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Scripture

How can we read the Bible in such a way that no part of it is discarded as meaningless or irrelevant today? This has three sub-questions:

How should we interpret the Bible? [take the Bible to be human writing and of an pre-theoretical rather than theoretical attitude]
At what levels should we interpret the Bible? [bhg]
With what world-view lens should we undertake our interpretation? [nv]

How to Interpret Scripture?

I will relate how I understand how I interpret Scripture. The following account is not yet complete.

NT Wright identifies four methods of reading the New Testament [why only New Testament?] [see Berriman]:

pre-critical (which was used to defend against Enlightenment rationalism),
historical (he says that Christianity is continually reinventing Jesus in its own image),
theological and
postmodern (concerned with relationship between reader and text).

I think we take in elements of each but go beyond these, so New View is not just a sum of them. We add:

linguistic: what is spoken and written is multi-aspectual human activity, as well as a coding of meaning (linguists call this pragmatics as well as semantics)
at-face-value: why did the writer write this way rather than another, and why did the speaker say this rather than something else?
pre-theoretical: relationship to everyday lifeworld, both of the original setting and today.

How to interpret Scripture? Not as a dictation from God (as Muslims and Mormons believe their Scriptures to be), nor as a text book full of information (as fundamentalists believe it to be), nor as a sacred book (as mediaeval Roman Catholicism saw it), nor as an object of criticism to pull apart (as Enlightenment unbelievers saw it). But ...

Rather, I consider the act of writing,
think that it tells me X, and ask myself
"If the writer had believed X, would they have written this,
or would they have more than likely written something else?"
Doing that gives us the X as a valid interpretation of what is written.

How do we know what the writers and recorded speakers believed? How can we know whether the writers had true insight into the things of God?

I take the writers to have had a certain world-view,
a certain insight into what God is like and what his 'cosmic plan' is
in creating, in making humanity within creation, and in acting in his creation.
I assume this world-view pervades entire Scripture, none irrelevant.
I seek a world-view that makes sense of all Scripture.

How do we apply Scripture? Not primarily letting verses 'jump out' at us. Not primarily as proof texts to prove or disprove our propositional beliefs or theories. Though sometimes we can indeed apply pieces of Scripture in those ways, I prefer ...

I look for principles behind what is written or said.
I ask "Why?" and "Why not something else?"
I try to understand something of the historical situation.
Then I see how those principles were implemented in that situation.
I try to apply them in my situation, while aware of other principles too,
and aware of the times I live in and the past and present.
Crucially, I draw principles from an everyday perspective,
and am suspicious of principles rooted in religious theory or doctrine.
Example: stuff from Westminster Confession or Roman Catholic beliefs.

Am I not feared of getting it wrong? Or do I think my interpretation is 'the correct one'? Neither ...

All interpretation is a responsible act.
It involves what has been called double hermeneutic:
my understanding of the detail informing my view of the whole,
and my view of the whole informing my understanding of the detail.
Getting it right is not on its own going to bring salvation,
because it is God who brings salvation.
And getting it wrong is not a huge problem
because Jesus Christ died to cover and counteract all evil.
So I try to be humbly, cautiously bold and innovative.

At What Levels Should We Read Scripture?

The most important level at which to interpret Scripture is one that seems least used:

to see the broad-brush messages that Scripture teaches us.
This is the approach of A Brief History of God.

Then look for principles that arise from these. Then apply these.

More to be written.

With What World-view Lens Should We View Scripture?

I look for an understanding of God's cosmic plan that is reasonably commensurate with all that is written in Scripture. The only one I have found so far is that being explored and developed as 'A New View'.

One crucial element of the world-view with which I approach Scripture is that the Old and New Testaments together, relate humanity's experience of the Living God, including God's real action in the world, to a degree that is "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" [II Tim. 3:16]. (There is one exception to that, the pre-human start of Genesis, which I take to be revelation.) As far as I can tell they are unique among all writings in the world in so doing, and is by a long, long way the best guide to all this, which can be relied on. This is what I understand when it is claimed that these two Testaments are 'the Word of God'.

More to be written.

This page is offered to God as on-going work in developing a 'New View' in theology that is appropriate to the days that are coming upon us. Comments, queries welcome.

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Created: 30 August 2009. Last updated: