{"quotes":[{"text":"In my view, the gospels are true, not historically, but theologically, or, as I would argue, prophetically! What we have is, the Messiah’s history written in advance in story form.","author":"Eli Of Kittim","tags":["academic","apocalyptic","bible","criticism","exegesis","gospels","hermeneutics","inspirational","interpretation","literary-analysis","new-testament","prophecy","symbolism","theology"],"id":4038,"author_id":"Eli+Of+Kittim"},{"text":"For a great many skeptics are put to waste. But this is meant in the sense that which they vainly focus their energy on ridiculing a certain tiny denomination of Biblical fundamentalism, a denomination seated just one chair away from unbelief; they, the skeptics, cannot believe because they are the most literal of fundamentalists: of those that which must interpret Scripture only by means of a sort of obsolete and dead script of intellectual incompetence. By all means, this is supposed to happen - Scripture states of itself that all thought and interpretation is folly without the Holy Spirit - but on the other hand, it seems, ironically, that if one thinks that the Bible is, in its true essence, an outdated text, he doesn't know much about the world around him nor those who live in it. Either that, or he doesn't know much about what it says in relation to the world around him nor to those who live in it. It's as though he, too, is dead to the world and it to him. He has no spirit: he can only possibly understand Scripture as deceased rather than the modern world's very living narrative.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["apologetics","atheism","bible","christianity","dead","denominations","etymology","fundamentalism","god","hermeneutics","holy-spirit","ignorance","interpretation","knowledge","living","scripture","skepticism","theism","theology","wisdom","world"],"id":4983,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"(I should mention I attended a Christian elementary school where “my dad’s hermeneutic can beat up your dad’s hermeneutic” served as legit schoolyard banter.).","author":"Rachel Held Evans","tags":["belief","christians","hermeneutics","theology"],"id":9174,"author_id":"Rachel+Held+Evans"},{"text":"The literal sense of the author was 'creation is the orderly act of a loving Creator God.' What the modern reader often hears, however, is 'The universe was made in six 24-hour days.' This is as wrong-headed as taking me to mean I actually stood in line a million years or that my cardiac tissue has been torn in half or that Christ had delusions of being a grape plant.-- Making Senses of Scripture.","author":"Mark Shea","tags":["bible","christian","christianity","figurative","figurative-language","hermeneutics","literal","religion","theology"],"id":32314,"author_id":"Mark+Shea"},{"text":"What is the difference between my view and the classical Christian perspective? I am convinced that there are not multiple comings and multiple returns of Christ, but only one decisive coming at the end of the world, which includes the resurrection, the rapture, and his appearance in the sky!","author":"Eli Of Kittim","tags":["academic","bible","end-times","exegesis","hermeneutics","inspirational","interpretation","jesus","messiah","mysticism","prophecy","religion","spirituality","symbolism"],"id":41655,"author_id":"Eli+Of+Kittim"},{"text":"There is a notion that complete impartiality is the most fitting and indeed the normal disposition for true exegesis, because it guarantees a complete absence of prejudice. For a short time, around 1910, this idea threatened to achieve almost canonical status in Protestant theology. But now we can quite calmly describe it as merely comical.","author":"Karl Barth","tags":["bible","hermeneutics","karl-barth","scripture"],"id":59082,"author_id":"Karl+Barth"},{"text":"The individualism of the Romantic theory of interpretation attempts to abstract the individual from his historical context by presenting him with the ideal of presuppositionless understanding; a truer theory of interpretation, which does not seek to elide the historical reality of the one seeking understanding, sets the interpreter himself within tradition. What we understand when we seek to understand the writings of the past is borne to us by tradition. Understanding is an engagement with tradition, not an attempt to escape from it.","author":"Andrew Louth","tags":["hermeneutics","historical-critical-method","individualism","interpretation","romanticism","theology"],"id":64920,"author_id":"Andrew+Louth"},{"text":"The question concerning Jesus: do you want to know the real story, or just the allegory?","author":"Eli Of Kittim","tags":["academic","agnosticism","apocalyptic","bible","christianity","end-time","gnostic","hermeneutics","inspirational","interpretation","mysticism","prophecy","religion","spiritual","spirituality","symbolism"],"id":73713,"author_id":"Eli+Of+Kittim"},{"text":"I urge not that we assume that love will provide a reliable foundation for knowledge but that we nonetheless keep the requirements of love of neighbor foremost in our interpretations of Scripture. We should consider, for example, love to be a necessary criterion (a minimum) when defending an interpretation of Scripture even if it cannot be a sufficient criterion that will guarantee ethical interpretation.","author":"Dale B. Martin","tags":["bible","bible-interpretation","biblical-interpretation","hermeneutics","interpretation","love"],"id":117276,"author_id":"Dale+B.+Martin"},{"text":"The demand that the Bible should be read and understood and expounded historically is, therefore, obviously justified and can never be taken too seriously. The Bible itself posits this demand: even where it appeals expressly to divine commissionings and promptings, in its actual composition it is everywhere a human word, and this human word is obviously intended to be taken seriously and read and understood and expounded as such. To do anything else would be to miss the reality of the Bible and therefore the Bible itself as the witness of revelation. The demand for a 'historical' understanding of the Bible necessarily means, in content, that we have to take it for what it undoubtedly is and is meant to be: the human speech uttered by specific men at specific times in a specific situation, in a specific language and with a specific intention. It means that the understanding of it has honestly and unreservedly been one which is guided by all these consideration. If the word 'historical' is a modern word, the thing itself was not really invented in modern times. And if the more exact definition of what is 'historical' in this sense is liable to change and has actually changed at times, it is still quite clear that when and wherever the Bible has been really read and expounded, in this sense it has been read 'historically' and not unhistorically, I.E., its concrete humanity has not been ignored. To the extent that it has been ignored, it has not been read at all. We have, therefore, not only no cause to retract from this demand, but every cause to accept it strictly on theological grounds.(§19.1, p. 464).","author":"Karl Barth","tags":["bible","hermeneutics","karl-barth"],"id":123947,"author_id":"Karl+Barth"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":22,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}