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Is everything in the Bible supposed to be taken literally? I told the mountain to move but it didn't... does that mean I'm not a Christian?
Creators and Guests
What is Quest with Kirk Durston?
Kirk is a philosopher, scientist, husband, and a legit Christian. His podcast is mostly about exploring assumptions and questions pertaining to God, philosophy, science and life that he ponders about, hence the name Quest with Kirk Durston.
Kirk wants you to join him on that Quest or perhaps you're on your own quest about such matters and you can explore together.
All right.
Hello, Kirk.
How are you?
I am doing well, Sheldon.
Pretty short night of sleeping,
but that's usually my problem.
Just need to get to bed on time.
And I'm assuming there's some coffee
involved.
Actually, yeah,
this here is a double espresso.
It just really helps.
I only have two.
A little bit of rocket fuel in the
morning to keep you going.
Yeah, well,
this morning I had to go to the
dentist.
You know,
not one of my favorite activities,
but I had to get my fangs polished.
They look nice and bright today.
Yeah,
I try not to show them to too
many people because of all the coffee
drinking I do, they're not exactly white.
Although she did polish them,
so they are a little whiter.
Not as coffee colored as normal.
Well, that's nice.
That's nice.
I've already had a tea and some sandwiches
and stuff like that,
so who knows what's in my teeth.
Okay, so what's happened this week?
We had an election up in Canada.
We sure did.
Depending on your viewpoint on it was
either terrible or great.
Depending on what your viewpoint on it
is...
who do you blame and that's a more
interesting question it is it is and then
there's the other idea it's like why did
you have faith in these people to begin
with if you were really uh well worth
discussing as well like it's not in a
democracy it's not just the person that
gets elected it's the people who elect
them and all the stuff that goes on
back you know i think we've maybe had
talked about that a while back but yeah
there's certainly more room to discuss
that
Yeah, I'm a little bit,
a little bit wondering, okay,
like we know that God sets up
our leaders,
and usually it's in a response to what
he saw coming.
Yeah,
and the population and everything else.
It's not necessarily,
you don't necessarily get what you want,
but what the population needs from God's
perspective.
Yeah, and usually it's, well,
it's either a disciplinary action or it's
used to
turn people back to god so like as
as this election was happening i was also
remembering uh just reading judges and oh
what is right in their own eyes and
all right well here we go we'll see
what happens
In fact,
I saw an interesting thing posted by a
fellow who's pretty progressive,
way progressive actually, not just pretty,
but it was a chart,
which wasn't that bad,
on the different political parties,
and then you did a quiz,
and it plots where you are on that
chart,
and then you can vote for the person
that's closest to you.
But as I looked at this, I thought,
well,
there's a very obvious question to ask
here,
setting aside any biases on where these
guys are in the chart.
But assuming those biases weren't there,
which is a pretty big one,
the real question is,
am I where I should be on this
chart?
That is a much more interesting question
and one I think Canadians and all people
really need to think about.
They just assume where I am is the
correct spot and then what politician is
closest to this.
But the real question is,
am I in the correct spot?
And until that question is answered,
it's just like, wow,
you're out there on a raft in the
ocean.
You may be miles from where you ought
to be.
Yep.
Anyway,
it's enough of the political talk because
that's just annoying.
Even if a person, well,
a person I voted for won,
but didn't help me,
not going to really help at all.
No.
If you live out west, yeah.
Even if what I wanted to happen happened,
it would be like,
I still don't think we'd be in a
good place.
Oh, no.
Interesting times.
Very interesting times.
Yeah,
so let's get into the topic at hand.
You sent me some talking points, but this,
like,
how should we interpret the Bible is an
interesting question,
especially in the age we live in.
And probably looking back, I think...
our age isn't a whole lot different than
other points in time.
Maybe our age,
it's actually easier to interpret the
Bible because we have so much help in
doing so with at least our Bibles in
the language that we can read it in.
And there's many different opportunities
to look at different
different versions or translations of the
originals as much as we have.
So there's a lot there.
But why don't you give a little bit
of background as to why this topic right
now for you?
Yeah.
Well,
I have had a big interest in this
topic.
I have actually studied the Bible on a
daily basis for about, let's see,
it'd be about sixty-two years now,
pretty much on a daily basis.
Taking notes, writing stuff down,
what do I see, that sort of thing.
And then I would say probably in my
mid to late twenties I started teaching
various books in the Bible.
I think the very first book I ever
taught through was Jeremiah.
I don't necessarily recommend that as a
person starting a book.
It's not really easy.
But it was really...
Isaiah wasn't available for you at the
time or something?
Well,
thank goodness they didn't want me to do
numbers or something.
So I've taught through a lot of books
of the Bible.
And even as I've read the Bible,
studied it on a daily basis,
I realized that some of the things that
I had simply believed when I was younger
had been taught or read about...
Really had issues with other passages in
the scripture.
So the issue of well,
how did I arrive at an interpretation?
That was so obviously
wrong in the past and how do I...
So this kind of stuff.
And then I began to interact with other
people.
Of course,
if you're discussing Bible passages or
Bible principles or whatever with people,
whether they're atheists, agnostic,
church, unchurch, it doesn't matter.
The issue of their understanding of what
the Bible says really comes up.
How do they understand it?
so um in along this whole process i
took a seminary course in hermeneutics
which is the discipline of how to
interpret um language stuff in general in
the bible special application
so uh and just this week about four
or five days ago a fellow emailed me
who has a a very obvious bias and
how what he wants the bible to say
with his rules his fundamental rules of
interpretation and i think it'll be
interesting for us if we have time to
take a look at some of those rules
because it'll give us actual illustrations
of good rules and really bad rules.
And so that's how I got in.
We have a big need because today it's
all over the map,
what people think the Bible says,
and that's where we really are.
One really bad example,
about the worst you can get, I suppose,
was the so-called Christian student
leader.
He would identify as a Christian.
But, wow,
like the stuff that he was promoting,
I just had to go visit him in
his office one day and just find out
more.
And the issue of what the Bible says,
of course,
would come up if you're claiming to be
a Christian.
And his emphasis,
his fundamental premise was this.
the last thing about the bible means when
you read it is what it appears to
say if you're reading the bible and
appears to say something you can cross
that off the list of what it actually
means what it actually means is you have
to sort of wait on some sort of
special direction from god in his case i
think he was getting a lot of that
direction from the culture not from god
but it was very vague it was always
personal and he would out he would affirm
that you know it can mean all sorts
of things to different people but one
thing it definitely does not mean is what
it appears to say and that would be
the most extreme case that i ran into
Although I ran into another close one.
It was a huge forum at the University
of Toronto.
And the question was something like
Christianity and homosexuality.
And they had four or five clergy.
One was really famous on the stage,
all giving their perspective.
And it was pretty much all more aligned
with what the culture thinks it should
say.
But there was an atheist in the crowd
from the Soviet Union.
and this was shortly after the Soviet
Union had collapsed and students more
readily accessible were able to access
Canadian universities.
And he stood up and spoke in a
heavy Russian accent and he was very much
an atheist.
He identified himself right off the bat.
And he said,
First of all,
I'm an atheist and you Christians have a
problem He says if you have to work
so hard to argue that the Bible says
the exact opposite of what it appears to
say Why don't you just throw it away?
And then he sat down,
and it was like a whip cracked in
the room,
and there was hundreds of people there.
And the moderator turned to the stage.
Not one of the people wanted to respond
to that.
Not one of the clergy had an answer.
So there was this awkward silence.
It went on for quite a while,
the awkward silence.
And then the moderator said, interesting,
next question.
And that, again,
underscores some of the extremes we have
and the problems we face in interpreting
the Bible.
Yeah,
I just go back to when I was
in Bible college and we'd do our studies,
we'd write our papers and you go to
your sources and you figure out, okay,
what are these different sources say?
And I remember at the end,
after a four-year degree,
you have to do your doctrinal paper and
say,
what do you believe about these different
things?
And it's like, well,
I would like it to be this.
but I can't tell because it doesn't
actually say it exactly the way any of
these different opinions say it.
So it's like, I'm, I'm assuming I'm like,
when it comes to the rapture,
is it pre-trib, whatever?
So I'm like, well,
I'm whatever God is because if I'm
pre-trib and he's not,
I'm not going anywhere before he wants me
to.
If it's mid-trib, it's like, well, I,
I'm like, what's going on here?
So I'm like,
here's what the different people say that
are way smarter than me,
that have spent way more time studying.
And I'm just going to have to go
with whatever God is and not be dogmatic
about it because it's not clear.
There's some stuff that is clear.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a very important point, Sheldon,
is that often people,
and even people who teach through books of
the Bible, feel this, well,
we're going to have to resolve everything
so that everybody's questions are answered
and we all are on the same page.
No, if you try and do that,
you really probably shouldn't be teaching
the Bible if you actually think that
you're going to resolve everything because
you're not.
You might think you do, but
but you're just going to annoy people
because you are going to have to commit
some
techniques of manipulation,
of intimidation,
or simply exegetical fallacies.
You're going to have to gloss over some
things.
So there are some things that legitimately
I put on the back burner of the
figurative stove, so to speak,
and they'll simmer away there for years.
And sometimes an answer will pop out,
but a lot of times no,
and I am quite convinced.
In fact, the more I study,
the more depth I see in the Bible,
and I will not have all the answers
by the time this world ends.
But as you say,
some things are really clear,
and there really is no way out.
And so it's actually a spectrum that we
handle.
It's not just a simple either or,
this or that type of thing.
So why don't we get into some of
the rules you follow when you're
As you're studying and when you're going
into it.
And do you make a distinction between your
devotional time and your Bible study time?
Like,
I know that's something that I've heard
people do.
And it's like, okay,
this is now I'm going to get deep
here.
Where, like...
My devotional time might be more about,
okay,
I'm spending time with God instead of
spending time focused on what these words
mean in Greek or Hebrew.
Oh, you're cracking up on me.
I'm losing you.
You're muted.
You might have to switch over to your
laptop mic again.
While I'm waiting for Kirk to come back,
don't forget to like and subscribe and hit
that bell so you'll know when we are
coming back.
And we know that a lot of people,
I still can't hear you,
but you are muted in StreamYard.
I know most people are going to watch
this after.
So if you are watching this after we're
already gone,
you can leave a comment still.
We will respond to those as you can.
And again,
like we would love even the controversial
comments.
Tell us where we're wrong.
Because we sometimes are.
I was wrong once.
I believe it was twenty eighteen.
And no, no,
it had to be a twenty eighteen because
I'm not wrong today.
Go ahead, Kirk.
Yeah, I switched mics over to my laptop.
Crown quality is probably not the
greatest,
but it'll be better than not hearing me.
So where were we here?
Well,
that might be up for debate depending on
what people think.
But is there a distinction between, say,
what we might call daily devotions,
which is, you know,
your time alone with God,
reading the Bible, praying and so forth?
And heavy-duty inductive Bible study,
especially the kind that you're going to
have to do if you're going to stand
up and teach a course or a series
of seminars.
Typically when I teach through,
like I'm teaching through the book of
Romans right now,
and we've been working at that for well
since last September.
And we are only about halfway through.
So that's a much more rigorous in-depth
where you're worried about that.
Okay, but here's the difference.
So in order to really understand,
and this relates to how to interpret the
Bible,
to understand and do a good job of
it, you need two things.
You have to have a...
broad enough background knowledge of the
Bible,
or at least it's very helpful to have
a broad background knowledge so that when
you are doing a deep dive into a
specific passage, you will know, oh,
there's something else about this over
here,
and I remember that over there speaks to
this as well, and oh, yes,
and over here in this book of the
Bible, it clarifies such and such.
When I have daily devotions,
I usually almost never do a deep dive
into the Greek and the Hebrew and stuff
like that.
Rather, I'm just reading for enjoyment.
In fact, I'm just spending time with God,
and I'm reading,
and I like to read through the Bible
every nine months and just soak it in,
get my background knowledge,
and I'm still seeing, wow, look at this,
look at that,
and I'm recording them in my journal.
So that's a different thing.
If I did a deep dive for my
personal devotions,
it would take me probably decades to get
through one reading of the Bible,
maybe in my life.
So I have to have both.
I have to do deep diving on specific
things,
and then I do broad background reading in
my daily devotions.
And then those inductive studies that you
do, that does, though...
focus you in your devotional so that
you're aware of what that scripture you're
reading then is.
So you do want to spend some time
on the inductive side of things so that
your devotionals are actually,
you have the context.
Yeah, well, okay,
you mentioned an important word that maybe
some of our listeners might be unfamiliar
with, inductive Bible study.
You could, there's,
depending on how deep you want to go
or how detailed,
but basically there are three aspects to
it.
One is observation.
The other is interpretation.
Observation is what does the passage say.
Interpretation is what does it mean,
especially to the people of the day who
he's writing to or whatever.
And then application is what do I need
to do about this?
What does this tell me about the way
I need to live or about my
knowledge of God, that sort of thing.
Now you can actually break that up into
smaller divisions like correlation and so
forth, but that's inductive study.
So by far the most important aspect of
inductive Bible study and being able to
interpret the Bible accurately
is the observation phase,
is the observation.
So if I'm asked to speak on a
particular passage,
let's say this Sunday I have to,
I'm giving the message.
I don't often preach,
but sometimes when I do,
it's maybe four times a year.
I'm asked to speak on a particular
passage,
which is Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.
So I will read and reread that passage.
I like to know the further ahead the
better.
So sometimes I'll read it for months if
I have enough lead time.
And all I'm doing is observation,
not even taking notes.
I'm just reading and rereading.
And then when I sit down to actually...
put together my talk, it goes very quick.
Because I've seen so much.
I've noticed that I've observed it.
It talks about this elsewhere in other
passages.
You just suddenly bring it all together.
But observation is the key.
And even in daily devotions,
daily Bible reading,
the key thing I'm doing there is
observing.
And if I see something that's really
interesting that might involve
interpretation, correlation,
diving into the Greek and Hebrew,
I'll make a note of that and I'll
do that later,
but not during my time where I'm just
enjoying and soaking up the Bible.
All right.
Well,
let's get into some of the other
principles.
Observation is one of those things that
obviously is important as you do it.
But what are you observing and what do
you do with that information after you've
observed?
So let's get into some of those rules.
yeah well i got um i mean i
took a whole master's course in this this
went on for let me get so you're
just getting some of the key things here
but i want to say this is that
all this whole discipline of pro of these
rules that i'm going to say are actually
just emerge out of rules that people
intuitively
use in everyday life when we're trying to
understand what somebody else is saying.
And therefore I want to assure you,
you don't need a seminary course in how
to interpret the Bible.
I found that these same rules of
interpretation are absolutely essential
when I was going through my master's
program in philosophy.
and analyzing other people's arguments.
What did he say?
What does he mean?
What is this word?
How is he using that word?
And it's really amazing.
In fact,
when I took hermeneutics as a seminary
course,
I was amazed that it was almost identical
to just secular hermeneutics that you will
use in philosophy or the study of law.
literature, English literature,
for example.
I didn't realize it at the time in
grade twelve,
but my English literature teacher was
often employing these basic rules of
interpretation.
So what are they?
Number one... Just to interrupt though,
Kirk,
are you saying that I can use these
rules when trying to figure out what my
wife is meaning?
Well, okay.
I do need some special stuff on that.
I'm just kidding.
Go ahead.
I think knowing the person,
knowing the context.
Okay.
Actually,
one of the rules is what does this
mean within the larger context?
So when it comes to interpersonal
relationships,
and specifically husband and wife,
you know that person.
And so you know what they really mean
when they say they're fine.
yeah or how much did you spend on
this you might say well it's just a
question they want a number for an answer
nope they're actually concerned that
you're blowing the budget that's the real
interpretation there but that you will
find out using one of the basic rules
of interpretation or hermeneutics which is
What does this statement or this word mean
within the context within which it was
used?
That could be a relationship.
It could be a paragraph.
It could be a book.
It could be a particular series of cases
in law or a particular field of study
in philosophy.
So what does this mean within the context?
That is one.
Now, there is a special rule
This goes a little bit further when it
comes to interpreting the Bible.
And that is the scripture interprets
scripture.
Now, that might,
we do use something similar in philosophy,
for example, is that, well,
how does this author,
what other things has this author written?
What other papers has he published?
I want to read those papers as well
so that when I summarize what he's saying,
I'm doing it accurately.
I have an accurate understanding.
but i don't always say well he defined
ultimately defines what is true here and
you don't do that in philosophy you're
actually often reading papers with the
question of challenging what they're
trying to portray but if you have made
a step of faith that is that a
scripture
that no revelation of scriptures,
I'm quoting from second Peter here,
is a matter of one's own interpretation,
but men moved by the Holy Spirit wrote
as the Spirit directed them.
What you're seeing there is even what they
wrote was not their interpretation.
they were guided by maybe not word for
word because their style was still
committed but the idea for idea concept
for concept and sometimes and every word
is important although they're you could
say the same thing in different ways but
it's not um it
it ultimately if you want to bring
something to bear here and say what does
this scripture mean you're not going to go
read some philosophy paper or more often
you're not going to necessarily look at
archaeological reports for some place now
you might say well why not no i'm
not removing the importance of archaeology
and history here because that enters in to
this very same principle and that is what
does the word mean
because people who say sola scriptura,
or it's scripture alone,
they don't need anything else,
they forget that the original documents
were written in Hebrew, Aramaic,
and Greek,
and we need to know what those words
meant.
And that's when you start,
you have to rely on other sources in
a lot of times,
like other ancient contemporary historical
writings at the time, if you can,
particularly in the New Testament,
where there are a lot of ancient koine
greek manuscripts and other fields to read
and then you have a more accurate idea
the linguists then say oh it means this
in fact you another principle when you're
saying what is i i state here this
is another principle understand the
generally accepted definitions of words
Now,
people often make a mistake in thinking a
word has only one definition, one meaning.
But many words are what my philosophy prof
called multivocal.
That is, they have more than one meaning.
And so you have to know what their
semantic range is.
That is,
for each meaning that word may have,
it has sort of a range.
It's not a very tight, often very tight,
specific thing.
It may have a certain amount of range
to it.
And then you put,
let's say if it has three or four
meanings,
now you have to say which one of
these meanings makes the most sense within
the context.
So that's another thing.
And it's the context of when it was
written,
not the context of when you're reading it.
Exactly, exactly.
Because you use the word gay in the
forties or the fifties of the nineteen
hundreds,
it means something totally different than
the common usages today.
Yeah, totally different.
In fact, even if you're looking at Greek,
say the Greek New Testament, some mistake,
a mistake that even I've seen scholars
make on this,
Maybe not Greek scholars, so to speak,
but maybe they have a particular doctrine
they want to promote that requires a
little creativity or whatever.
They will often,
I've seen them use the classical Greek
lexicon,
so what the words meant in classical
Greek,
back around four hundred and fifty years
before the time of Christ.
But Greek,
the Greek the New Testament was written is
in a different kind of Greek.
It's Koine Greek.
And so you need to use a lexicon
that specializes in the meanings of Koine
Greek words.
And the number one lexicon,
according to my Greek professor,
and since then, I mean,
I've seen nothing else that really comes
that close to it,
we just call it b dag b-d-a-g if
you if you type that in you'll get
the full terribly long it's bauer danker
art and gingrich uh lexicon of whatever
greek new testament or something for
hebrew and aramaic uh i would recommend
the number one lexicon as halot it's
h-a-l-o-t meaning hebrew aramaic lexicon
of the old testament
now these things normally might cost money
so you'll be happy to know there is
a very good online free bible study tool
called step bible that is published by our
supervisor overseen by um tyndall house in
cambridge uk and i've used it a little
bit i i've actually purchased
my own Bible study tool called,
what is it called?
Logos.
That's what it's called,
but it's expensive.
And not everybody has the budget to be
able to do that.
I'd recommend.
But back to the rules of interpretation.
So what they should be is these should
be fundamental rules that you interpret
from.
They shouldn't be rules that arise out of
interpreting,
but fundamental rules that you interpret
from.
So the law of non-contradiction,
for example.
If your interpretation contradicts
something else within the larger context,
then one of two things has happened.
Either the person who wrote it has messed
up, they're contradicting themselves,
or your interpretation is false.
You've arrived at a wrong interpretation
and you need to examine both that passage
and the one that contradicts your
interpretation and ask yourself,
is there a larger context
piece of body of information I need to
be aware of and there usually is in
fact extreme case after I did a debate
I think on the existence of God at
the University of Calgary many years ago
back in the day when they still used
computer printout paper and some guy
handed me
a wad of printouts showing all the
contradictions in the bible and it was
sheet folded after sheet after sheet and i
thought hey this is great i was wanting
to work through all of these and this
has saved me the trouble of some guy
it was an atheist who had handed them
to me but i'd already read through the
bible when i was about with a specific
mission of trying to find all the
contradictions and recording them in my
journal and what i found is that
this passage here,
I'd read something that says here,
and then maybe there's another passage
over here that appears to contradict this
one over here.
But then as I read further and the
background knowledge increased, I thought,
oh, but within the context of this,
it explains that right there,
that there is actually no contradiction at
all.
It was just two different pieces of
information that without the third piece
appeared to contradict.
And what I found as I read through
the Bible the very first time,
is I was shocked because I was writing
down contradictions and then, oh,
I got to cross this off.
I was shocked that I only finished.
And I know people think, wow,
you did a light reading.
But keep in mind,
this is my first time where I actually
read through the Bible with a specific
mission of looking for contradictions.
I only found two.
And those were contradictions in numbers
between one example,
was the guy eight years old or was
he eighteen years old?
because one passage says he was eight,
one was eighteen,
but the difference is a very small typo
in Hebrew.
So it's probably a copying mistake,
and we can actually tell from the context
which one is true,
is he eight or eighteen.
For example, if he has children,
then we know the eight-year-old
interpretation is unlikely.
If he had a boy,
he had a son to take over after
he reigned,
He was likely eighteen and I already had
one child.
So that's the law of non-contradiction.
Understand the generally accepted
definitions of words, observation.
I've actually, oh, one last one here.
So I've given four,
if you've been counting.
The last one is to be able to
distinguish between figures of speech and
when a statement is meant to be taken
literally.
So often when we talk about
understanding what Henry said down the
road we would just take him literally but
when we say literally we don't mean
actually that we ignored any figures of
speeches or exaggerations or similarly
like the guy might say that guy was
driving a motorcycle like like a
cannonball out of a
wherever and it's it's like something it
doesn't mean literally he became a
cannonball or whatever so it's not only
english that uses these figures of speech
they're found in in every language that
you will use figures of speech and they're
certainly found in hebrew aramaic and
greek
And so you have to be able to
distinguish this.
And again,
I was amazed at how similar my seminary
hermeneutics course was to just the
secular English hermeneutics in
recognizing figures of speech.
This was just deja vu all over again.
So people will often say...
Can I give an example of what that
might look like today?
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
So the word literally...
So the word literally today...
according to my daughter,
actually means figuratively.
Because she'll say, oh, literally this.
I'm like, well,
that's technically impossible.
That's not literally.
Well, you know what I mean.
No,
because you use the word literally to mean
figuratively.
So the one word that means take this
as fact doesn't actually mean that
anymore.
Yeah.
When I think of like, okay, I
I remember somebody in a meeting said,
I was literally a fly on the wall.
I'm like, no, you weren't.
Wow.
I like to see that.
Good thing nobody had a fly swatter.
No, you weren't.
There were no flies on the wall.
But she overheard what happened in the
meeting.
That would have been a great metaphor,
assembly of what was happening.
But instead, it turned into a lie.
Well, you know,
you have raised an extremely important
point here, Sheldon,
and that is something that D.A.
Carson, in his book, Exegetical Fallacies,
discusses,
and that is semantic anachronism.
And one aspect of that is that the
meaning of the word evolves over time.
So when I was young, certainly,
and you pointed, gave an example earlier,
but semantic anachronism is when we take
what we think the word means today,
we'll read the Bible and it'll say this
and that and the other thing.
it means today and assume that that's what
it meant back then or even worse um
that's what it meant back in the day
like three thousand years ago and so it's
translated as such now we do run into
that problem with certain english
translations for example uh the king james
version is very interesting i actually
have a copy of the sixteen sixteen edition
which is identical to the sixteen eleven
And what has happened,
and there's been some significant
revisions of the King James Version in the
eighteen hundreds,
but what has happened is,
if you read even the King James Version
as it exists today,
they've taken out the Apocrypha,
which the Authorized Version had in it.
The Authorized Version contains the
Apocrypha,
and that was removed from the King James
Version we use today.
But if you look at that...
And the Apocrypha is left in...
when you go into the modern Catholic
versions now.
Yes.
So just for those of you that are
watching, it's like, what's the Apocrypha?
There's some extra books that Protestants
would believe shouldn't be part of the
canon, the scripture.
Catholics believe they should.
And so there's a divergence in the...
Exactly, yeah.
In fact, even the Catholics had,
there was controversy on that,
and that wasn't made official until, oh,
I forgot the date here.
I had that written down,
fifteen-something, I think.
But anyways, that aside,
when you read the King James Version
today, you will say, well,
I know the meanings of most of those
words, pretty much all of them.
But then you find,
you check them with the Greek lexicon,
and what you learn is,
is that
That's the meaning they had in sixteen
eleven.
That does not necessarily mean what that
word means today.
For example, prevent.
There's a verse talking about when Christ
comes and we who are alive will not
prevent those or whatever.
in sixteen eleven that means to go before
we will not go ahead of pre and
go up vent means to go out but
today it means hinder or stop it has
a totally different meaning and there's a
lot of subtle changes as english evolved
over the last four hundred years but
that's not really what i'm talking about
here where most of the time we're talking
about is what does the original greek and
hebrew mean
and back translating our modern day
meeting back to then.
And this is really important because if
you're going to take a verse like that
in the King James and build a doctrine
around it,
and you're basing it over in the English
of sixteen eleven, that's how cults start.
Yeah, and in fact,
there are a lot of churches who are
today King James only.
And I grew up with the King James,
and I personally, I'll confess,
I really enjoy reading it for some reason.
Half the verses I memorized are King James
version.
I can't get them out of my head.
Yeah,
all the ones I memorized prior to the
age of about seventeen.
But if you do like this King James,
you should get well versed in just how
to use one of these free online tools.
So if there's a particular word you really
want to dive into,
look up what the Koine Greek meaning is
or what the Hebrew or Aramaic meaning is.
And that way it'll kind of correct for
how the word means today.
And no time, I think today words,
the meaning of words is changing faster
than they ever have before.
like say genocide, for example,
often the people today,
they want to really emphasize something
that they really don't like.
And so they will use an extreme word
that actually never did apply to that.
But they will use that in this case
just to get people riled up and just
bring attention to this and just try and
exaggerate how awful this is,
although in their mind,
they're not exaggerating.
But what happens?
is that the meaning of the word becomes
watered down.
So the word genocide no longer is as
bad as what's meant.
Fascist, Nazi.
Things people call each other, yeah.
Basically accuse each other,
denigratory terms.
So we need to be aware of this,
that when we're reading the Bible,
we're not importing.
Let's say the word hate, for example.
There's some places where Jesus says
you...
Unless you hate mother, father, sister,
brother, you are not worthy to follow me.
Well,
we take the everyday meaning of the word
hate and say, whoa,
like I'm supposed to loathe and despise?
no but when you look at b dag
the greek lexicon you'll see oh there's
two nuances of the meaning or two meanings
of the word here one is the obvious
one that you tend to think about but
that's not the one used here the other
is to have preferential treatment that you
prefer something else in stead of this if
you're going to have to give preference to
someone you're going to give it to jesus
christ not to your close friend here and
that
term the greek word is translated as hate
as well which is a bad translation in
fact some of the translate words that are
translated when i look at the lexicon i
thought i think wow like that's a week
but here's the problem in translation this
is why if you really want to get
involved in a discussion why i think it's
important even if you've never taken greek
or hebrew don't worry about it just use
an online tool like step bible but it's
important because um
Oh, where was I going with this?
Just the translators are going to use the
context and how else it was used.
Oh, yes.
Here's the point is that many times when
you're translating that one word into
English or whatever language,
there isn't an exact equivalent.
And so you're going to get a phrase
in the lexicon that tells you what that
word is.
But you can't trans.
I mean,
we're talking about probably seventy five
percent of the words,
except for the real simple ones.
Most of the words, about eighty percent,
are going to be best translated by a
phrase.
Well,
you're going to have a Bible like one
meter thick if you're going to... Well,
it would be the Amplified Bible.
It'll be Amplified, all right.
It'll be like you'll need a forklift to
carry it around.
I used to have an amplified Bible that
was also in a flood,
so it had expanded,
so it was like this thick.
Yeah, although it wouldn't weigh as much,
well,
it weighed even more once it was soggy.
But this is why it's important to, like,
I had a guy email me just the
other, just a few days ago,
and one of his fundamental principles of
interpretation.
Now, keep in mind, this person here,
Believes that all Christians should follow
the Mosaic law given to Moses and Mount
Sinai Now there's some huge problems with
that If you read the New Testament and
even if you read the old which he
said that covenant was already broken
God's gonna break a new covenant but so
every time he reads the word English word
law he interprets that as Torah which is
the Hebrew word but Torah in Hebrew can
mean different things and
One, the whole Old Testament, well,
not the whole,
the first five books of the Old Testament,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy,
in Judaism are called the Torah.
And so that's what he's thinking about.
He's saying, oh, that means this.
It means what God commanded Moses.
But actually when you read,
when you find out the meaning of the
word Torah,
it has different meanings depending on the
context.
And this is one mistake he made when
he argues every time you see the word
law and in the New Testament you see
a new law.
And if you get a Hebrew version of
the New Testament, which I have,
that'll be Torah in there.
But it's not the Torah when he's talking
about a new law I give to you
like that you love one another as I
have loved you, for example.
That's a new law, so to speak.
In Hebrew, that's a new Torah.
That's not the same thing as the first
five books.
In fact, it's new, he said.
So there's a case where you need to
be aware before you've built a solid,
big doctrine that actually contradicts a
lot of scriptures.
you better check back,
if it's contradicting,
you better check back on how you
understood that word.
And a lot of times,
if you don't have a worst case scenario,
and I used to do this a lot
back in the younger days,
just replace the word with X.
But you look up every place in the
Bible where that same word is used,
and there were concordances you could use,
tools you could use,
even back before the internet and
computers.
And I remember the word righteousness and
justice.
I had, I don't know what, three hundred,
I can't remember, pages of passages there,
but you could put X and cross out
the word X.
Then you read through the entire,
let's say, three hundred examples,
And by the time you did that,
you pretty much knew what X meant,
even if you had no lexicon.
The context told you,
and that's how children actually learn
languages.
They learn it by seeing how it's used
within a real-life context.
That's the best-case scenario.
But some cases,
if the word only appears once in the
entire Bible,
then you don't have that luxury.
Then you really will need to go back
and see how it was used in extra-biblical
sources written around that same time.
Okay.
So do you want to quickly run through
those rules again, just in point form?
Yeah, just summary.
That way.
So should have had a slide or something
built around this,
but we'll just go through the rules.
And maybe Kirk,
if you have a article or something that
you want to write on this,
we can link to it later.
Yeah, actually,
I got so many articles I want to
write, it's not even funny,
but that's another one.
Okay,
five rules and four special cases for the
Bible.
So number one for the five rules,
these are universal.
The law of non-contradiction, that is,
if your interpretation contradicts the
author, something's wrong,
either with the author or your
interpretation.
Number two...
you need to understand the generally
accepted different meanings of the words
you can't be inventing your own meanings
which goes on a lot nowadays uh and
d.a carson talks about that appeal to
unknown or unlikely meetings so understand
the generally accepted definitions number
three observation is absolutely key
including what where when who repetition
of phrases grammatical emphasis how does
the author normally use number four what
does the word sentence or paragraph mean
within the larger context number five be
able to distinguish between figures of
speech and what statements are to be taken
as face value and i like to use
the word face value as opposed to
literally it just kind of avoids there no
special space kirk who's face
Okay.
Some people,
how should I interpret the Bible?
Short answer.
Well,
how do you interpret the menu at
McDonald's restaurant?
Or how do you interpret them when you're
reading a work of nonfiction or a physics
textbook?
Use the same rules in general.
But there are four rules here that I
would say special for interpreting the
Bible.
Number one, your rule,
your interpretation must not contradict
other scriptures.
So if it really is from God,
it won't be the author messed up,
it will be you.
So interpretation must not contradict,
you need to embrace all of them.
Number two,
scripture interprets scripture.
And the corollary to that is that if
there's something about the culture of the
day that you need to arrive at the
correct understanding,
it will be provided in the text.
And people often,
because they're reading a religious thing,
they think, oh,
they miss those cultural cues.
Number three,
fancy interpretations that only a select
few scholars in the world at a particular
point in history can provide are likely to
be false.
And I see a lot of that today.
Premise.
The Bible, this is my underlying premise,
and it's pretty mixed from the teachings
of Christ,
is that the Bible was written for the
average person in the average culture
throughout history.
And this is where you import Occam's
razor.
And the question is,
how hard did you have to work to
make that passage say what you wanted it
to say?
How hard did you have to work?
So I've seen this say on issues of
sexuality,
entire books written to try and explain
away a few passages, entire books.
as opposed to just accepting the face
value.
Now,
that doesn't mean that the face value
might necessarily be correct.
If later on you see, oh,
that face value understanding contradicts
this one over here, then,
as I said before,
you're going to need the broader context.
Well,
that'll usually stumble onto something
even more fundamental.
And even in science, sometimes you'll see,
oh, this theory contradicts this theory,
but they both work well,
but not over here in this area.
And it often will lead to the discovery
of a new
more powerful theory,
or more powerful understanding of how
nature works,
exactly the same in the Bible.
Number five...
So it goes from really broad theories down
to very specific theories dealing with a
specific area of science.
So you're not contradicting as much as
you're just very drilling into a very
specific rule there.
Yeah, well, for example, in physics,
it would be the wave particle duality of
light.
In some experiments,
the light seems to act as a particle,
a photon.
Other experiments, it acts like a wave.
So is it a particle or a wave
or like what's going on here?
And that then opens the door to a
fuller,
deeper understanding of the nature of
light.
Now, number four is the people who appeal.
And this was another mistake.
The person who emailed me his fundamental
principles here,
that scripture interprets scripture.
And then he really emphasizes that he
said,
Basically, nothing else should be used.
Well, wait a sec here.
We do need to know what the words
mean.
In other words,
we do need to translate them from Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Greek.
And that's why even for the,
and I'm a big fan of this Latin
phrase, sola scriptura,
is that you only need scripture to
understand scripture,
provided you understand the meanings of
the words being used in scripture.
So just remember that.
And I already mentioned some tools there.
Now, there's some pitfalls,
big pitfalls in interpretation.
One would be,
this is one of the biggest ones,
making the Bible fit what you want it
to say.
And that, today,
I've seen it in two very different ways.
One is, I've already mentioned,
is that our culture programs us to expect
a certain view of God,
or whether we agree with God,
that sort of thing.
And therefore,
there's a huge pressure and bias to
interpret the Scripture to comply with
what the culture says it should say.
So that's one way, making it fit there.
But also,
I've seen it in theological bias.
So I will see some young fellow,
say age nineteen,
read a book on systematic theology because
he wants to take a shortcut in
understanding theology.
how theology all works,
and as a result spend the rest of
his life trying to make the Bible fit
that theology.
Especially prevalent in reformed theology,
in guys who really get into reformed
theology.
Now,
I've got to be careful here because
reformed theology is not necessarily just
this one very narrow understanding of
reformed theology, okay?
So I want to specify that.
But often they subscribe to a particular,
whatever that book said,
that's the gospel,
and trumps what the Bible has to say.
And you can tell that,
they would never say that,
but you can tell it trumps because it's
not the theology book that must fit what
the Bible says anymore.
It's what the Bible says must fit what
the theology book said,
the systematic theology.
Now that's one pitfall.
And it can be done by glossing over,
ignoring,
coming up with creative interpretations.
And I did that same.
I did all that stuff in my younger
days when I taught through books of the
Bible,
especially the book of Hebrews was where I
ran.
But the third time teaching that,
I realized I'm not being honest here.
I'm glossing over stuff, reinterpreting,
I'm ignoring this.
In one case, the second last time,
before I finally confessed and caved in,
and I'm being dishonest here,
I actually would study what the scholars
say, it's like for a final exam,
so I could skate my way through these
difficult passages and still maintain the
belief that I held because of that
systematic theology book I read some years
earlier.
So, number two pitfall,
narrow or unknown definitions of words.
That's one,
to make the definition of the word so
narrow
that it's usually in legalistic
interpretations of the Bible.
This is what it means.
You can't this way or that way.
But the exact opposite is such a vague
interpretation that eventually means
nothing at all.
And there's a lot of pressure to try
and vagify or mystify meanings of words.
And I see that often in discussions of
sexuality and Christianity today to argue,
well,
This English word here didn't exist prior
to, what, nineteen fifty or something.
And, well, okay, but the Greek,
let's take a look at what the Greek
word, that's what it really means,
or the Greek pair in that case,
which we won't dive into.
There's a third one,
it's not really a pitfall.
Well, actually, it's a list of pitfalls.
I would highly recommend the book called
Exegetical Fallacies by D. A. Carson.
I've had the privilege of listening to
D.A.
Carson in real life,
of reading through that book and other of
his books.
This guy is very sharp and it's a
book of mistakes people made when they're
applying the principles of hermeneutics to
a specific passage.
And there'll be grammatical mistakes.
There'll be logical mistakes.
There'll be cultural mistakes.
They'll say, well,
the culture of the day said this and
that,
and they're appealing to something that
actually,
if you go read the papers in peer-reviewed
secular journals, they're arguing about,
and they haven't resolved.
Or it's really not actually held after
all.
There's urban myths that circulate around
within the church.
So I highly recommend that.
I've actually taught one or two courses
using that as the textbook,
Exegetical Fallacies by D.A.
Carson.
And I find all of these pitfalls are
used when needing to go against what the
Bible has historically been taught to say.
Yeah,
although historically is a pitfall itself
because I was just doing a dive into
Catholicism, Orthodox, Christian.
And so each of them have their own
historical,
but there's a lot of common ground
historically, right?
that today's culture is challenging.
So you're right in the sense that you
will find common ground for historically
right from the time of Christ,
right up to our culture today.
And then you see whole new interpretations
arising.
You should say, well, wait a sec here.
How is it that this actually new second
look, they're often called,
let's take a second look at these
passages,
that we take a second look as if
nobody ever took a second look at these
for two thousand years.
a second look and now we have a
new understanding of what it means.
Be very suspicious about that because they
often involve exegetical fallacies,
serious application of cultural bias,
glossing over things,
skating around stuff,
ignoring other things,
false definitions of words and so forth.
I also find one of the things I'm
seeing a lot of is taking a principle
or even something like the word love.
And God is love.
And because God is love,
all of these other things can't be real.
And so they must mean something because
God is love,
without recognizing that God is also this,
and God is also this,
and God is also this.
And so you put the word love and
you give it almost,
instead of saying God is love,
it's love is God.
And now you've made a God out of
love instead of attributing to God what he
is.
And so it's interesting because your
theology now becomes your idol.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, in fact,
it's your idea of the word love,
not God's.
You have this cultural idea of what love
means, and then you do that.
And there's, like, even love itself,
have you actually thought very deeply
about it?
I'm not talking about you, Sheldon,
but does love, as I say,
you know someone who's doing something
that's actually destructive,
you going to affirm them in this um
that is that love and yet that's uh
that that aspect of things is you know
love means you totally accept whatever the
person wants you don't challenge them you
don't offend them you affirm them you
encourage that is not love actually that
actually would be a symptom that would be
something you do if you hated someone you
just
deliver them over help them along into
that self-destructive behavior like for
example if I see someone doing hard drugs
they say fentanyl for example but I love
the person and they're gonna get really
upset if I say yay but you know
is that love just to like okay here
you go that's you you know that's just
Press on.
That's not love.
And then there is also a problem of
misrepresenting, like you mentioned.
You misrepresent God when you focus on
only one attribute.
You come up with a very misrepresentation
of God that actually depends on a false
meaning of the word love.
All right.
Well, good episode.
Looking forward to hearing what
It comes through in the comments,
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We will talk to you.
I think you're around next week.
I think I'm around next week.
Yeah, we're around.
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