible Commentary *The NIV Application Commentary *The NIV Study Bible
When you get to your library to do some research, simply search for "[Book name] [[Commentary Series name]]" or even just "[Book name]" to get a wider range of commentaries.
I'm not trying to convert anyone. Yes, I'm a theist. I'm totally open for discussion of the validity of the texts, random theology, or anything. I like discourse. Love it, actually. Hit me up via PM. All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
This was meant to be a quick introduction, and siomply my giving to the community. I realized I left a lot out but I just wanted to throw something out there and maybe edit it and make additions as I have time. I hope you all at least enjkoy the read as I enjoyed the write
To my university that bestowed this knowledge and methodology to me, I wish to give thanks. I did not craft this system from my head, but was taught it by those better and smarter than me. This is my mark of "citing my sources" as it were. I won't post university name for privacy reasons (small school, you'll understand), but do know that this work is simply my reiteration and (slight) modification of the teachings I have received, readings I've read, and thoughts I've thought.
what other holy books have you read ._.? cuz i've seen too much focus on christianity + branches and it became somewhat mundane, no one here actually thoroughly studied Hinduism, taoist, Buddhism, or maybe shinto?
This is quite good and helpful/informative. The problem with most cliche' references to biblical text (Leviticus is a fun one, Revalation too, and just about anything that sounds remotely out of place in our world) is that the reference is often so weak it's prettymuch worthless. I'm too tired to find a good one, but there are many good provebs about fools in the company of fools, and what a dissaster that is. One side sticking litterally to the text without trying to understand it, the other rejecting it withouth any actual critical engagement because it's not of this age and culture; where ya gonna get with that, greater depths of insight and knowledge? Nope.
TL;DR Whenever someone (of either stance) says to you "well the Bible says [blah]" their statement is quite likely to cause more harm than good if they haven't followed the steps outlined above, because chances are they haven't really dug into it and searched throughly enough. Minimum check? It's worth a lot less if they can't cite book/chapter/verse.
On January 07 2012 15:55 vitruvia wrote: what other holy books have you read ._.? cuz i've seen too much focus on christianity + branches and it became somewhat mundane, no one here actually thoroughly studied Hinduism, taoist, Buddhism, or maybe shinto?
To be honest, I've only given a main study on the Bible. However, I've done some reading of the Koran and read a little bit about the Islamic faith. I'm attending a conference in March about world religions and hopefully I get a spark of interest in other religions. If I had to be something else (a question I'm commonly asked) I'd probably be an existential atheist. Not shit is going on, but damn it I'm gonna make the best of it (assuming my understanding of this position is correct ^^)
imjorman I dunno if you're crafting a response, but I wanna sleep so I'll clear the plate.
vitruvia, it's innately less likely because this is mainly a .... Judaeo-Christian culture, but that's obvious. The next simple retort is "well we don't need to, what's there to gain from the surface of many books, when we can really get to grips with the true one". It's not just about how many different 'faith systems' you've looked into Sadly I couldn't give you any good analogies or insights about the religions you metion, although my Dad could; he grew up in Japan, it figures. Yet as far as my limited mind is concerned, the techniques imjorman outlines are essential to anything more than the most basic of any (holy) texts. I do hope there's at least this foundation of systematic study approach in other faiths, ye really need it. And, well, if there isin't , what does that say about faiths that do have it.....
On January 07 2012 15:56 cydial wrote: Explain people who consider the context of the bible yet still have very different interpretations of it?
I reject all religious claims of God as I see them all as nothing more than interesting stories.
Personally I find more sound morality in Harry Potter than I do in the bible, but I am interested to hear what you have to say about this.
If interpretations differ WILDLY, I'd have to say that research/consideration of context wasn't done. I'd like to see an example so I could discuss this more specifically, but as I said above, typically, there is one correct interpretation. I mean think of any other ancient text, Plato/Aristotle/Pythagoras/etc. people debate what they really meant in some instances. it doesn't mean they had more than one message, people just lost the message through the generations.
To the Harry Potter comment, I tend to see morality in H.P. as well. More than the bible? I'd disagree, but H.P. is a pretty good piece of literature in terms of morality. The life of Jesus is pretty moral right? No matter how much modern Christians tend to (IMO) mess up and misrepresent him, he was a great example of morality. If your referring to a lot of Old Testament stuff, I could see where you arrive at that conclusion. Without discarding the first testament (as many Christians do), a good exegete must see what that text says to us today. The preferred reading of the Pentateuch by a lot of scholars (first five books of bible) and rest of Old Testament is a theological reading:
1. What does the text show us about God? 2. What does the text show us about man? 3. What is the world that is shown in this text? (realities of the world the characters live in) 4. What is the world imagined in the text? (because of the actions of God, what type of world does he want to exist?) 5. What does this text show us about the world we live in? 6. What world could we live in if we adopted to God's plan as outlined in the text?
On January 07 2012 16:00 bITt.mAN wrote: This is quite good and helpful/informative. The problem with most cliche' references to biblical text (Leviticus is a fun one, Revalation too, and just about anything that sounds remotely out of place in our world) is that the reference is often so weak it's prettymuch worthless. I'm too tired to find a good one, but there are many good provebs about fools in the company of fools, and what a dissaster that is. One side sticking litterally to the text without trying to understand it, the other rejecting it withouth any actual critical engagement because it's not of this age and culture; where ya gonna get with that, greater depths of insight and knowledge? Nope.
TL;DR Whenever someone (of either stance) says to you "well the Bible says [blah]" their statement is quite likely to cause more harm than good if they haven't followed the steps outlined above, because chances are they haven't really dug into it and searched throughly enough. Minimum check? It's worth a lot less if they can't cite book/chapter/verse.
On January 07 2012 16:06 bITt.mAN wrote: imjorman I dunno if you're crafting a response, but I wanna sleep so I'll clear the plate.
vitruvia, it's innately less likely because this is mainly a .... Judaeo-Christian culture, but that's obvious. The next simple retort is "well we don't need to, what's there to gain from the surface of many books, when we can really get to grips with the true one". It's not just about how many different 'faith systems' you've looked into Sadly I couldn't give you any good analogies or insights about the religions you metion, although my Dad could; he grew up in Japan, it figures. Yet as far as my limited mind is concerned, the techniques imjorman outlines are essential to anything more than the most basic of any (holy) texts. I do hope there's at least this foundation of systematic study approach in other faiths, ye really need it. And, well, if there isin't , what does that say about faiths that do have it.....
It took me a minute to understand your post, so if I misread (or misinterpret, see what I did there ) I apologize.
I would like to think that all religions have their scholars that are dedicated to proper interpretation of the literature. Luckily for Christians, we can team up with Jewish scholars for half of our scriptures. Other religions, I'm sure to prevent perversion and heretical teachings or whatever, have scholars of their own.
I'm sure this method is easily applicable to any study of any ancient documents.
cydial, I apologize as I'm unprepared for an adequate answer to your question. It's a question of how much it's on your heart. I know for me, someone giving me a one-off answer would not have left me satisfied before I became a Christian, I was nagged by it, and the only real way to find out is to search out the answer. Pick up a book on "apologetics" if you actually care for an answer with any satisfaction to it. Hell, I've got a drawer full of 'em but I haven't read a single one myself :E I guess I could reccomend "grill a Christian" or "The Reason for God" ,,,,,
Regardless, the truth about the God I follow is revealed far more through people's lives and testimonies rather than having questions "done, solved" intellectually. Again, if you're looking for answers more than tit for tat on an internet fourm (and please allow me to say, they're just about the most important questions you're ever gonna have to decide on an answer for) seek it out, and whatever you find you'll grow intellectually, and as a person.
Lastly it'd be nice if the world were like Harry Potter, where the bad guys are bad and the good guys are pretty damn clear goodie goodies. Now here's something: you wanna know which characters I feel suck? Ginny (lol that's about it really). And the ones that are great? Sirius Black, Snape. You see, THANKFULLY the world and people aren't as dumbly cut as Ginny: Sirius is an accused murderer but he turnes out to be the closet thing Harry has to a father, Snape's all mean from day 1, even murders Dumbledore (were spoiler alerts necessairy?), but then turns out to have been acting the whole time in some wierd love-hate relationship.
Life is more complicated than Harry Potter, the most engaging and real characters are the ones that aren't perfectly clear cut, with only one interpretation. They're the ones closest to real people
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
The prophetic literature are probably more interesting genre in the bible. Although it's probably the hardest to read out of all genre, since often time you're going "what the heck is this author talking about?", the nature of the literature makes it fun. In fact, I heard something like 26% of the bible is about prophecies, yet I feel so little of it is being read or studied by Christians.
Your argument about historical context is unconvincing, to put it mildly (especially given the typical Christian hatred of anything resembling 'moral relativism'). I assume that there aren't any teachings of Jesus which you would say are wrong, but are acceptable when viewed in a historical context, so why does that argument fly for Paul?
. it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation.
I don't want to nitpick, but that's absolutely not the definition of a science, this word world should not be used to legitimize things that do not follow a scientific methods in my opinion. Science does not give the "right" answer, it gives you the answer that is the best at this point to time to explain and predict the result of experiments. I know that it's a simplified definition of science but I think that anything that doesn't verify this criteria at all should not be called a science.
However it doesn't mean that Biblical interpretation is worthless, I simply don't like the fact of using the word science to legitimate it. Having a method and a "know-how" does not make something a science, i assume there is a method for astrology, it doesn't make it a science. In my opinion ( as an atheist) biblical analysis is similar to the kind of analysis that is done for secular (non religious) litterature as well as philosophy, it's faith the adds a deeper meaning to what comes out of this analysis.
I must admit though that the idea that there is one "true" interpretation to the bible really bothers me. How can you explain that you can remove the parts we cannot apply to our world anymore ("historical context"), doesn't it means that the "true" interpretation of the bible changes over time? How can this interpretation be the only "true" one then if it depends on the context of the person doing the interpretation? I'm not going to go further than that, thank you for sharing your work I read it carefully but it did not convince me at all on the validity of the approach. I'd love to discuss with someone with your background but it's not easy on a forum (^^) and unfortunately my english writing skills are not good enough to convey nuances and complex ideas, which is a big problem in this kind of discussion...
edit: i know it looks like i took the quote completly out of context, don't focus too much on it ^^
Very informative post. In your example where Paul writes that women should be submissive to men, he wasn't acting out of overt misogyny, he was merely reflecting the average views of his time and place. I agree.
The problem comes when people don't attribute that writing to Paul, a simple mortal man living in the first century Roman empire, but instead attribute it to divine, perfect omniscience. Then this happens:
On January 07 2012 19:53 Meta wrote: Very informative post. In your example where Paul writes that women should be submissive to men, he wasn't acting out of overt misogyny, he was merely reflecting the average views of his time and place. I agree.
The problem comes when people don't attribute that writing to Paul, a simple mortal man living in the first century Roman empire, but instead attribute it to divine, perfect omniscience. Then this happens:
He has a typical biblisistic view of the bible, (state a thing simply because it is written, and not looking at the context), and I do not support it. And I do not agree on how this man in the clip states a nearly superiority over woman. That I could quote several verses against. However, if you read 1st Corinthans 11:3 & Ephesians 5:22-30. They do cover specific themes (headcovering & marriage), yet Paul states something that is law of nature. And that is something you cannot deny that Paul had a view of men has an authority over women (in the same way Christ has authority over the church, though loves the church)
While writing this, I cannot seem to get out of my mind how nerdy we are quoting stuff on the top of our heads out of a book If you haven't seen this collegehumor vid, you should check it out, really gets a point across http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6583358/why-religious-people-are-nerds
Well done. So you're nt a Christian :O? (You said you were a theist - unless you meant you were a Triune-theist :p)
Only qualm was the 1 Tim bit. To be honest, Paul often cites Creation when he talks about the role of Woman and Men. So it definitely transcends culture / historical context. Knowing the context also helps... but not really in this case. It was simply disorder within church, specifically of women speaking out of turn and causing trouble in the church of Ephesus.
Once again, Well done - could include Dispensationalism and Covenantal theology if you wish, will round it up perfectly.Thanks!
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
Subjective much? Claiming that makes you just another misty-eyed religious guy. Obviously biblical authors did not write about Jesus Christ in the first place. Long before the bible, people passed on moral stories by mouth. Why? Because nobody was able to read. After hundreds of years, those moral stories ( with no religious aspect in them ) were used by biblical authors as a foundation. On this foundation they began writing down those stories, but overlaying religious aspects. All those stories were collected in a book, which people call the bible nowadays. So, if you, as you said, read alot about this topic, would have to know that it's not about Jesus Christ at all. It's all about conveying the morals. the lifestyle and the relations between people, to show them how to life a good and honest life. Well after that the religious fanatics came to the conclusion that they just aswell could exploit people that believed (taxes etc.) and kill the people that did not believe.
So, you see: The bible and it's stories are really old moral stories that got ' raped ' by biblical authors to fit them into their believes. Jesus Christ is just the imaginary collection of all these morals and not the 'main part' of the bible.
e: So I read some more in your post:
Narrative: the most basic type of genre. These pieces of literature were simply stories. Think of the life of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and the acts of the Disciples (Acts). These are basic narratives that cover a specific story (life, death, ressurection, subsequent ministries). You can read this just like you would a story. No hidden meanings, just a recounting of the events as they occured.
This is a joke right? You are really thinking, that Matthew, or anybody else for that matter, just wrote down 'facts' that got conveyed atleast 50 years by mouth before he even heard of them? Of course there are hidden meanings. Do you really believe that everything in the life of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the bible is true? Jesus making the blind guy sighted again? LOL, there are obviously tons of hidden intentions and meanings. Jesus survived 40 days of fasting in the desert? Herod killing thousands of babies because he is afraid of a ' THE GREAT KING OF THE JEWS ' ? lol. Do I need to give more examples?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
What the fuck. Sorry I'm no native english speaker, but do you say, that you assume that everything in the bible is historically accurate and authentical? In other words, do you think, everything in the bible happened in reality like it was written in the bible?
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
hey, please think about what you're saying. why shouldn't you bother interpreting it? wouldn't it even be more interesting and challenging if you consider the possibility that some parts of the bible are inaccurate?
me for example, i have my own method of interpreting the bible. i look at it in the context of all world religions and try to understand the parallels, because i assume that everyone is mostly talking about the same thing.
This is a joke right? You are really thinking, that Matthew, or anybody else for that matter, just wrote down 'facts' that got conveyed atleast 50 years by mouth before he even heard of them? Of course there are hidden meanings. Do you really believe that everything in the life of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the bible is true? Jesus making the blind guy sighted again? LOL, there are obviously tons of hidden intentions and meanings. Jesus survived 40 days of fasting in the desert? Herod killing thousands of babies because he is afraid of a ' THE GREAT KING OF THE JEWS ' ? lol. Do I need to give more examples?
i think the teachings of buddha have actually been conveyed by mouth for several hundred years
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
On January 07 2012 19:53 Meta wrote: Very informative post. In your example where Paul writes that women should be submissive to men, he wasn't acting out of overt misogyny, he was merely reflecting the average views of his time and place. I agree.
The problem comes when people don't attribute that writing to Paul, a simple mortal man living in the first century Roman empire, but instead attribute it to divine, perfect omniscience. Then this happens:
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
Subjective much? Claiming that makes you just another misty-eyed religious guy. Obviously biblical authors did not write about Jesus Christ in the first place. Long before the bible, people passed on moral stories by mouth. Why? Because nobody was able to read. After hundreds of years, those moral stories ( with no religious aspect in them ) were used by biblical authors as a foundation. On this foundation they began writing down those stories, but overlaying religious aspects. All those stories were collected in a book, which people call the bible nowadays. So, if you, as you said, read alot about this topic, would have to know that it's not about Jesus Christ at all. It's all about conveying the morals. the lifestyle and the relations between people, to show them how to life a good and honest life. Well after that the religious fanatics came to the conclusion that they just aswell could exploit people that believed (taxes etc.) and kill the people that did not believe.
So, you see: The bible and it's stories are really old moral stories that got ' raped ' by biblical authors to fit them into their believes. Jesus Christ is just the imaginary collection of all these morals and not the 'main part' of the bible.
Narrative: the most basic type of genre. These pieces of literature were simply stories. Think of the life of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and the acts of the Disciples (Acts). These are basic narratives that cover a specific story (life, death, ressurection, subsequent ministries). You can read this just like you would a story. No hidden meanings, just a recounting of the events as they occured.
This is a joke right? You are really thinking, that Matthew, or anybody else for that matter, just wrote down 'facts' that got conveyed atleast 50 years by mouth before he even heard of them? Of course there are hidden meanings. Do you really believe that everything in the life of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the bible is true? Jesus making the blind guy sighted again? LOL, there are obviously tons of hidden intentions and meanings. Jesus survived 40 days of fasting in the desert? Herod killing thousands of babies because he is afraid of a ' THE GREAT KING OF THE JEWS ' ? lol. Do I need to give more examples?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
What the fuck. Sorry I'm no native english speaker, but do you say, that you assume that everything in the bible is historically accurate and authentical? In other words, do you think, everything in the bible happened in reality like it was written in the bible?
Harsh tone
Let me clarify, maybe this should be added to the OP. When i talk about historical accuracy, I'm referring mostly to the New Testament, for one. Because most theologians that I associate with wouldn't consider the Pentateuch to be historically accurate (read the post about theological interpretation of the old testament).
But let me respond to your post with "New Testament' in mind
Your first paragraph: I'd say your just wrong. I would also be interested in reading your sources. Because of textual study, you can conclude that most of this stuff was written down before 70 AD (Destruction of Temple in Jerusalem) in the language of Koine Greek (not much different from Classical Greek that Plato and others of like nature used, just some words meant different things). Koine, meaning common, was a Greek style the AVERAGE man could read (that says something cool about the New Testament in and of itself). People read. Aristotle and Plato before them wrote stuff down, so why is it weird that scholars like Luke would write down their encounters?
Your comments on the narrative: Of the four gospel writers, three were eye witnesses (traditionally, I wouldn't be opposed to pseudo-authors, but I haven't found convincing arguments otherwise) and the fourth (Luke) was a scholar/historian/doctor who interviewed people (Luke 1:1-4) to find out information about Jesus life. And yeah, I do believe in the miracles in the Bible. I don't think they can be reduced to allegory.
And when you speak of the "50 years by mouth" as if it's a terrible thing. When WWII ended, did we rush up to veterans immediately and want to capture all of the things they had to say? No, we're just now doing that (in the last ten years) and recording their memories by video/audio (hence all the old guys on History Channel). We wouldn't consider those stories inaccurate? So why the stories of those a little less than two thousand years ago.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
I think when interpreting any type of text in an effort to form a worldview, you honestly just have to be objective. As a scholar, I have to let my worldview and scholarship be shaped by the things that I discover in the text. I piss a lot of people off within my institutional church for this. I guess I would say (not trying to be a cock, just honest) I have a greater loyalty to the person the text talks about and the text itself (in that order) than I do my denominational ties. Meet Christians that hate drinking? Well shit, that's not biblical - no matter how you try to slice it. Gay bashing? How the hell do you get there? See my point? Remove presuppositions, then study.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
Subjective much? Claiming that makes you just another misty-eyed religious guy. Obviously biblical authors did not write about Jesus Christ in the first place. Long before the bible, people passed on moral stories by mouth. Why? Because nobody was able to read. After hundreds of years, those moral stories ( with no religious aspect in them ) were used by biblical authors as a foundation. On this foundation they began writing down those stories, but overlaying religious aspects. All those stories were collected in a book, which people call the bible nowadays. So, if you, as you said, read alot about this topic, would have to know that it's not about Jesus Christ at all. It's all about conveying the morals. the lifestyle and the relations between people, to show them how to life a good and honest life. Well after that the religious fanatics came to the conclusion that they just aswell could exploit people that believed (taxes etc.) and kill the people that did not believe.
So, you see: The bible and it's stories are really old moral stories that got ' raped ' by biblical authors to fit them into their believes. Jesus Christ is just the imaginary collection of all these morals and not the 'main part' of the bible.
e: So I read some more in your post:
Narrative: the most basic type of genre. These pieces of literature were simply stories. Think of the life of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and the acts of the Disciples (Acts). These are basic narratives that cover a specific story (life, death, ressurection, subsequent ministries). You can read this just like you would a story. No hidden meanings, just a recounting of the events as they occured.
This is a joke right? You are really thinking, that Matthew, or anybody else for that matter, just wrote down 'facts' that got conveyed atleast 50 years by mouth before he even heard of them? Of course there are hidden meanings. Do you really believe that everything in the life of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the bible is true? Jesus making the blind guy sighted again? LOL, there are obviously tons of hidden intentions and meanings. Jesus survived 40 days of fasting in the desert? Herod killing thousands of babies because he is afraid of a ' THE GREAT KING OF THE JEWS ' ? lol. Do I need to give more examples?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
What the fuck. Sorry I'm no native english speaker, but do you say, that you assume that everything in the bible is historically accurate and authentical? In other words, do you think, everything in the bible happened in reality like it was written in the bible?
Harsh tone
Let me clarify, maybe this should be added to the OP. When i talk about historical accuracy, I'm referring mostly to the New Testament, for one. Because most theologians that I associate with wouldn't consider the Pentateuch to be historically accurate (read the post about theological interpretation of the old testament).
But let me respond to your post with "New Testament' in mind
Your first paragraph: I'd say your just wrong. I would also be interested in reading your sources. Because of textual study, you can conclude that most of this stuff was written down before 70 AD (Destruction of Temple in Jerusalem) in the language of Koine Greek (not much different from Classical Greek that Plato and others of like nature used, just some words meant different things). Koine, meaning common, was a Greek style the AVERAGE man could read (that says something cool about the New Testament in and of itself). People read. Aristotle and Plato before them wrote stuff down, so why is it weird that scholars like Luke would write down their encounters?
Your comments on the narrative: Of the four gospel writers, three were eye witnesses (traditionally, I wouldn't be opposed to pseudo-authors, but I haven't found convincing arguments otherwise) and the fourth (Luke) was a scholar/historian/doctor who interviewed people (Luke 1:1-4) to find out information about Jesus life. And yeah, I do believe in the miracles in the Bible. I don't think they can be reduced to allegory.
And when you speak of the "50 years by mouth" as if it's a terrible thing. When WWII ended, did we rush up to veterans immediately and want to capture all of the things they had to say? No, we're just now doing that (in the last ten years) and recording their memories by video/audio (hence all the old guys on History Channel). We wouldn't consider those stories inaccurate? So why the stories of those a little less than two thousand years ago.
To be fair, 50 years by mouth is worse back then compared to WWII, for two main reasons. One is that life expectancy is much higher today than back then. 50 years by word of mouth back then would most likely be two generations, while WWII veterans are the same people. The second is that soldiers (mostly white) would have received middle/high school education before enlisting, making them more educated and therefore their recollections more accurate.
Other than that I'm completely out of my depth so I won't comment on the other stuff
Great blog though, always interesting to read different things.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
Subjective much? Claiming that makes you just another misty-eyed religious guy. Obviously biblical authors did not write about Jesus Christ in the first place. Long before the bible, people passed on moral stories by mouth. Why? Because nobody was able to read. After hundreds of years, those moral stories ( with no religious aspect in them ) were used by biblical authors as a foundation. On this foundation they began writing down those stories, but overlaying religious aspects. All those stories were collected in a book, which people call the bible nowadays. So, if you, as you said, read alot about this topic, would have to know that it's not about Jesus Christ at all. It's all about conveying the morals. the lifestyle and the relations between people, to show them how to life a good and honest life. Well after that the religious fanatics came to the conclusion that they just aswell could exploit people that believed (taxes etc.) and kill the people that did not believe.
So, you see: The bible and it's stories are really old moral stories that got ' raped ' by biblical authors to fit them into their believes. Jesus Christ is just the imaginary collection of all these morals and not the 'main part' of the bible.
e: So I read some more in your post:
Narrative: the most basic type of genre. These pieces of literature were simply stories. Think of the life of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and the acts of the Disciples (Acts). These are basic narratives that cover a specific story (life, death, ressurection, subsequent ministries). You can read this just like you would a story. No hidden meanings, just a recounting of the events as they occured.
This is a joke right? You are really thinking, that Matthew, or anybody else for that matter, just wrote down 'facts' that got conveyed atleast 50 years by mouth before he even heard of them? Of course there are hidden meanings. Do you really believe that everything in the life of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the bible is true? Jesus making the blind guy sighted again? LOL, there are obviously tons of hidden intentions and meanings. Jesus survived 40 days of fasting in the desert? Herod killing thousands of babies because he is afraid of a ' THE GREAT KING OF THE JEWS ' ? lol. Do I need to give more examples?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
What the fuck. Sorry I'm no native english speaker, but do you say, that you assume that everything in the bible is historically accurate and authentical? In other words, do you think, everything in the bible happened in reality like it was written in the bible?
Harsh tone
Let me clarify, maybe this should be added to the OP. When i talk about historical accuracy, I'm referring mostly to the New Testament, for one. Because most theologians that I associate with wouldn't consider the Pentateuch to be historically accurate (read the post about theological interpretation of the old testament).
But let me respond to your post with "New Testament' in mind
Your first paragraph: I'd say your just wrong. I would also be interested in reading your sources. Because of textual study, you can conclude that most of this stuff was written down before 70 AD (Destruction of Temple in Jerusalem) in the language of Koine Greek (not much different from Classical Greek that Plato and others of like nature used, just some words meant different things). Koine, meaning common, was a Greek style the AVERAGE man could read (that says something cool about the New Testament in and of itself). People read. Aristotle and Plato before them wrote stuff down, so why is it weird that scholars like Luke would write down their encounters?
Your comments on the narrative: Of the four gospel writers, three were eye witnesses (traditionally, I wouldn't be opposed to pseudo-authors, but I haven't found convincing arguments otherwise) and the fourth (Luke) was a scholar/historian/doctor who interviewed people (Luke 1:1-4) to find out information about Jesus life. And yeah, I do believe in the miracles in the Bible. I don't think they can be reduced to allegory.
And when you speak of the "50 years by mouth" as if it's a terrible thing. When WWII ended, did we rush up to veterans immediately and want to capture all of the things they had to say? No, we're just now doing that (in the last ten years) and recording their memories by video/audio (hence all the old guys on History Channel). We wouldn't consider those stories inaccurate? So why the stories of those a little less than two thousand years ago.
To be fair, 50 years by mouth is worse back then compared to WWII, for two main reasons. One is that life expectancy is much higher today than back then. 50 years by word of mouth back then would most likely be two generations, while WWII veterans are the same people. The second is that soldiers (mostly white) would have received middle/high school education before enlisting, making them more educated and therefore their recollections more accurate.
Other than that I'm completely out of my depth so I won't comment on the other stuff
Great blog though, always interesting to read different things.
Every jewish boy back in the early AD's would have known the Torah word-by-word from schooling. Most people had a rudimentary education, at the least. Rich people went and studied under big shots, but most jewish people had a basi Jewish education.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
sure, you're right. since i didn't even read OP, i can't tell if he did things like that, haha.
Exegesis is always a limited work though. I really do appreciate the historical textual scholars and this kind of return to the text that began with the proto-Reformation scholars that started rereading the original Greek and Hebrew texts were the ones that set the basis for higher criticism that had an important part in the modernization of Christianity, but I can't really get into it.
I can understand why so many people are skeptical about this, and it always is a limited work, but the fact that it is limited is a good thing as it keeps it honest. As long as exegesis and claims of kerygma don't become absolutized then the scholarship is healthy to some extent. I would wager that most people don't understand that it's this kind of historical criticism that is exactly what has brought Christianity into modernity and which sparked incredible debate among Christians and has led to ideological fractures. This common view of Christianity among the Anglo atheists is basically the way fundamentalists view Christianity, so it is a bit amusing that both the atheists and the fundamentalists engage in the same sort of populist anti-intellectualism. The Continental Europeans seem to have a more nuanced dialogue with religion and have been producing a great deal of incredibly interesting radical philosophical readings of Jewish and Christian text, often as atheists.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
On January 07 2012 19:53 Meta wrote: Very informative post. In your example where Paul writes that women should be submissive to men, he wasn't acting out of overt misogyny, he was merely reflecting the average views of his time and place. I agree.
That might be a reason to judge his misogyny less severely, but it doesn't make him not a misogynist.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
I think when interpreting any type of text in an effort to form a worldview, you honestly just have to be objective. As a scholar, I have to let my worldview and scholarship be shaped by the things that I discover in the text. I piss a lot of people off within my institutional church for this. I guess I would say (not trying to be a cock, just honest) I have a greater loyalty to the person the text talks about and the text itself (in that order) than I do my denominational ties. Meet Christians that hate drinking? Well shit, that's not biblical - no matter how you try to slice it. Gay bashing? How the hell do you get there? See my point? Remove presuppositions, then study.
Letting the text talk rather than being dictated by presuppositions is a good thing, yes. The problem that you seem to have ignored from my first post, is that when taking a largely unverified work and attempting to connect that to reality and your perception of it, is problemtic, as you need a certain base of evidence to make the literature legitimate.
That doesn't mean the stories in the bible are outright lies or attempts at dececption. It just means that their intentions are either lost in time and doesn't apply to our current reality, or that our interpretations of their intentions is incorrect due to our lacking interpretative material.
Taking the entire bible at face value (or even just the New Testament) I find majorly problematic, simply because of the lacking overall evidence as well as modern interpretational methods lacking omniscience.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
This sounds really cool, and I'd love to join archaeological digs, especially at something as tangible as biblical reference material. Unearthing history's always been a strong interest of mine. That said, archaeological finds from things in the bible (locations, graves, that sort of stuff) doesn't verify the messaging or the fullness of the bible - just small, contextual bits of information.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Of course I assume that people take it into consideration. That doesn't mean they understand it. Nobody has the full oversight, as we as humans have limited memories and knowledge. That fundamental lack of omniscience means our interpretations will always be lacking, and thus, we cannot assert certain truth - especially not in a book combined by manuscripts based on thousands year old oral stories as well as more modern, relatively speaking, revisions of said stories.
Of course his studies are interesting, as is probably the entire field of exogetic studies. That doesn't mean it in any way reflects reality or science though, which is what I'm trying to say.
On January 07 2012 19:53 Meta wrote: Very informative post. In your example where Paul writes that women should be submissive to men, he wasn't acting out of overt misogyny, he was merely reflecting the average views of his time and place. I agree.
That might be a reason to judge his misogyny less severely, but it doesn't make him not a misogynist.
I'm surprised it took so long for the thread to get this viewpoint posted but I definitely agree. I might even go a little further and say that since the bible is trying to represent some moral truths (from a higher power even) the misogyny in it is even worse than when compared to some other type of historical literature that might contain philosophy. Why would we apply context to something trying to display absolute timeless (from God) moral truths? All that said, this might not pertain to Paul's misogyny ,I just wanted to expand on the point of context.
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
Subjective much? Claiming that makes you just another misty-eyed religious guy. Obviously biblical authors did not write about Jesus Christ in the first place. Long before the bible, people passed on moral stories by mouth. Why? Because nobody was able to read. After hundreds of years, those moral stories ( with no religious aspect in them ) were used by biblical authors as a foundation. On this foundation they began writing down those stories, but overlaying religious aspects. All those stories were collected in a book, which people call the bible nowadays. So, if you, as you said, read alot about this topic, would have to know that it's not about Jesus Christ at all. It's all about conveying the morals. the lifestyle and the relations between people, to show them how to life a good and honest life. Well after that the religious fanatics came to the conclusion that they just aswell could exploit people that believed (taxes etc.) and kill the people that did not believe.
So, you see: The bible and it's stories are really old moral stories that got ' raped ' by biblical authors to fit them into their believes. Jesus Christ is just the imaginary collection of all these morals and not the 'main part' of the bible.
e: So I read some more in your post:
Narrative: the most basic type of genre. These pieces of literature were simply stories. Think of the life of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and the acts of the Disciples (Acts). These are basic narratives that cover a specific story (life, death, ressurection, subsequent ministries). You can read this just like you would a story. No hidden meanings, just a recounting of the events as they occured.
This is a joke right? You are really thinking, that Matthew, or anybody else for that matter, just wrote down 'facts' that got conveyed atleast 50 years by mouth before he even heard of them? Of course there are hidden meanings. Do you really believe that everything in the life of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the bible is true? Jesus making the blind guy sighted again? LOL, there are obviously tons of hidden intentions and meanings. Jesus survived 40 days of fasting in the desert? Herod killing thousands of babies because he is afraid of a ' THE GREAT KING OF THE JEWS ' ? lol. Do I need to give more examples?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
What the fuck. Sorry I'm no native english speaker, but do you say, that you assume that everything in the bible is historically accurate and authentical? In other words, do you think, everything in the bible happened in reality like it was written in the bible?
Harsh tone
Let me clarify, maybe this should be added to the OP. When i talk about historical accuracy, I'm referring mostly to the New Testament, for one. Because most theologians that I associate with wouldn't consider the Pentateuch to be historically accurate (read the post about theological interpretation of the old testament).
But let me respond to your post with "New Testament' in mind
Your first paragraph: I'd say your just wrong. I would also be interested in reading your sources. Because of textual study, you can conclude that most of this stuff was written down before 70 AD (Destruction of Temple in Jerusalem) in the language of Koine Greek (not much different from Classical Greek that Plato and others of like nature used, just some words meant different things). Koine, meaning common, was a Greek style the AVERAGE man could read (that says something cool about the New Testament in and of itself). People read. Aristotle and Plato before them wrote stuff down, so why is it weird that scholars like Luke would write down their encounters?
Your comments on the narrative: Of the four gospel writers, three were eye witnesses (traditionally, I wouldn't be opposed to pseudo-authors, but I haven't found convincing arguments otherwise) and the fourth (Luke) was a scholar/historian/doctor who interviewed people (Luke 1:1-4) to find out information about Jesus life. And yeah, I do believe in the miracles in the Bible. I don't think they can be reduced to allegory.
And when you speak of the "50 years by mouth" as if it's a terrible thing. When WWII ended, did we rush up to veterans immediately and want to capture all of the things they had to say? No, we're just now doing that (in the last ten years) and recording their memories by video/audio (hence all the old guys on History Channel). We wouldn't consider those stories inaccurate? So why the stories of those a little less than two thousand years ago.
Hi, forgive me my harsh tone but I can't stand wrong informations, especially in religious questions.
So, you claim that my statement is wrong, that the bible is grounded in hundred years old moral stories. Here is my proof:
'Fast ausnahmslos (eigentlich nur mit Ausnahme der neutestamentlichen Briefe) beruhen die biblischen Texte auf einer vorausgegangenen, oft jahrhundertelangen mündlichen Überlieferung. Die schriftlichen Fassungen, die uns vorliegen, sind in der Regel späte Endprodukte lange vorhergehender Traditionen. D.h.: die biblischen Schriftsteller sind in der Regel nicht „Verfasser“ der unter ihrem Namen laufenden Texte, sondern Sammler und meist nur Endredaktoren von auch ihnen schon vorhergehenden Sammlungen; allerdings ist Redaktion auch immer Interpretation, so daß die uns vorliegenden Texte die Theologie der (meist unbekannten) Endredaktoren ist (z.B. „Matthäus“, „Markus“ usw.).'
Almost exclusively (except a few of the new testament's letters) all biblical texts are founded in hundreds of years of oral tradition. The written texts, that we know, are usually end products of those traditions. That means, the biblical authors are not the writers of the texts, but they edited collections of earlier texts. Editing also means interpretation, so that the texts that we know from the bible are theologic interpretations by the Editors ( Matthew, Mark etc.)
So basically a professor for systematic theology proofs my statement here, which means I was not wrong.
On the narrative thing: 'And yeah, I do believe in the miracles in the Bible. I don't think they can be reduced to allegory.' Alone this statement already indicates me that Im wasting my time. But Im still going to do it for myself: Of course we do think that veteran stories are completely inaccurate. Who wouldn't? You can't take anything for granted what they say. Their memories are important to analyze the morality, metality, feelings and experiences. But not at all for historical proofs. Why? Because their memories change and get inaccurate? Why? Because hardly anyone can remember what they ate 2 months ago for lunch. How in the world would an author be able to decribe all the years he seemed to have lived with Jesus after 40 years? He wouldn't. This means he must have added something to the text, or forgotten something. This makes it inaccurate and worthless for history, but important for the morality, mentality and so on for that time.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
Christian: yes. Therefore there is the presupposition that God exists, but I think that presupposition doesn't really interfere with biblical interpretation. You could say that what I do with my interpretations is changed because of my belief in God, but I'm reading and interpreting a text that talks about God when I preform biblical exegesis - nothing more.
To your second point: No. There is more manuscript evidence that supports historical authenticity of the New Testament than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Plato's writings, and Aristotles. Also, the mention of biblical letters and characters by early Church fathers (such as Origen whole from ~185-254) supports their writings.
We could talk for ages about the differences between autographs, first draft copies, and third draft copies and the minimal to know errors found in these, but that would be a book. All I'm gonna point to, if you want to further reading, is the interesting discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940's that proved accuracy of biblical transcription from the Hebrew bible.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
Christian: yes. Therefore there is the presupposition that God exists, but I think that presupposition doesn't really interfere with biblical interpretation. You could say that what I do with my interpretations is changed because of my belief in God, but I'm reading and interpreting a text that talks about God when I preform biblical exegesis - nothing more.
So you have faith in a God, but you don't think that changes your perspective on a book written specifically about that God?
On January 07 2012 15:46 imjorman wrote: Biblical authors wrote to various audiences with a singular goal: to convey information about Jesus Christ and how to best follow his example.
Subjective much? Claiming that makes you just another misty-eyed religious guy. Obviously biblical authors did not write about Jesus Christ in the first place. Long before the bible, people passed on moral stories by mouth. Why? Because nobody was able to read. After hundreds of years, those moral stories ( with no religious aspect in them ) were used by biblical authors as a foundation. On this foundation they began writing down those stories, but overlaying religious aspects. All those stories were collected in a book, which people call the bible nowadays. So, if you, as you said, read alot about this topic, would have to know that it's not about Jesus Christ at all. It's all about conveying the morals. the lifestyle and the relations between people, to show them how to life a good and honest life. Well after that the religious fanatics came to the conclusion that they just aswell could exploit people that believed (taxes etc.) and kill the people that did not believe.
So, you see: The bible and it's stories are really old moral stories that got ' raped ' by biblical authors to fit them into their believes. Jesus Christ is just the imaginary collection of all these morals and not the 'main part' of the bible.
e: So I read some more in your post:
Narrative: the most basic type of genre. These pieces of literature were simply stories. Think of the life of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and the acts of the Disciples (Acts). These are basic narratives that cover a specific story (life, death, ressurection, subsequent ministries). You can read this just like you would a story. No hidden meanings, just a recounting of the events as they occured.
This is a joke right? You are really thinking, that Matthew, or anybody else for that matter, just wrote down 'facts' that got conveyed atleast 50 years by mouth before he even heard of them? Of course there are hidden meanings. Do you really believe that everything in the life of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the bible is true? Jesus making the blind guy sighted again? LOL, there are obviously tons of hidden intentions and meanings. Jesus survived 40 days of fasting in the desert? Herod killing thousands of babies because he is afraid of a ' THE GREAT KING OF THE JEWS ' ? lol. Do I need to give more examples?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
What the fuck. Sorry I'm no native english speaker, but do you say, that you assume that everything in the bible is historically accurate and authentical? In other words, do you think, everything in the bible happened in reality like it was written in the bible?
Harsh tone
Let me clarify, maybe this should be added to the OP. When i talk about historical accuracy, I'm referring mostly to the New Testament, for one. Because most theologians that I associate with wouldn't consider the Pentateuch to be historically accurate (read the post about theological interpretation of the old testament).
But let me respond to your post with "New Testament' in mind
Your first paragraph: I'd say your just wrong. I would also be interested in reading your sources. Because of textual study, you can conclude that most of this stuff was written down before 70 AD (Destruction of Temple in Jerusalem) in the language of Koine Greek (not much different from Classical Greek that Plato and others of like nature used, just some words meant different things). Koine, meaning common, was a Greek style the AVERAGE man could read (that says something cool about the New Testament in and of itself). People read. Aristotle and Plato before them wrote stuff down, so why is it weird that scholars like Luke would write down their encounters?
Your comments on the narrative: Of the four gospel writers, three were eye witnesses (traditionally, I wouldn't be opposed to pseudo-authors, but I haven't found convincing arguments otherwise) and the fourth (Luke) was a scholar/historian/doctor who interviewed people (Luke 1:1-4) to find out information about Jesus life. And yeah, I do believe in the miracles in the Bible. I don't think they can be reduced to allegory.
And when you speak of the "50 years by mouth" as if it's a terrible thing. When WWII ended, did we rush up to veterans immediately and want to capture all of the things they had to say? No, we're just now doing that (in the last ten years) and recording their memories by video/audio (hence all the old guys on History Channel). We wouldn't consider those stories inaccurate? So why the stories of those a little less than two thousand years ago.
Hi, forgive me my harsh tone but I can't stand wrong informations, especially in religious questions.
So, you claim that my statement is wrong, that the bible is grounded in hundred years old moral stories. Here is my proof:
'Fast ausnahmslos (eigentlich nur mit Ausnahme der neutestamentlichen Briefe) beruhen die biblischen Texte auf einer vorausgegangenen, oft jahrhundertelangen mündlichen Überlieferung. Die schriftlichen Fassungen, die uns vorliegen, sind in der Regel späte Endprodukte lange vorhergehender Traditionen. D.h.: die biblischen Schriftsteller sind in der Regel nicht „Verfasser“ der unter ihrem Namen laufenden Texte, sondern Sammler und meist nur Endredaktoren von auch ihnen schon vorhergehenden Sammlungen; allerdings ist Redaktion auch immer Interpretation, so daß die uns vorliegenden Texte die Theologie der (meist unbekannten) Endredaktoren ist (z.B. „Matthäus“, „Markus“ usw.).'
Almost exclusively (except a few of the new testament's letters) all biblical texts are founded in hundreds of years of oral tradition. The written texts, that we know, are usually end products of those traditions. That means, the biblical authors are not the writers of the texts, but they edited collections of earlier texts. Editing also means interpretation, so that the texts that we know from the bible are theologic interpretations by the Editors ( Matthew, Mark etc.)
So basically a professor for systematic theology proofs my statement here, which means I was not wrong.
On the narrative thing: 'And yeah, I do believe in the miracles in the Bible. I don't think they can be reduced to allegory.' Alone this statement already indicates me that Im wasting my time. But Im still going to do it for myself: Of course we do think that veteran stories are completely inaccurate. Who wouldn't? You can't take anything for granted what they say. Their memories are important to analyze the morality, metality, feelings and experiences. But not at all for historical proofs. Why? Because their memories change and get inaccurate? Why? Because hardly anyone can remember what they ate 2 months ago for lunch. How in the world would an author be able to decribe all the years he seemed to have lived with Jesus after 40 years? He wouldn't. This means he must have added something to the text, or forgotten something. This makes it inaccurate and worthless for history, but important for the morality, mentality and so on for that time.
To respond to your second paragraph first because I believe it will require less of an answer (at least for now anyway , as I said, I love shooting the shit about this stuff): It is true, that people forget the trivial things in their life. Yeah, I can't remember what I had for lunch 2 months ago, but I sure can remember all of the memorable events in my life. If I completely believed that I spent the better part of three years of my life with the son of God, you would bet that I remember many of the details. ESPECIALLY if miracles were involved. If I saw a dude give a blind guy sight? How could you ever forget that? I don't think it's comparable to forgetting what I had for lunch.
To respond to your first: To quote biblical scholar and professor Alex Varughese when talking about the Gospel of Mark, "There is considerable agreement that it was written in Rome in the late 60s of the first century during or shortly after Nero's persecution of Christians and a year or two before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70." (He also includes reference to Browns, "Introduction to the New Testament", 161-164). Additionally, many scholars of the Gospel's assume two source theories. The first of which is known as "Markan Priority." This means that Mark's gospel was written first, and Luke/Matthew used it as a resource. Additionally, there is Q source (from the German word quelle, meaning source). These are the largely quoted pieces of material in all of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew and Luke) that do not come from Mark. No one has any idea what Q source is (or was). My best bet, regarding professor Marquardt's excerpt, is that he assuming Q to be a really old source(s) that the authors quoted. At any rate though, the synoptic gospels refer back to Mark for main source authority. The latest estimated date I've read for Mark is 70-80 AD, but given internal evidence regarding the destruction of the temple, I find these dates highly unlikely. And just as a disclaimer, I'm allow to disagree with Marquardt and call him wrong lol
On January 08 2012 01:24 plated.rawr wrote: [quote] Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
"The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
Christian: yes. Therefore there is the presupposition that God exists, but I think that presupposition doesn't really interfere with biblical interpretation. You could say that what I do with my interpretations is changed because of my belief in God, but I'm reading and interpreting a text that talks about God when I preform biblical exegesis - nothing more.
So you have faith in a God, but you don't think that changes your perspective on a book written specifically about that God?
...
nonono, remove the idea of whether you believe in this God or not. For the sake of interpretation of this ancient text, it doesn't really matter if God is real or not. An atheist, theist, or whoever should be able to read the Bible and interpret it and arrive at a specific message. Whether or not you buy what the text is saying is a different story all together.
On January 08 2012 01:27 beg wrote: [quote] "The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy" <- you're talkin about science in general? or how science should handle the bible?
if you're talking generally here, you're wrong. you're referring to physics, but science is a broader field than you think. e.g. philosophy is science too.
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
Christian: yes. Therefore there is the presupposition that God exists, but I think that presupposition doesn't really interfere with biblical interpretation. You could say that what I do with my interpretations is changed because of my belief in God, but I'm reading and interpreting a text that talks about God when I preform biblical exegesis - nothing more.
So you have faith in a God, but you don't think that changes your perspective on a book written specifically about that God?
...
nonono, remove the idea of whether you believe in this God or not. For the sake of interpretation of this ancient text, it doesn't really matter if God is real or not. An atheist, theist, or whoever should be able to read the Bible and interpret it and arrive at a specific message. Whether or not you buy what the text is saying is a different story all together.
Ah, I think I see where you're getting at. So, you're more trying to decipher the original intentions of the authors of various parts of the Bible (specifically the New Testament?) and/or the message it gives today - whether it is true or bollocks is completely irrelevant?
On January 08 2012 01:31 plated.rawr wrote: [quote]
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
Christian: yes. Therefore there is the presupposition that God exists, but I think that presupposition doesn't really interfere with biblical interpretation. You could say that what I do with my interpretations is changed because of my belief in God, but I'm reading and interpreting a text that talks about God when I preform biblical exegesis - nothing more.
So you have faith in a God, but you don't think that changes your perspective on a book written specifically about that God?
...
nonono, remove the idea of whether you believe in this God or not. For the sake of interpretation of this ancient text, it doesn't really matter if God is real or not. An atheist, theist, or whoever should be able to read the Bible and interpret it and arrive at a specific message. Whether or not you buy what the text is saying is a different story all together.
Ah, I think I see where you're getting at. So, you're more trying to decipher the original intentions of the authors of various parts of the Bible (specifically the New Testament?) and/or the message it gives today - whether it is true or bollocks is completely irrelevant?
You're asking for something different though. The way I see it, it's this kind of historical-critical readings from Christian scholars that opened the doors to reevaluation of the Christian faith and its traditions. This both led to large ideological divides you see between different schools of Christian cultural and theological thought, and also was the catalyst to the sort of atheism you see in the Christian West. The deism that was rather popular amongst some intellectuals in Europe in the past and the rise of secularism was preceded by the Protestant Reformation and the surge of critical re-readings and re-translations of the Christian canon. I think there is a lot of value in higher criticism both for Christians and non-Christians.
You would be surprised how many atheists are in the masters and Ph.D program of my university's religious studies department in all the various fields.
What you're talking about is not a science. A science requires you to have a testable hypothesis that you can run through the meatgrinder of multiple, repeatable experiments so that, in the end, you'll hopefully come up with a new theory through which you can approximate the world fairly accurately (at least until a new evidence comes along and knocks it down).. Biblical interpretation is no more a science than, say, the study of history. Even archaeology these days isn't considered a science; sure it uses scientific techniques in order to arrive at certain conclusions, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a serious archaeology professor these days in the USA who'll flat-out say that it's a "science" in the same way physics and chemistry and mathematics are sciences. (Yes, math is a science.) Post-processualism ftw, I suppose.
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it.
Hell, making this assumption is like ... anti-science, if anything. Because this is the one thing you don't want to do as a scientist (or, to be honest, a serious scholar). There are a ton of things in the Bible that do have a basis in historical fact and are, in fact, true as far as we can see, but it's dangerous to say that, well, because X, Y, and Z have been verified, the entire work is true and/or completely devoid of exaggeration/alteration by the motives of the author(s). Historical context, political context, socioeconomic context, literary context, spatial context, linguistic context even -- these should all be considered before you start trying to "interpret" what a text means or whether or not it's "true."
Additionally, the implication that interpretation is meaningless if the source material isn't "accurate" makes me a sad, sad panda. If that were the case, most ancient studies scholars would be out of their jobs.
On January 08 2012 01:34 beg wrote: [quote] i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
Christian: yes. Therefore there is the presupposition that God exists, but I think that presupposition doesn't really interfere with biblical interpretation. You could say that what I do with my interpretations is changed because of my belief in God, but I'm reading and interpreting a text that talks about God when I preform biblical exegesis - nothing more.
So you have faith in a God, but you don't think that changes your perspective on a book written specifically about that God?
...
nonono, remove the idea of whether you believe in this God or not. For the sake of interpretation of this ancient text, it doesn't really matter if God is real or not. An atheist, theist, or whoever should be able to read the Bible and interpret it and arrive at a specific message. Whether or not you buy what the text is saying is a different story all together.
Ah, I think I see where you're getting at. So, you're more trying to decipher the original intentions of the authors of various parts of the Bible (specifically the New Testament?) and/or the message it gives today - whether it is true or bollocks is completely irrelevant?
You're asking for something different though. The way I see it, it's this kind of historical-critical readings from Christian scholars that opened the doors to reevaluation of the Christian faith and its traditions. This both led to large ideological divides you see between different schools of Christian cultural and theological thought, and also was the catalyst to the sort of atheism you see in the Christian West. The deism that was rather popular amongst some intellectuals in Europe in the past and the rise of secularism was preceded by the Protestant Reformation and the surge of critical re-readings and re-translations of the Christian canon. I think there is a lot of value in higher criticism both for Christians and non-Christians.
You would be surprised how many atheists are in the masters and Ph.D program of my university's religious studies department in all the various fields.
Oh yeah, many atheists get degrees in religious studies. It's a great field! But I think the same text can be interpreted the same for both religious and non-religious people. It's simply a matter of "They believe this" or "[I] believe this". I just happen to be apart of the latter group.
On January 08 2012 06:25 babylon wrote: A few things:
What you're talking about is not a science. A science requires you to have a testable hypothesis that you can run through the meatgrinder of multiple, repeatable experiments so that, in the end, you'll hopefully come up with a new theory through which you can approximate the world fairly accurately (at least until a new evidence comes along and knocks it down).. Biblical interpretation is no more a science than, say, the study of history. Even archaeology these days isn't considered a science; sure it uses scientific techniques in order to arrive at certain conclusions, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a serious archaeology professor these days in the USA who'll flat-out say that it's a "science" in the same way physics and chemistry and mathematics are sciences. (Yes, math is a science.) Post-processualism ftw, I suppose.
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it.
Hell, making this assumption is like ... anti-science, if anything. Because this is the one thing you don't want to do as a scientist (or, to be honest, a serious scholar). There are a ton of things in the Bible that do have a basis in historical fact and are, in fact, true as far as we can see, but it's dangerous to say that, well, because X, Y, and Z have been verified, the entire work is true and/or completely devoid of exaggeration/alteration by the motives of the author(s). Historical context, political context, socioeconomic context, literary context, spatial context, linguistic context even -- these should all be considered before you start trying to "interpret" what a text means or whether or not it's "true."
Additionally, the implication that interpretation is meaningless if the source material isn't "accurate" makes me a sad, sad panda. If that were the case, most ancient studies scholars would be out of their jobs.
Fair enough, scientific techniques are applied to the study of the text. I'd honestly say the act of exegesis is just a subsection of history. Studying an ancient text to determine its meaning and application to today's life.
I should have carefully worded my statement on accuracy and authenticity of the text. I am by no means one of the people that assume absolute inerrancy of the text. The Bible shouldn't be quoted for truth on geography, math,science, what have you. I believe it to be, "inerrant in all matters concerning soteriology" (bonus: tell me what church I'm a part of based on that quote).
Your right though, that statement is a little bit biased and presupposes a shit ton that I didn't flesh out in the OP. that's a good tip I'll have to implement in future writings.
On January 08 2012 01:31 plated.rawr wrote: [quote]
No, I am talking about the scientific method, which is how all science is approached. While I'm not too familiar with philosophy (only did an introductionary half-year course on it when starting university many years ago), I do imagine their chains of logics and argumentative methods is what is claimed as its method of collecting evidence. Of course, with the entire field being metaphysical, how much you want to attribute to that is up to you.
i don't see why you wouldn't consider exegesis a science then... makes no sense to me. sounds more like religion bashing.
If you read my argument, you'll see why I claim it to be a pseudo-scientifical method. It lacks the verifiable or falsifiable proof of historical and archeological sciences, which is what is needed if one wants to attatch biblical characters and events to real life.
well, you talk about how one has to understand the history of storytelling for example. why do you assume that people didn't take this into consideration?
tbh, i haven't read the OP, but i'm sure that there's several interpretations of the bible, based on different assumptions etc. ... maybe OP made some assumptions you don't like, but it's still interesting to see what the result/meaning turns out to be.
exegesis would be pseudo scientific if everyone ignored your points, yes, but i'm sure that's not the case at all.
Just like any other science (biology, astronomy, whatev) you should (note: should) drop all presuppositions and agendas you have surrounding the issue your studying. Like the big thing in my church right now: alcohol usage. Whenever the interpret scripture, they have the presupposition that alcohol is evil. They wouldn't find that if they went into the study thinking, "What is the bible saying about alcohol usage?" You see what I mean?
soooooo yeah. I don't know if I'm even appropriately responding or just typing shit lolol
Are you christian? If so you are assuming there is a god, therefore you are biased right?
All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text. Because if it wasn't historically accurate, I wouldn't bother interpreting it. Once again, totally open to talking.
Isn't it a proven fact this is just not true. Apart from the fact that it just isn't historical accurate alot is also lost in translation. One example I just read about, The word ''young woman'' was translated from Hebrew to greek to ''virgin'''
Christian: yes. Therefore there is the presupposition that God exists, but I think that presupposition doesn't really interfere with biblical interpretation. You could say that what I do with my interpretations is changed because of my belief in God, but I'm reading and interpreting a text that talks about God when I preform biblical exegesis - nothing more.
So you have faith in a God, but you don't think that changes your perspective on a book written specifically about that God?
...
nonono, remove the idea of whether you believe in this God or not. For the sake of interpretation of this ancient text, it doesn't really matter if God is real or not. An atheist, theist, or whoever should be able to read the Bible and interpret it and arrive at a specific message. Whether or not you buy what the text is saying is a different story all together.
Ah, I think I see where you're getting at. So, you're more trying to decipher the original intentions of the authors of various parts of the Bible (specifically the New Testament?) and/or the message it gives today - whether it is true or bollocks is completely irrelevant?
I think this is what he is trying to do yes. But I still find the idea of, Paul for example, encouraging sexism as a bad thing. Even if it was the standard at the time, that in no way justifies the actions, and delegitimises the Bible (and the people in it) as a moral guide.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
so in short the same-o same-o non-science/engineering phoney baloney?
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
so in short the same-o same-o non-science/engineering phoney baloney?
Well, it's annoying when people try to legitimize a study by suggesting that it's a science. (Not saying the OP consciously intended to do so, but this is why a ton of people like to assert their study = a science! when ... no.) Archaeology did the same thing way back when before people finally sat down and were like, "Yeah, time to admit that we're not actually a proper science ..." Again, there's a huge difference between statements like "Biblical interpretation is a science," and "Biblical interpretation uses scientific techniques sometimes."
The other annoying thing about stating it's a science and trying to gain legitimacy from that label is that it implies that sciences are inherently better than the other non-science fields, which is just flat-out wrong. Take pride in what you study.
On January 08 2012 00:09 evanthebouncy! wrote: can anyone just tell me what this blog is about? I'm rather confused hahaha
Apparently it's about scrying the "true" meaning of the christian bible. Like many others, the OP realises the problem in fanatics taking parts of the bible and quoting it to underbuild their own world view. His problem, though, is that what he's doing, is pretty much the same, only that he uses a pseudo-scientifical method to validate his claims, attempting through his schooling to gain legitimacy in his personal or taught view of how the bible should be interpreted.
I say pseudo-scientifical method in direct response to one of his first claims - "it is a science in the respect that there is a method that is followed for interpretation". It is true that sciences are based on a methodical approach to a subject, but this isn't the entirety of it. The scientific method used in science is based on accumulation of evidence and the verificability or fasifiability of the study to underbuild its legitimacy, something which exegetic studies doesn't really do. Actually, in his disclaimer, he proves directly opposite - "All of my writing above assumes accuracy and authenticity of biblical text". Studying a literary work with the baseline of it being true (but possibly misunderstood) goes against the scientific method, as there's no presented falsifiable or verifiable proof of this being the case, making this assumption unbased.
That said, there are evidence of parts of the bible having base in history, which can verify parts of the writing, or at least the existance of the writers. That doesn't in any way verify the rest of the book, though. You cannot look at a hoofprint on the ground and go "Hey, unicorns are real! I saw a hoofprint of one!" - in the same thought, you cannot look at parts of history or literature and expect to paint a full image, much less make assertive claims about its truth or not.
If one wants to study a piece of literature, one needs to know its history. To know the literature's history, one needs to know the history of storytelling as well as the contextual information needed from the time when it was written. The history of storytelling is especially important, as, as someone else mentioned, a lot of the christian bible is based on oral tradition from pre-literate societies and pre-literate times. Knowing how stories tend to linger, but mutate, over time, and how storytelling has changed between oral to literal societies while keeping much of the content, is essential in understanding the messages in the christian bible. Just applying a broad stroke and saying that it needs to be understood within its own historical context is very lacking, as it doesn't take into account that there's far more going in storytelling than only its own time, especially this far back in history.
I don't mind anyone studying literature on its own merits - categorizing the events, relating the characters to each other and so on. The moment it's taken into connection with the real world, though, it requires a much higher scrutiny on wether or not it's validatable though - if not, anything written about it is as much fiction as the literature they're studying.
so in short the same-o same-o non-science/engineering phoney baloney?
Well, it's annoying when people try to legitimize a study by suggesting that it's a science. (Not saying the OP consciously intended to do so, but this is why a ton of people like to assert their study = a science! when ... no.) Archaeology did the same thing way back when before people finally sat down and were like, "Yeah, time to admit that we're not actually a proper science ..." Again, there's a huge difference between statements like "Biblical interpretation is a science," and "Biblical interpretation uses scientific techniques sometimes."
The other annoying thing about stating it's a science and trying to gain legitimacy from that label is that it implies that sciences are inherently better than the other non-science fields, which is just flat-out wrong. Take pride in what you study.
I would not claim that the sciences are "better" than literature. But nobody claims Shakespeare informs our moral zeitgeist or policy. The same cannot be said about Biblical interpretation. For many people, it is a description of the state of the universe and therefore must either ground its validity, or give up its claim to scientific rigor.
On January 07 2012 15:55 vitruvia wrote: what other holy books have you read ._.? cuz i've seen too much focus on christianity + branches and it became somewhat mundane, no one here actually thoroughly studied Hinduism, taoist, Buddhism, or maybe shinto?
well every other religion you named doesnt have a "holy book". In fact a korean buddist canon can be several meters of bookshelves full with books.
EPT
Sadly I couldn't give you any good analogies or insights about the religions you metion, although my Dad could; he grew up in Japan, it figures. Yet as far as my limited mind is concerned, the techniques imjorman outlines are essential to anything more than the most basic of any (holy) texts. I do hope there's at least this foundation of systematic study approach in other faiths, ye really need it. And, well, if there isin't , what does that say about faiths that do have it.....
