Who is like the wise man and who knows the interpretation of a matter?
Message: The Language of Scripture
Time: Solomon's authorship is not stated. Solomon's reign as king of Israel lasted from around 970 B.C. to around 930 B.C. The Book of Ecclesiastes was likely written towards the end of his reign, approximately 935 B.C.
What the Lord is Saying:
Once the scriptures are identified through the Canon of Scripture concluding that these are the Scriptures that are inspired by God and the final revelation from God to His people it is important to look at now the interpretation of Scripture. I have stated previously that the way the Bible is interpreted means everything for this has resulted in many of the different denominations and even belief systems we have today. In addition, there is often much confusion when it comes to the Bible for people think that there is a special way of reading the text and understanding it, almost like there is a secret code. At times, I wonder if this is said because people want something from God - like those that were walking around at the time of Jesus - as they wanted healing or escape from there present circumstances and so what they find difficult is accessing what they want.
The most basic principle is to interpret the Bible literally. Thus, read it according to the intent of the authors. Yes, there are different literary styles used - poetry, historical narrative, proverb, epistle, parable, sermon, prophecy, and others. I would agree that sometimes prophecy contains imagery, metaphors and allegories that are somewhat difficult to determine, but that is a small portion of our Bible. Thankfully today we have the Bible in multiple translations that provide it to us in our own language. I am thankful for the scholars that have vested their time in studying how best to understand it.
In thinking about how to interpret it literally, today I look at two basic categories of non-literal language. Non-literal means words that go beyond the dictionary meaning of words. This is used to help provide readers a more complete picture in their minds of what they are reading.
Phenomenological language describes the way things appear to the naked eye. Often things are described by the way they look when the exact science would say something different. In Joshua 10:12-13 it says - Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Now, did God in fact cause the earth to stop moving briefly for this to happen. Or is this language being employed to describe an incredible act of God that enabled the Israelites to win their fight.
Recently, there has been a lot of writings about a flat earth and the Bible supporting this idea. It seems that often what is termed as verses that support this idea are actually verses written with Phenomenological language. For example - Deuteronomy 28:49 says - The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth. Flat-earth folks believe this means the earth has an end, but this is really what appears to the writer at the time and speaks more of the distance the nation is coming from.
Anthropomorphic language describes God as having human attributes, yet we know from Scripture - John 4:24- God is spirit - and so when human attributes are given to him it simply is trying to give us a picture of the human like affection he has toward us or that he sees or is aware of all that happens.
Thus, to say that we need to interpret the Bible literally doesn't mean that every text has a literary definition as there is non-literal language in the Bible.
Promise: Understanding literary forms will assist us in not treating the Bible as something that it is not, thereby improving our interpretation of the text. Reading the Word of God carefully according to these forms will help keep us from asserting error and confusing people about the meaning of God's revelation.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for Your word and helping me to understand it and how you have communicated through many different writers over the last 4,000 years. Thank you for bringing clarity to my understanding of Your Word.
Note: I follow the readings from the Tabletalk Magazine devotional, though I am a little behind and working through 2017 devotionals. 2017 is a study of key biblical doctrines with February being about the doctrine of revelation and the various aspects of the doctrine of Scripture that sola Scriptura seeks to preserve.
The most basic principle is to interpret the Bible literally. Thus, read it according to the intent of the authors. Yes, there are different literary styles used - poetry, historical narrative, proverb, epistle, parable, sermon, prophecy, and others. I would agree that sometimes prophecy contains imagery, metaphors and allegories that are somewhat difficult to determine, but that is a small portion of our Bible. Thankfully today we have the Bible in multiple translations that provide it to us in our own language. I am thankful for the scholars that have vested their time in studying how best to understand it.
In thinking about how to interpret it literally, today I look at two basic categories of non-literal language. Non-literal means words that go beyond the dictionary meaning of words. This is used to help provide readers a more complete picture in their minds of what they are reading.
Phenomenological language describes the way things appear to the naked eye. Often things are described by the way they look when the exact science would say something different. In Joshua 10:12-13 it says - Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Now, did God in fact cause the earth to stop moving briefly for this to happen. Or is this language being employed to describe an incredible act of God that enabled the Israelites to win their fight.
Recently, there has been a lot of writings about a flat earth and the Bible supporting this idea. It seems that often what is termed as verses that support this idea are actually verses written with Phenomenological language. For example - Deuteronomy 28:49 says - The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth. Flat-earth folks believe this means the earth has an end, but this is really what appears to the writer at the time and speaks more of the distance the nation is coming from.
Anthropomorphic language describes God as having human attributes, yet we know from Scripture - John 4:24- God is spirit - and so when human attributes are given to him it simply is trying to give us a picture of the human like affection he has toward us or that he sees or is aware of all that happens.
Thus, to say that we need to interpret the Bible literally doesn't mean that every text has a literary definition as there is non-literal language in the Bible.
Promise: Understanding literary forms will assist us in not treating the Bible as something that it is not, thereby improving our interpretation of the text. Reading the Word of God carefully according to these forms will help keep us from asserting error and confusing people about the meaning of God's revelation.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for Your word and helping me to understand it and how you have communicated through many different writers over the last 4,000 years. Thank you for bringing clarity to my understanding of Your Word.
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