Category Archives: Interpretation of Bible

More urban legends of the Old Testament

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Having compiled a couple of sets relating to texts in the New Testament, I thought I’d take a look at some commonly-misunderstood texts from the Old Testament.  These are discussed more fully in the Bible Study Notes.

Here’s a start:-

Genesis 1 – Gap theory.  Is there a ‘gap’ between verses 1 and 2?  According to some, there first two verses teach that God created the heavens and the earth ‘in the beginning’ and that the earth became (some unspecified interval later) formless and void. …

Making sense of what the Bible says about God

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The Bible says many different things about God, at many different times and by many different people.  It is all too easy (wrote Ian Paul some while ago) to simply read the words on the page and then decide whether we think we believe them or not.

Think of the passage in Numbers 15:32-36, where God says concerning the man who was caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath, “The man must die”.

It is conceivable (just!)…

Ten suggestions for reading Old Testament Narrative

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Here’s some sound advice from Colin Adams, with examples from 2 Samuel.

1) Try and grasp the overall point of the book. 

The overall point of 2nd Samuel is that God is establishing an eternal kingdom through David. Even David’s grotesque sin will not stop the promise and grace of God.

2) Read in big chunks – narrative often tells you ‘a little, in a lot.’

Chapters 2 to 5 of 2nd Samuel are basically about God raising David to power.…

Tabernacle: symbolism and meaning

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Writing in the Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, John Oswalt says that, while it is possible to read too much into the detailed instructions for the construction of the tabernacle (in Exodus 25ff), the main points are clear enough.

I summarise:

Several colours are significant.  White suggests the purity of God and the needed purity of his people.  Blue indicates God’s transcendence; purple, his royalty, and red, the blood that must be shed if sinful humans are to approach a holy God.…

Gay marriage and the ‘trajectory’ of Scripture

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The ‘trajectory’ argument, briefly, is that there are certain practices (such as slavery) that are permitted in Scripture, but Scripture itself sows the seeds of their eventual abolition.  Conversely, there are certain practices (such as same-sex relations) that are forbidden in Scripture, but Scripture itself sows the seeds of their acceptance.

The Bishop of Bangor in the Church in Wales, Andy John, has invoked such a trajectory argument in his support of marriage for homosexual couples.…

Handling Bible difficulties

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In The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe identify a number of mistakes people make when approaching the difficulties and alleged contradictions of the Bible.

Although these authors’ view of biblical inerrancy is not one that commands my complete agreement, I am happy to offer (with a few minor modifications) their main points on the subject of approaching Bible difficulties:

1. Assuming that the unexplained is inexplicable: Humility requires that we admit that we don’t have all the answers. …

Intentional ‘contradictions’ in John’s writings

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In Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know about Them), Bart D. Ehrman writes about one of his ‘favourite apparent discrepancies’ in John’s Gospel:-

It ‘comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?”

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Don’t overspecify the biblical text!

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Mark Ward comments on the (otherwise excellent) conference speaker who, referring to Titus 2:4, said that because phileo is ‘friendship love’, it’s important for husbands and wives, and parents and children, to be friends.  Although there may well be some truth in this (Ward remarks), as far as the text in Titus is concerned, it is reading too much into the word; it is ‘overspecifying’ the text.  Husbands and wives are to be lovers, and not just friends. …

Gender, language, and interpretation

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Women who interpret the Bible find three challenges regarding language and gender.

First, there is the problem of the generic use of words such as ‘man’, ‘mankind’, ‘he’, ‘him’, and so on.  It is argued that the continued use of such vocabulary, in contexts in which both men and women are in view, obscures the participation of women in the stories which the text relates.  Some modern translations of the Bible strive to minimise this problem by using expressions such as ‘brothers and sisters’, ‘person’, ‘human being’, ‘humankind’, where both men and women are being referred to, or where the gender is not specified.…

Ten principles for interpreting narratives

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The following ‘ten commandments’ will help keep the preacher on the straight and narrow when dealing with Old Testament narratives:-

  1. An Old Testament narrative usually does not directly teach a doctrine.
  2. An Old Testament narrative usually illustrates a doctrine or doctrines taught propositionally elsewhere.
  3. Narratives record what happened-not necessarily what should have happened or what ought to happen every time. Therefore, not every narrative has an individual identifiable moral of the story.
  4. What people do in narratives is not necessarily a good example for us.
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