Biblical writers, later interpreters, and even Christ were products of their zeitgeist. In other words, they used language in a way that was common to their time.
Words like "know", "faith", "belief", and "love" took on multiple meanings which prevent their precise interpretation. Examples of such can be found in today's newspaper, let alone in ancient writings.
The only community that requires precision of terms is the scientific, and it did not exist (as we know it) in first century Palestine.
Here's an example of how imprecise the word "love" is in the English language:
"Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty; Greek three; and English only one. English speakers do know the 96 forms of love - they just jam them into one word! That is why we are all confused over what "love" is, since we have dozens of definitions for it!" - N.S. Gill, Ancient/Classical History
What does this mean when reading the Bible? It means the message the Biblical author wanted to convey may not be exactly what the English word, "love" means to us.
It also means one must be careful about any article of faith that relies heavily upon a single word. Factors such as contemporary idioms, language-to-language inadequacies, and cultural bias, all make interpretation of a Biblical word suspect -- even in the original Greek. Context must be considered and sanity checks performed to have any chance of getting the same message in our heads as the one that originated in the author's.
Failure to do this is part of why we have a million or so different denominations -- overuse of the microscope and underuse of logic.
No comments:
Post a Comment