Correct interpretations

[thomat65]

But when we’re talking about the Bible there’s an even more obvious problem. Take something like the story of Issac being sacrificed by Abraham. It’s often interpreted as a statement against human sacrifice. And that it probably is. BUT it also prefigured the crucifixion. “God Himself will provide the sacrifice”.

Sorry I skipped over you on accident in my string of replies.

You said this is a problem, but isn’t it only a problem if the story about Isaac necessarily requires two different meanings? Just because something is interpreted in two different ways doesn’t mean there were actually two intentions of the original author. For example, it could have been talking about the crucifixion all along and no one realized it until further along salvation history.

I’m not even really sure about how many intentions there are. Even me saying “(probably single)” in parentheses was probably too strong. It’s kind of a sloppy statement anyway… as I write this reply I have multiple intentions: to convince, to learn, etc. But at the same time, “Jesus wept” cannot mean “Jesus didn’t weep in the sense of John 11:35”, so the meaning of a passage is necessarily limited. How limited, I wonder?

 

[nightshade]

I am saying I follow the teachings of the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. I do not follow some schismatic group started within the past 500 years by some individual fallen man who decided to take it upon himself to try and bend God’s will to his own instead of letting “thy will be done”.

 

[adf417]

I think the question that remains is the subjective one: objectively what justifies that one interpretation is actually from the Holy Spirit is if it was actually given by him.

I think we may be saying the same thing here.

If I may be a bit of a troll: but you personally understand the pillar and foundation of the truth to be the RCC, correct? And so you are relying on your personal understanding.

And surely it isn’t good to trust an interpretation because an external entity brought it forward who merely claims to be the pillar and foundation (in the sense that you already personally thought pillar and foundation meant)?

Actually i am relying on the persecution of the body of Christ, the church. I haven’t found a time in history that this persecution wasn’t against the RCC. Can you give an example when the church being persecuted was NOT the RCC?

Peace!!!

 

[Magnanimity]

Truth is correct by definition.

Reality, and those propositional truths that correspond to it, is multivalent (multifaceted). The scriptures themselves hold this multivalence within. I was responding to your comment that “An interpretation is correct if it accurately explains the (probably single) intention of the original author.” That comment of yours, does it imply what I was criticizing, you think–the one-and-only meaning of a text is what the reader is trying to discover?

So if you hold, as you probably do, that the sacred scriptures are a hybrid of authorship, since they are “God-breathed” (inspired), then for any particular canonical text, God is an author and the human writer is an author. Somehow, those two things work together to produce (say) the book of Genesis. If this is so, then in one way it really doesn’t matter what the (probably single) intention of the original human author was. Why would it? If God is involved in the process of the authorship, then the meaning(s) can easily transcend whatever limited (even singular) intention was in the mind of the human author.

 

[Magnanimity]

And now if we take concrete examples, I think that what I’m suggesting above may become a little more obvious to you. In 1 Samuel 15, the story reveals that God had put the ‘ban’ on the Amalekites, which entailed something rather dramatic–that Saul and his army was to utterly obliterate everyone and everything connected with the Amalekites. Who was to be destroyed? Every man, woman, child and all livestock–utter annihilation of anything ‘Amalekitey.’ 1 Sam 15:3 reads, " Go, now, attack Amalek, and put under the ban everything he has. Do not spare him; kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys." We know what happens with the rest of the chapter–king Saul mostly completes the genocide but keeps just the king alive as well as some of the choice livestock. God appears to Samuel and expresses his regret at having chosen Saul, and then Samuel goes to Saul, rebukes him, takes the sword and it ends in the hacking bloodbath of king Amalek…

OK, so on just a straightforward reading of this text (something like an atheist completely outside of any Christian tradition would do), one reasonably concludes that this god of Saul and Samuel is genocidal–so thoroughly genocidal that he will command the killing, not merely of the soldiers, but of the women, children and even (yes, the text actually says this) the infants too. That last conjures up particularly brutal imagery–one imagines a soldier taking an infant from its mother’s arms only to…what exactly? Bash in its brains? Knife it through the heart? Truly repulsive stuff. This god also apparently makes mistakes (like installing the wrong king) and feels regret for his mistakes. This god appears to Samuel and says, “I regret having made Saul king, for he has turned from me and has not kept my command.” But the brutal and genocidal god has his human advocates who will take care of business (Samuel) who, though not a soldier and merely a prophet, can nevertheless wield a sword and cut another human into “pieces.”

So, as you’re surely aware, 1 Samuel 15 is just one among many many many OT passages that express a profound barbarism, if merely taken at face-value–if simply read as if God wants me to know some history about his original people. I believe that I just enumerated the “correct” interpretation of this passage. I didn’t at all say all that could be said about it, just highlighted some of the biggies.

But what would an allegorical understanding of 1 Samuel 15 give us? An allegorical reading would give us something actually useful, if not beautiful, in our spiritual lives. See this short video for an example.

We didn’t even get to the creation stories. Oracularist literalism is not a plausible way to approach the sacred scriptures, and no one does it consistently. It’s actually impossible to not import preexisting theology into these biblical stories, especially the opening pages of Genesis. None of us merely reads the text and discovers the singular intention of the author when it comes to Genesis chapters 2-3 (how the clever snake outwitted the gods and man in the magical garden and lost its feet).

 

[sallybutler]

One interpretation I don’t understand is the issue of musical instruments. How do some denominations justify not allowing musical instruments during worship services while others think it is just fine?

I realize this may not be a great theological issue, but it does seem that something is amiss with the way the Bible is interpreted.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Can you expand on why you believe humans having infallible knowledge necessarily follows from God’s attributes?

I don’t think that the bishops have infallible knowledge, so much so that they’re kept from error by the Holy Spirit.

What if God instead has given means and methods which only yield a high level of confidence instead of absolute certainty?

Well, given the number of early Church heresies, given the number of Protestant denominations, given the number of pseudo-Christian groups (e.g. LDS, JW), and given the number of early Church heresies in certain Protestant circles, I’m not sure Scripture alone can yield a high level of confidence. Within Protestantism, there isn’t even really an established, well-defined method of interpreting Scripture, at least not one that holds up to scrutiny of its reasoning or application to doctrine.

Now, sure, you could reasonably argue that, on a personal level, we can’t do much better than high level of certainty, provided we can even reach that. However, I find it difficult to believe that a God allegedly so concerned with truth, Who would presumably know the many, many errors that would arise around His teaching, wouldn’t give us some infallible interpreter who can be known beyond, “I agree with their interpretation.”

To build on that, why is a fourth party not necessary to infallibly interpret the outputs of the third-party Magisterium

The thing about an interpreter over Scripture is that the interpreter can clarify. Heck, much of what we believe about Trinitarianism came from many years of increasing clarification on the topic. Is the Apostle’s Creed not clear enough? Then read the Nicene Creed. Is the Nicene Creed not clear enough? Then read the Athanasian Creed. That’s just one example.

With that said, I’m more concerned about the preservation of teaching than necessarily giving an individual absolute certainty. When it comes to the Catholic (and even Orthodox) Church, there’s a sense where we can reasonably say that they have authority from Christ Himself. And I know some Protestant groups claim to have totally inerrant confessions, but there would be no reason for me to think that other than it agreeing with me on everything, and that’s kind of the problem here.

 

[ZMystiCat]

(Sorry for the double post. This couldn’t fit in one post.)

I’d be interested in hearing some examples of passages that require multiple interpretations.

One that exists in Scripture itself is Genesis 2:24. Jesus interpreted it in a way to criticize divorce (Matt. 19:4-6), and Paul both interpreted it as a reason to avoid adultery (1 Cor. 6:15-16) and as a foreshadowing of Christ and His Church (Eph. 5:31-32). Sure, that last one can easily lead us to conclude the first two (and many other things), but it is still a lot outside the base reading of God simply instituting marriage.

But even beyond that, many Old Testament stories can be read as self-contained stories with a moral teaching while also being a foreshadowing of Christ.

And at the risk of getting too Catholic, there’s also Jesus calling Mary “woman” at Cana. St. Louis de Monteforte commented that this was to keep Mary hidden for a time, but one could also reasonably read it as a call back to Genesis and the New Adam declaring His New Eve. The two interpretations, though, can coexist, even if they are getting at two completely unrelated aspects of Christ and Mary.

 

[TULIPed]

Excellent. So you use commentaries that you believe conform with your personal interpretation of the Bible - or have been recommended to you by somebody. As do I.

We reformed Protestants have catechisms and confessions - like the Westminster and Helvetica for example. Do you have those as well?

 

[thomat65]

Bump. Sorry, no time to reply yet but I don’t want this thread to close.

 

[Dovekin]

When someone writes something, it is usually with the idea that it will be read (or heard). Usually the writer also expects to be understood, or tries to say things in a way that will be understood. This means the reader will intellectually grasp what the writer wanted to write. The writer and the reader will share an idea, though with different orientations to it. The idea may correspond with external realities, it may be true. That is distinct from the writer thinks it is true, the reader understands correctly, the reader thinks it is true, etc.

“Tear down the wall!”

President Reagan addressed that comment to Gorbachev 30+ years ago. (I am not using a biblical text to set some questions aside for now) It was a confrontational remark, one leader commanding another. Both knew it referred to the Berlin Wall; probably both knew G had no power to do it.

If a Democratic candidate were to use the same phrase today, most would understand it as referring to the wall Trump has proposed for the border. Context in which a statement is made matters! The dynamics are completely different today because a.the wall has not been built; b.there is no conflict like that between R and G; and c.the same phrase was already used, by R.

Robert Frost wrote “Mending Wall” over a century ago. “Good fences make good neighbors” is one of the points of it. R, in his most confrontational mode, is asking G to collaborate. G does not obey the command literally, he could not, but he did promote perestroika and glasnost, openness and “restructuring” which amounted to the same thing. The freedom that resulted led to others tearing down the wall so the Germans could become “good neighbors.”

Reagan spoke, Gorbachev (and others) heard. Writers write, readers read. What is the correct understanding? The literal, tear down the Berlin wall? G’s metaphorical openness and rebuilding? What was R’s intent? Literal? Metaphoric? Both?

Interpretation gets harder when you add on spiritual questions and truth claims. Even in these few political words, many layers of meaning exist. There are at least two understandings, the writer’s and the reader’s, and possibly more, the text and the truth. G heard a remark about a street in Germany, and worked to create openness in Russia.