Quotes About Interpretation

Wherever biblical writers talk about the past, we should expect them to be shaping the past as well.

The Bible is not, never has been, and never will be the center of the Christian faith.

Without its unwavering commitment to adaptation over time, the Bible would have died a quick death over two thousand years ago. Its existence as a source of spiritual truth that transcends specific times and places is made possible by its flexibility and adaptive nature—one of the many paradoxes we need to embrace when it comes to the Bible.

The point of all this is that the book of Exodus as we know it simply could not be as old as the thirteenth century BCE, and could not have been written by Moses.

It may be hard—sometimes impossible—to see the history in Israel's stories, but we do get a good picture of how these ancient Israelites experienced God.

the Bible is ancient, ambiguous, and diverse.

Christians should not search through the creation stories for scientific information they believe it is important to see there. They should read it, as the New Testament writers did, as ancient stories transformed in Christ.

The real Jesus can only be truly understood from a later vantage point—interpreted after the resurrection when the broader implications of who Jesus was and what he did could be better grasped. That is the Jesus the Gospel writers give us, each in his own way.

The problem isn't the Bible. The problem is coming to the Bible with expectations it's not set up to bear.

Maybe the Bible isn't God's owner's manual for us that answers all our questions about God and lays a script out for us to follow as we walk along the Christian path.

If we think of the gospel as simply rolling right off the Old Testament tongue, we will be wrong. And we will fail to appreciate how creative the New Testament writers were in working out the day-to-day real-time implications of all of this.

And here is the bigger point of all this: How the Bible addresses this one topic of child rearing is a window onto how inadequate (and truly unbiblical) a rulebook view of the Bible as a whole is.

The point is that Proverbs 26:4–5 doesn't tell me what to do. It wasn't designed to. It models something better: the permission to think it through, figure it out, and learn from experience for next time. In fact, more than just giving us permission, the contradiction sets up our expectation that we will have to think it through.

As quite distinct from Jewish interpretation, the history of modern evangelical interpretation exhibits a strong degree of discomfort with the tensions and ambiguities of Scripture.

Then we have the Gospel of John, the odd man out. John's story of Jesus is so out of step with the others that it is sometimes hard to see how he could be talking about the same person.

It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview, such as whether the days were literal or figurative, or whether the days of creation can be lined up with modern science, or whether the flood was local or universal. The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether Yahweh, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

Interpretation though the filters of ideology has always been one of our race's curses.

Interpretation through the filters of ideology has always been one of our race's curses.

I believe I understand, friend Orion," Tochee said. "You are attracted to the young female of your species. Is she one totally fuckable babe?

Humans are so fascinating, aren't we? If ten of us are each given our own piano, we'll play eleven different tunes.

Despite Alexandre's considerable height, Dellian could never

He never did understand why people admired or even collected art. The greatest human artist could never hope to match what nature did with a single flower.