Journey of the Heart

Getting God’s Most Out of God’s Bible

Introduction

A Statement of Faith

Biblical Interpretation: Principles and Practice

Biblical-Historical Criticism

The Context of a Text

The Pericope’s Immediate Context

The Author’s Background

Other Background Considerations

Foreground Considerations

Literary Criticism

Problems with the Spacing of Words

Consideration for Original Languages

Types of Speech

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The subject deals with principles for interpreting and understanding the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. There are ways to investigate biblical texts to capture the original intention and meaning of the speaker or writer as accurately as humanly possible (hopefully with the guidance of the Holy Spirit) so that one may be true to the texts, their messages, and to God. who is the divine author of these messages. The purpose of this investigative method, called exegesis, is conducted so that the Scriptures are understood by today's audiences as the original listeners or readers would have understood what was being said as the authors intended the texts be understood and preserved. The biblical texts, once properly understood in their original context can then be rightly understood and correctly applied to our modern context, today's Sitz im Leben, a term that Ian Fain uses to speak of our life situations today.

The recovery of the original intent of the writer and/or speaker of biblical texts is absolutely crucial for the full truth of God to be understood today as God would have it Simple misunderstanding of a text or the superimposing of cultural biases onto the interpretation of certain passages has given dreadful theological support, for instance to the treating of women as second-class citizens throughout much of history in many cultures and societies. Such treatment still exists in our society in America and in communities around the world. Proper and thorough exegesis can enlighten every Christian, who then can illuminate the world for Christ to liberate the oppressed and to further release women and men to enjoy the abundant life that Jesus promised to all who would believe in and follow him (John 10:10b) and to take his message to the four corners of the world (Matt. 28:18-20).

There are certain texts that refer to women, particularly in St. Paul's writings, that have been used as the basis to oppress women. Exegetical work of the Scriptures will prove liberating prove liberating to the Church and to all women. Within the body of this paper I will, in a small way, lift up some of the Pauline texts to which I alluded to show the reader examples of scriptural abuses where proper understanding would have prevented misinterpretation.

But for an Old Testament example, John Bristow demonstrates how cultural bias has lead to misunderstanding and misuse of Scripture. For instance, in the Ten Commandments, the tenth, which prohibits coveting, includes women among a list of property that consists of realty, slaves, and livestock, all of which were owned only by men. Thus an already encultured bias devaluing women to the status of men's property, leads people to not only further believe that women are possessions of father and husband, but as they would understand the tenth commandment provides them with a divine dictate supporting their cultural bias. However, to impose such an interpretation ‘one must rip the commandment out of its context and read it without regard for the other nine commandments."

A text must be considered within its own context, that is, within the passage from which it comes, or within the chapter or chapters of which it is a part, or for that matter, within the entire writing. Also it would do well for the student of the Bible to take into consideration the whole body of the speaker/author's thoughts or writings. If a passage is not taken with the whole, then what the speaker/author intends may be distorted. Such an interpretation that reads and views commandment ten without the wisdom of one through nine "robs women of their legal rights. . ."

The tenth commandment is about the attitude of lusting after something belonging to another. It is not about spouses, but about one's lustful attitude directed toward others. One does not honor a woman or her husband by coveting her. So if mother is due honor as per commandment five, then all women are to be honored, and thus are not chattel to be owned and bartered for, nor thrown out into destitution through the whim of father or husband.

"In the beginning God..." (Genesis 1:1) is the phrase with which the Bible starts. The Bible offers no proof for the existence of God in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Thus the Bible begins with a statement of faith, not a theological argument for the existence of God; nor does it offer any apology for its statements. It assumes and presupposes the existence of God. In fact, it is the existence of God that validates the Bible and not the other way around.

As a Christian, I believe that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is inspired by God. By this I mean that I believe that behind the human agency in the transmission of the Scriptures to the people of planet earth, there stands the God of the universe. I believe that it was God who induced or inspired both the speaker and writer, as well as redactor and countless others throughout time to create and form the scriptural texts as we have them today. I believe that what is also inspired by God is the modern techniques of biblical interpretation and archaeology which are leading us to a greater and fuller understanding of God's Holy Word. But this too, is a faith statement. Thus, no matter what method one chooses to interpret the meaning of the Bible it still comes down to one's faith in the God of the Bible and universe for its authority and truth.

The work of getting to God’s original intentions in the Bible is the work of Exegesis which is a rational, scientific approach to analyze, interpret, and understand the Bible. The science is called hermeneutics. The term, coming from Greek, means "to translate, interpret, or explain." The approach of the science is called Biblical-Historical Criticism. The method is carried out through the work of exegesis. Exegesis is a critical examination of a text. But to critically examine a text does not mean to be derogatory or disparaging of the Bible. But rather it means to evaluate a text or to judge its accuracy. This critical method deals with a text in such areas as time of occurrence, historic background, geography, authorship, author's sources, genre i.e., type of literature, the intention of the writer and the work of editors at later times.

Exegesis . . .refer[s] to the historical investigation into the meaning of the Biblical text. [It] therefore, answers the question, 'What did the Biblical author mean?' It has to do with both what he said (the content itself) and why he said it at any given point (the literary context). Furthermore, exegesis is primarily concerned with intentionality: What did the author intend his original readers to understand?

The exegetical method approaches Scripture in an intelligent manner with the intent of capturing the meaning of a text for its original audience or audiences, and even of later listeners and interpreters, so that we can accurately and completely understand what the text meant initially and throughout history, so that we can truly comprehend what it means for us today. Exegesis is like a bridge or time tunnel between biblical times and the present.

If the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God as conservatives hold then it ought to stand up to any critique. But as I alluded above, this critical discipline does not try to drag down Scripture but to make it better understood and more relevant to the modern reader. Exegesis attempts to enable researchers, readers and believers to understand God's intentions precisely as humanly possible "under the inspiring guidance of the Holy Spirit."

John Stott, says that Scripture is "God's Word written." Further, that the second conviction of the believing community is "that God still speaks through what he has spoken." It is these convictions that call us then to examine the Bible with a keen eye. For if the Bible is the Word of God written then it has ultimate importance and eternal value for all of humankind.

Before I proceed further, I need to disagree with Ian Fain who seems to me to define Scripture in a rather narrow way. In addition to mentioning what the conservative view of Scripture is, that I cited above, Dr. Fain in his essay "Disciplines Related to Biblical Interpretation," in opposition to a liberal view of Scripture which sees it as a merely an historical text, says that,

a more balanced view of Scripture understands the text as a record of God's revelation in the context of history, but not simply an ordinary kind of history. . . . It is through Jesus and the circumstances surrounding Jesus that God has finally revealed his will to man. The Bible is the record of this revelation in history.

Though I do not think that Dr. Fain would disagree with me, I think that a more balanced view of Scripture must also include the Hebrew Bible, what we Christians call the Old Testament. A really balanced view of the Bible includes all of Scripture, not just God's acting only in the Christ-event, but with the people of Israel and others as well, in their historical context among other ancient people's. Don Shackelford in his article, "Old Testament Criticism," feeling "compelled," says, "In the quarter century that I have read and studied the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, my faith in God and Christ has grown immeasurably." It takes both Old and New Testaments to help one rightly and fully understand the Bible, the Triune God, and the Christian faith.

LeMoine Lewis, in, "Historical Background in New Testament Interpretation," says:

Without a knowledge of Old Testament history, anything like a satisfactory understanding of the New Testament is impossible. The New builds on the Old--and together they are one great revelation from God.

The discipline, Biblical-Historical Criticism, is rightly named for as Kaiser and Kummel say:

Its aim is to re-present a textual meaning formulated in the past. It is critical because it ignores all traditional opinions on the texts as well as the apparent meaning of the texts themselves, and goes behind these to search out the real horizon actually present in them.

Biblical-Historical Criticism is divided into two categories: Lower and Higher Criticism. Lower Criticism concerns itself with a critique of a text. This is called Textual Criticism, which "seeks to establish or reconstruct the original wording of a text." Experts use this type of critical method to examine and evaluate various manuscripts that are available to such biblical scholars. These manuscripts are kept in museums and university libraries. Scholars study the ancient texts in the original languages: Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. They will also compare words and phrases with other relevant manuscripts and languages to find related information and meanings of certain words or phrases. These comparisons may further enlighten our understanding of a text.

Others not so scholarly may examine reliable translations (e.g. The Revised Standard Version) and good critical commentaries. In doing this work one is verifying the text for accuracy of translation and meaning. There are other language considerations too, which I will discuss further along.

But for now, another point needs to be taken into account. This concerns the defining the context of a text. The context or the Sitz im Leben includes all of the circumstances that called forth the genesis of a text, either when it was spoken and/or written. This includes the over-all socio-historical settings, political and religious settings, the occasion that germinated the text, and also the more immediate context such as its theological purpose and relation to the texts surrounding it.

Research into the occasional nature of a writing seeks to answer the question, "What was happening at the time to cause the speaker to speak as she or he did, or the writer to write as he did?" This task seeks to discover the purpose of the writing. LeMoine Lewis , who I cited earlier, states: "Each book in the New Testament was produced in a particular historical context and first spoke to that situation and to its problems." Commentaries do a good job of explaining these events and circumstances.

As for a text's relationship with surrounding texts, what one does is to determine the connection between a particular verse or passage to, as Raymond Kelsey puts it, "the larger discussion of which it is apart." This is the sort of thing I considered in my discussion on the tenth commandment within its context of the Ten Commandments.

The term for a short passage, section or paragraph is that of "pericope;" coming from the Greek meaning: "cutting around," that is, "the marking out of a section." For example, The Ten Commandments is a pericope within the larger context of the book of Exodus (20: 1-17) or Deuteronomy (5: 6-21).

One would be wise also, to compare sayings or writings by the same speaker/author to his other writings or words, if they exist, and also to parallel texts of other authors writing about the same situation or subject. Good commentaries also help with this work.

The purpose of determining the pericope's relationship with surrounding material is to determine as an exact a meaning as possible. So that, for instance, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 30-35), has greater impact and makes more of a point when it is seen in the light of Jesus' answering an antagonist's question, "Who is my neighbor" (vv. 25-29). For this scribe, trying to justify himself according to Jewish law, only his fellow Jew was a neighbor. Everyone else was "unclean," in the sense that they were not Jews, and hence unbelievers. For him and those like him, Samaritans were the worst of all, because they were of gentile heritage who had bastardized the Hebrew faith and worship.

The ancestors of the Samaritans, who were resettled into the land of Israel as a result of the Assyrian conquest and deportation of the kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C., (2 Kings 17) where gentiles (v. 24). The biblical writer(s) of these events see God's hand of judgment in all of this. And since the gentile settlers had their own religions and did not worship the God of Israel and Judah, God used lions to punish the gentiles (v. 25). So a captive Israelite priest was sent back to teach the gentiles about the "God of the land" (v. 27). Eventually the new occupants of the land appointed their own priests and developed their own style for the worship of God, which was inter-mixed with the worship of their other gods and practices of their indigenous religions (vv. 29-33).

The Samaritans center of worship was on Mount Gerizim, not the Jerusalem temple (John 4:20). A Samaritan temple was built there in the fourth century B.C., and later destroyed by John Hycranus when he captured Shechem in 128 B.C. Jews, of course, despised both the people and their practices, whether or not they themselves were devout.

Given this history then, Jesus is teaching the lawyer and all who were listening, that regardless of ethnic or race every person ought to be treated as a Jew was commanded to treat another Jew, as neighbor. And I think it is quite proper to add gender into the mix.

In line with determining the context of a text, Dr. Manfred Brauch says that at least three things must be taken seriously in order to be faithful to the writer's purpose. These concerns include:

1. the nature of the writing itself

2. the purpose for which it was written

3. the situation or context out of which it was written

Knowing the background of the writer himself might also bring light to his reasoning and outlook found in a text. For instance, it is helpful to know that some of what St. Paul taught in his early writings was based on his belief in the imminent return of Christ. But as it became clear to him that Christ was not returning within his lifetime, Paul changed some of his views.

For instance, in 1 Corinthians 7:1b, Paul writes: "It is good for a man not to marry" (NIV). Paul appears to be opting for the celibate life, as he himself lived (vv. 7,8). Some couples were refraining from marital relations for the sake of the faith (vv. 2-5), but he advises them to renew this relationship lest they fall into temptation. (Probably meaning that they might seek out sexual experiences with other persons.) After his advice to the unmarried and widowed to remain unmarried, the only reason he does give for them to marry is if they cannot control themselves sexually (v. 9). Along with advice for those married to nonbelievers to not divorce, but to remain as they are (v. 20), the admonition is also given to uncircumcised men to remain "as they were called" (vv. 18-20); so also slaves were to remain as slaves (vv. 21-23). (I will say more about that in the next section.) All this advice was based on "the impending crisis" (v. 26). The impeding crisis, of course was Christ's return.

Paul's outlook at the time, as Barclay says,

"was dominated by the fact that he expected the Second Coming of Christ at any moment What he is laying down is crisis legislation. 'The time is short.' So soon was Christ to come, he believed, that everything must be laid aside in one tremendous effort to concentrate on preparation for that coming. The most important human activity and the dearest human relationship must be abandoned . . .

Later, as Paul discerns that Christ's return is not imminent, his views on marriage changed. When he wrote his epistle to the Ephesians, about five or six years later, Paul uses the marriage relationship as a symbol of Christ's relationship with the church (Eph. 5:22-26). By this time he had "realized the permanency of the human situation and regarded marriage as the most precious relationship within it, the only one which was faintly parallel to the relationship of Christ and the church."

Ephesians 5:22-26 is problematic in the way that many fundamentalist Christians interpret these verses. Their understanding ignores the Greek language, for one thing. Today's literalists, reading only the English, understand this passage as to give men dominance over women, as the "head" of women, the "boss". This is somewhat like the cultural bias I cited above in regard to the Ten Commandments where a male dominated interpretation was taken so as to provide divine support to the subordination of women.

In this connection, the following is another example of how the work of exegesis can discover the author's original meaning. According to John Bristow, an interpretation that subordinates women is wrong. What he argues, and correctly so, is that the word "head," in the Ephesian text, understood by many in the English to mean "head" in the terms of leadership or as "boss," is not the meaning that Paul intended. The Greek word Paul used does not mean that. Bristow explains that there are two words in Greek for "head," arche, and kephale. If Paul had used the word arche, then it is possible for an interpretation that sees men as having superiority over women. But arche can also mean, among other things, "to denote point of origin." So "head" in this sense is used as in the word "headwaters," or the head of a river, the place from which a river begins.

But Paul chose the Greek word, kephale, which means head, the part of one's body, or as "one who leads," as in the first one into battle, not a general or captain. And Brauch, says that kephale, in ordinary Greek was used to mean: "origin, source, or starting point and crown, completion, or consummation." In this sense then, Paul is not saying that a husband is "boss" over his wife, but rather that man is the source or origin of woman as told in the creation story of Genesis 2: 21-23. What Paul is really saying in Ephesians 5: 22-26 is that Christ is the source of man (as Creator), as man is the source of woman (as in being taken from Adam's side).

Cyril of Alexandria who made commented on this text and wrote:

Thus we say that the kephale of every man is Christ, because he was excellently made through him. And the kephale of woman is man, because she was taken from his flesh. Likewise, the kephale of Christ is God, because he is from him according to nature.

Background research should also consider the audience being addressed and what may have been its circumstances. Words spoken in one context might have a different kind of impact or meaning in another situation. For instance, when Paul admonished slaves to stay as they were (1 Cor. 7:21-23), he was addressing individual persons of the Corinthian church who were of that class (vv. 26-28). Slaves made up a significant part of the population at the time. But at the same time, Paul not only allows it, but encourages slaves to seek their freedom (v. 21). Thus, Paul allows "for a breaking of the norm," i.e. "the rule I lay down in all the churches" (v. 17b).

Thus, to use this passage or any similar one as divine authority to legitimize the enslavement of African peoples who were forcibly brought to America in our infamous past is to not only violate this text, but also to forget the parable of the Good Samaritan and other basic God-given concepts of love. "The whole law is summoned up in that commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal. 5: 14). Paul's rule to remain in the situation as when a person became a Christian, allows and encourages slaves to be free. For as Paul says elsewhere, "For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery" (Gal. 5:1); because, "there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ" (Gal. 3:28).

So one can see that some writings might be culturally and historically bound to a particular place and time, and therefore may not really be speaking to another time in history or some other context.

Interpreters take a writer out of context when they fail to consider a text's background, immediate context, and literary context. In so doing, they very well may make one bit of advice transferable and authoritative for all time for all churches, in every historical and social setting that was only meant for one particular church at one particular time in history within a certain social setting that had a particular problem the author was attempting to correct. This sort if thing can cause abuses within the whole church as it misunderstands the author's intention and is mislead in its beliefs and practices.

Here is an example. In I Corinthians 14: 33-35 St. Paul speaks about the necessity of women to keep silent in church. Many have relied on these verses throughout history to deny women from being clergy persons. "After all," they say, "women are not supposed to speak in church so how could they be called by God to be priests or ministers?" But a conflict exists with what Paul writes a few chapters earlier where he says that the only restriction for a woman in praying and/or preaching the Gospel is that her head must be covered (Cor. 11:5, my italic). Finding answers to these sorts of problematic Scriptures is what the work of exegesis attempts to do.

My example shows a case where Paul is speaking only to the Corinthian church which had a certain problem. According to Manfred Brauch the context of chapters 11-14 of First Corinthians is that of problems in worship in the church. Chapter 14:1-25 deals with ecstatic speaking, or "speaking in tongues," this comes right before Paul speaks to the problem described in 11:33-35. Thus the textual context allows one to conclude then that there existed a problem created by certain women in the church at Corinth who were upsetting the worship service with their ecstatic speaking, probably while the preaching was taking place. Thus to understand St. Paul correctly one must see verses 14:33-35 within their scriptural context, chapters 11-14 especially.

The text is really dealing with people who disturb the worship of the church and really has nothing to do with whether they are women or men, and nothing at all to do with whether women can be priests or ministers of the church.

Brauch notes that:

Paul is dealing with abuses and actions in worship which disrupt God's purposes and which therefore need correction. Within such a setting, our text seems clearly to belong to the category of 'corrective texts' whose purpose is focused toward a local situation. . . One must be careful therefore not to jump to the conclusion immediately that Paul's injunction has implications for all women in all churches [for all time].

Ian Fain in his essay, also speaks of establishing the foreground of a text. By this he means that one should consider how a text was understood in different times of history, and I would imagine by different persons. The people closer in time to a text may have understood it differently than persons farther removed in time. (I tried to show this by using the quote above from Cryil of Alexandria, in regards to kaphale.) It is the original intent for which we seek, but this foreground research can help one to understand a text's historical applications. Then we can authentically apply the text to our modern context.

It is most acute in this textual research to establish the writer's explicit intentions, which is the goal of the task of exegesis. The disciplines of exegesis help one to determine this, but there is more to do. A form of higher criticism, called literary criticism is most useful as it helps to establish the kind of literature with which one is dealing. This discipline examines the genre or type of literature. By doing so it "seeks to elaborate a picture of the genesis of the text." As Shackelford suggests, this task seeks to determine the original content of a text and attempts to determine if there has been any augmentation or mistakes made in the transmission of the text by later editors or scribes who may have inserted a gloss into the text for example, or made some other unintentional error. After all, "for nearly three thousand years portions of the sacred text were copied by hand," and errors did happen.

A gloss, for instance, which is a marginal note made by a copyist as a comment about a text or perhaps as a thought that he felt belonged there, may have been inserted into the body of a text by a later copyists. The latter copyist may have thought that the gloss was something that someone had left out when previously copying.

Citing Diest, Shackelford also lists additional reasons for such errors: sound-alike or look-alike words being confused; switched consonants; letters, words or phrases were omitted or written twice; incorrect word divisions were made; or the consonantal text was misread. Consonantal texts are those texts that have no vowels between the consonants. Ancient Hebrew texts were written like this as originally the language had no vowels. People grew up knowing the sounds and where they were used in words. Later interpreters who may have not known correct pronunciations, may have been confused by words that looked alike but actually had different meanings. Knowing the proper vowel sounds and where to place them may have helped translators to avoid errors.

The two illustrations above related to accidental errors, but other modifications, such as the inclusion into the text of a marginal gloss may not have been accidental. Some intentional changes may have also been made to a text over time. These alterations might have been done by editors to simplify a text, to modify the language, or to change something for theological, religious or moral reasons.

Frank Pac notes that in ancient times spaces were not used between words when writing biblical manuscripts. This was true up to the tenth century. So this "book hand" style provided a problem for translators as to where to divide up words. How one did that or does that today may yield a different interpretation then another translator who dividing the same letters, words or sentences at different places. An example of where one can change the sense of a text by where one chooses to segment a group of words can be seen in an English phrase I have chosen, that I have written in the style of an ancient biblical manuscript. The phrase is: "Godisnowhere."

If I were to divide these words like this: "God/ is/ now/ here," they say one thing. But if I divided the words up this way: "God/ is/ nowhere," they say something completely different. The sense of a pericope or its literary context may make it easy to decide on how a sentence should read and understood, but sometimes even this may not be possible. This is where I believe that one's theological beliefs will come play as to where the "proper" divisions should be made.

Earlier, I mentioned that there were other things to be taken into consideration with regards to language. A good English Bible, for the most part, that is not a paraphrase, is a translation from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. A translation is not the original. So it is important to take into consideration the meaning of words in their original language, as I have shown above with the illustration of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Frank Pac also says that: "critical editions of the patristic writings [those of the early church fathers], help greatly in textual study. Lectionaries also provide insight into the text . . ."

Since words may have more than one meaning both, in the original language or in English, it does a researcher well to consider alternative meanings of particular words. One's choice in selecting one meaning over another may also be colored by a person's theology.

Dr. Thomas McDaniel, Old Testament professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, has said that, "The choice of words by a translator, in translating a text, often says more about the translator than it does about the text." Meaning that a translator's choice of interpretation may reveal his/her theological beliefs more that it does about the original intent of the speaker or writer. Dr. McDaniel’s statement applies to both the choosing of appropriate words when translating and to how one segments the words of ancient texts into sentences.

One common problem in dealing with the Bible is that the ancients, by whom God caused the Bible to be passed on and written, used different types of speech to express themselves, just as we do. By types of speech, I mean figurative language such as simile, metaphor, and hyperbole, to name a few. But languages also contain idiomatic expressions that do not quite translate word for word into other languages. And to translate these expressions literally would, in many cases, cause one to misunderstand what was actually intended. Anyone who has studied a foreign can testify to this.

If such figurative language is taken too literally in many cases the original intent of the author will be misunderstood, and some ridiculous conclusions may be made about what is being said. Edward Myers (which I paraphrase below) offers the following guidelines in recognizing and understanding figurative language:

1. The sense of the expression in how a phrase is used will indicate if it is figurative language. e.g. "The Lord is my shepherd." - Neither God or Jesus is an actual shepherd, and neither are we sheep in an actual sense. Thus the expression is a metaphor.

- a metaphor is: a figure of speech where one word or phrase is used to represent another to suggest a likeness between them.

2. If the literal meaning of a phrase is impossible, it must be a figure of speech. e.g. "Let the dead bury their dead." The deceased cannot bury anyone. But those "dead" in a spiritual sense and find excuse not to follow Jesus are as good as dead. Thus the expression is hyperbole.

- hyperbole is: a figure of speech whereby one overstates one's point to make one's case. It is exaggeration for the sake of argument, i.e. debate.

3. If a text taken literally forbids what is right and requires what is ethically wrong, it is figurative language. e.g. When Jesus tells us to cut off an arm or to put out an eye in order to be fit for the kingdom of God (Matt. 18:8-9) - Jesus wants people to overcome their moral failures, not to deliberately destroy parts of their body. Thus this expression is hyperbolic speech.

4. If a literal understanding of a text conflicts with another text, the text is probably to be understood figuratively. e.g. ". . .everyone who lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:26) as compared to "for as in Adam, all die" (1 Cor. 15:22). - In the latter passage, St. Paul is speaking of natural death. In John, Jesus is not saying that Christian believers will not die, as we all will, but because of faith in him, we will enjoy life after death, eternal life. - Thus, Paul is to be understood literally and Jesus is to be understood figuratively.

5. The immediate context of a text, meaning verses of Scripture preceding or following a text, may inform one if figurative language is being used. e.g. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). But following in verse 21 John tells the reader that Jesus was speaking of his body not the Jerusalem temple. - Jesus' accusers, however, taking his statement literally used his words against him when they were trumping up charges against him in order to justify his crucifixion (Matt. 26: 60b-61).

6. Statements made to ridicule or mock are generally figurative. e.g. In Matt. 13:32, Jesus refers to Herod as a "fox." Jesus is using metaphor, which in this case is very close to a simile. He does not mean that Herod is a real fox, but is alluding to his fox-like craftiness. The words "like" or "as," are not used, as is the case of true simile - e.g. "Herod is as sly as a fox," would be a simile.

- a simile is: a figure of speech where two dissimilar objects are compared by the use of "like" or "as."

7. When in doubt, use common sense. In John 4:10, in speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus told her of "living water." One could drink it and never thirst again. - Jesus was speaking of spiritual water, of drinking of him, i.e. - his teachings, his life-style, his life, his Godness (if you will) - and not of water from any earthly well.

- It is interesting to note here, too, that Jesus is making use of a pun in his language to the woman. The word translated as "living" also means "running." A pun in this sense, is not a form of humor, but a form of wisdom. In this sense, a word was used that had two meanings, which were both true and were intended to be understood by using the one word.

Along with a few other figures of speech, personification is another important one. Personification is being used when an idea, thing or attribute is represented as if it were a person. By recognizing personification when it is used a reader can better grasp what the text is really about.

1. e.g. - In Proverbs 8, "wisdom" is personified in feminine language when referred to by the personal pronouns "her" or "she" (vv. 1,2). Wisdom is also personified by the ability to speak (vv. 3ff) This then is a poetical way then to talk about the wisdom of God, not to indicate that wisdom is another being who is feminine in nature. Wisdom is an attribute of God.

2. e.g. - Meyers notes that Isaiah often uses personification. In several passages of Isaiah, commonly referred to as the suffering servant passages (42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; and 52:13-53:12), Isaiah in 42:19; 43:10; 48:20; and 49:3, attaches the servant designation to Israel. The servant speaks in 50:4-9. Thus the nation of Israel is spoken of as if it were an individual person. Israel itself was to be God's servant in universal righteousness and salvation, chosen from the womb and equipped with God's spirit. Suffering and death, while bearing the sins of transgressors, was to be how Israel would lead the world to God. But Israel did not live up to God's call and expectation.

So God became the suffering servant in Christ Jesus. Jesus, through his birth, life, teachings, death and resurrection personified all that Israel was to be before God. Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life." No one comes to God except through him (John 14:6), "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting life," (John 3:16, KJV).

I hope that you who have read this article have seen how people can use the Bible so as to support their own biases. They do this by ignoring or not knowing the Scriptures’ varied contexts. This causes the misreading of an author's original intentions. I feel as though doing such a thing is to rape the Holy Word of God. In my opinion, much of this takes the sacred Word and uses it to justify unchristian and evil practices. That truly is Satanic.

By doing thorough exegesis Scripture can prove to be even more marvelous than it already is. This work can help Bible readers and students, as well as professional church leaders and scholars (which I hope are the same people), to understand God's will in a more lucid, comprehensive and holistic way, as I believe God intended.

As for the particularly texts I addressed in this paper, until the science of hermeneutics came into the picture there seems to have been only a partial understanding of the texts or and outright misunderstanding either by accident or by someone's design, or because of an already prevalent biased view towards women and others. This ignorance of the workings of exegesis gave divine caveat for persons in power to suppress, oppress, and depress these other persons because of their sex, ethnic, or race.

The true and complete Gospel undermines such views, especially when all of God's Word is taken as a whole. A popular cliché about the Bible says that, "You can prove anything you want to by the Bible." There is some truth in that statement, because any one portion of Scripture probably can be used to support any view, that is, if taken out of context. Words and phrases may be understood in such ways so as to support rather unchristian attitudes. This happens because persons ignore meanings of words in their original languages, or take figures of speech in a literal way which were not intended to be understood literally; or because a translator may have chosen to segment a Greek or Hebrew text's wording one way rather than another. In such a way that supported the interpreter’s beliefs, which may be do to his/her own biases.

Unless a portion of Scripture is seen among its whole, the truth of God can be supplanted. The whole is just not the whole Bible, but is everything that the science of hermeneutics deals with and examines.

The motto of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I earned my M. Div. degree, was: "The Whole Gospel for the Whole World." Later they added the phrase: "through whole persons." And I would like to add to that: "for the Wholeness of All." The task of hermeneutics helps us to present the whole message of God so that through a full and complete understanding of God's Word the whole world can be set free from sin and death to be as God intends for us to be. If for no other reason, this alone makes the work of hermeneutics crucial and essential.

Barclay, William (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), The Daily Study Bible Series, "The Letters to the Corinthians".

Brauch, Manfred T., The Hard Sayings of Paul, (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 1989).

Bristow, John Temple, What Paul Really Said About Women (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988).

Fee, Gordon D., New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983).

Gentz, William H., ed., The Disctionary of the Bible and Religion (Nanshville: Abindon Press, 1986).

Jacobus, Melancthon W., et. Al., eds., A New Standard Bible Dictionary, (New York: Funk and Wagnals, 1925).

Kaiser, Otto, and Werner G. Kummel, Exegetical Method: A Student Handbook (New York: Seabury Press, 1981).

Kearley, F.F. eds., Biblical Interpretation Principles and Practices, "Disciplines Related to Biblical Interpretation," Iam A. Fair (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987).

Scott, John R., Between Two Worlds, (Grant Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmanns Publishing Co., 1983).

To reach Dr. Leaver, send e-mail to: revdrrgl@comcast.net

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