The 24/7 blog that we've called Resources is intended to be a multifaceted exploration of the Christian life. It is a place where we expand the conversation about what God is doing in our lives and in our community, and further reflect on what it looks like to live a life of full devotion to Christ, 24/7. This post is the first of a series of posts about interpreting the Bible. It was composed by Pat Beard, a longtime member of the Southridge community and Bible teacher in a variety of contexts.
In 1987, I attended a weekend men’s retreat run by a group known as Koinonia. Up until then, like many others, I had found the Bible to be intimidating, difficult to read and, sometimes, just plain boring. While the weekend was life-changing in more than one way, one of the most profound lessons learned was the importance of reading and studying scripture as a key element of the Christian life. More importantly, I felt that God was calling me to devote myself not just to studying the Bible but also to helping others to read and understand what it had to say. The following year, I spent two weeks at the University of Victoria training for the Bethel Bible Study (a program aimed at promoting adult biblical literacy) and there I was introduced to the “h word” – hermeneutics (the practice of biblical interpretation).
Fast forward 27 years and I now find myself blogging (for the first time) on the topic of exploring the scriptures. Some of the topics we will be addressing over the next few weeks/months will be the various obstacles we face when we read the Bible but also some related matters (such as how the Bible reached its current configuration and why there are different versions of the Bible and how they differ). Just to give you a taste, here are a few of the challenges we face as 21st Century North Americans trying to make sense of a book (more accurately, a collection of books) written a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (or something like that):
Distance of Time
Not only is the Bible an old book, but much of it was written well after the events took place. The New Testament was completed almost 2,000 years ago (and it’s the NEW Testament) while the Old Testament began as tales told around the campsite of a nomadic tribe some 3,500 years ago. As a consequence, many of the references on the Bible may be incomprehensible to modern readers (at least without help).
Distance of Culture
Not only was the Bible written a long time ago, it was written in the context of a culture quite different from the one with which we are familiar. Biblical culture was agrarian, eastern, mostly primitive, and decidedly undemocratic. Western individualism is so much a part of our thinking that it can cause us to misinterpret values and actions based on a more collective perspective.
Distance of Language
The Bible was written in the languages of the day – Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Aside from Mike Krause, how many of us are familiar with these languages? Also, in written form they were often very difficult to interpret. Hebrew, for example, was written right to left with no vowels or spaces between the words. (Genesis 1:1 would look like “htrhtdnsnvhhtdtrcdGgnnngbhtn”, if it had been written in English).
That’s what this series of blog posts will be all about, exploring the challenges of interpreting the Bible, hopefully to make us all better readers of scripture. But, more to the point, to help us live a life of full devotion to Christ, 24/7. Here are some of the topics we plan to address:
February 16th - Intro
March 15th - How the Bible Became a Book
April 19th - Why Study the Bible?
May 17th - Why Context is King
June 21st - Biblical Literary Forms (OT)
July 19th - Biblical Literary Forms (NT)
August 16th - Canonization (not just shooting off your mouth)
So, that is our quest, to try and make sense out of Scripture and to encourage others to delve into God’s word with some sense of purpose. Will you join us? Do you have questions about exploring scripture that you would like to ask (I can’t promise I have an answer)? Stay tuned!
Pat