The Text, the Whole Text, and the Context

[kerravonsen]

I was pondering bible-studies I had participated in, and I realised something. Many Christians just sit around in bible-studies and wait to be told what to think. How totally bizarre! What do they think bible-studies are for? A place where someone in authority (the leader) spoon-feeds them pre-digested doctrine, and then they have a cup of tea and a gossip?

Don't they want to find out for themselves? Do they think themselves incapable of finding out for themselves? Or not qualified? Or not authorised? Or is it just like too much hard work? It's a text. Read it. Think about what it says. Figure out what it means. Like we did in English at school.

What do they teach them at these schools?

Yeah, I know. They teach them to hate learning.

Thank God for fandom, where people analyse texts in minute detail, for fun.

Comments

[travels_in_time]

Our small groups tend to be a lot like my high-school English classes...I wait around a while to see if anyone has an opinion, finally put my hand up and voice mine, wait for other opinions or rebuttals or someone, anyone, to make me think of something I hadn't already thought of or see something in a different way...and nothing. People nod and move on.

I'm not here to tell you what to do or think, people! Iron is supposed to sharpen iron, right? I can't get sharpened when I'm just slicing marshmallows!

[kerravonsen]

I can't get sharpened when I'm just slicing marshmallows!

(smirk) How very true.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but as someone who *has* asked questions in Bible Study (and who was a Christian at the time), I got told I couldn't possibly question the subject because I wasn't an expert in it, and my friend who invited me was asked if I really *was* a Christian because I didn't just accept the Word.

So it will depend totally on the group, I'm afraid.

(I discovered later that my question was actually pretty accurate and did pertain to an important point in translation)

[kerravonsen]

I am not surprised, considering (from what you have already told me) how toxic that damned place was (and, yes, I use the word "damned" deliberately). Shit. I mean, the statement "couldn't possibly question the subject because I wasn't an expert in it" is completely illogical: surely it is the NON-expert who would have the most questions? Does one have to be qualified before one can ask questions? That's just... ludicrous. Or grotesque. (*headdesk*)

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

That was actually the Anglicans.

The Pentecostals just tried to exorcise me. Much more direct.

[helenarickman.livejournal.com]

Oh, you've pushed my buttons! I hate this so much.

It amazes me that intelligent people accept what is told them by the doctrine of their church because they feel they have to accept it on 'faith.'

I may be one of the most religious people you'll meet and I'm all 'BS' about that. God gifted us with a brain and he/she/it expects us to use it. For me, the more I try to intelligently decipher doctrine, the more I'm able to accept it. I refuse to accept it on someone's word alone.

Sorry, hijack post. I can get preachy.

[kerravonsen]

Not hijacking at all! This is juicy discussion.

God gifted us with a brain and he/she/it expects us to use it.

Exactly.

For me, the more I try to intelligently decipher doctrine, the more I'm able to accept it. I refuse to accept it on someone's word alone.

Yep. (nods) On someone's word alone, no. ESPECIALLY if that someone is telling me I'm not allowed to question it.

But I admit there are some things which I don't understand, which I do "accept on faith" because I do trust the intelligence and understanding of scholars who have gone before me -- such as the doctrine of the Trinity, which I find rather incomprehensible. But I'm not going to assume that because I don't understand X, that X must be incorrect. That's limiting the scope of truth to the scope of my own finite understanding, which is just dumb. For me, the Trinity is a Mystery which I just don't understand... yet.

On the other hand, I do feel quite free to question other points of doctrine when I can grasp the edges of them and say "hey, this bit contradicts this other bit, and that doesn't make sense". For example, I don't accept the doctrine of Predestination (at least, not the hyper-Calvinist version) because it seems to say that God is not capable of changing his mind, which contradicts various places in the Bible which explicitly state that God changed his mind about something. I think those hyper-Calvinists would likely say something like "it only appeared that He changed His mind, but He really didn't." Um, no. If you start reinterpreting the text to make it fit with your doctrine, you have strayed from the path of wisdom.

It amazes me that intelligent people accept what is told them by the doctrine of their church because they feel they have to accept it on 'faith.'

I wonder if it's because they don't have a good grasp of what "faith" actually is. Some people think that "faith" means "accept things which you know aren't true" -- which is bollocks. Though I suppose it is only one step away from what faith really means, which is "accept things which you don't know are true". The incorrect version puts the negation onto the "truth" part, rather than the "knowing" part. Just shuffled a few words around, a subtle but vital difference. Faith is what fills the gap between our ignorance and our knowledge. Where you do know something, you don't need faith, because you already understand and know it. It is where you don't know something, either because it is in the future (trusting that God will do something) or because you don't understand it or have insufficient data, that faith provides the footing to step out on.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I've never done Bible studies outside RE lessons at school. There it very much depended on the teacher we had, but most did not encourage too much "questioning of Faith". It wasn't so much discussion of doctrine as indoctrination.

[kerravonsen]

It wasn't so much discussion of doctrine as indoctrination.
(sigh)
Yeah. Then again, RE and Sunday School were really more about telling kids what to believe, and people don't tend to be very intellectually rigorous with kids.

But bible-studies with adults? I expect adults to know better.

but most did not encourage too much "questioning of Faith"

Possibly they considered it disruptive, since they were supposed to be "lessons". Then again, they could also have been of the school of thought (also exemplified in Reynardo's comment above) that "questions" imply doubt and dissent, rather than a quest for understanding. Dumb.

Mind you, some questions are disruptive and full of dissent; they hold at their base hostility towards the teaching. Trick questions like "Can God make something too heavy for him to lift?" or the various questions that the Pharisees asked Jesus trying to trap him.

So, yeah, for someone who is all "ask questions" I also oddly believe that there are some questions which shouldn't be asked.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I think of theology and quantum physics in the same way, I can't understand either beyond the edges. But I will take on faith what the experts who know tell me about both. And neither has the full story yet, and probably never will do here on earth.

On problem I have with bible studies is the fact it has gone through several languages before it reached me. And each translation was provided by mankind, which is fallible. So anything that depends on precise wording can be questioned, we need to get to the underlying truth of what God is telling us.

[kerravonsen]

I think of theology and quantum physics in the same way, I can't understand either beyond the edges. But I will take on faith what the experts who know tell me about both. And neither has the full story yet, and probably never will do here on earth.

(nod nod nod)

On problem I have with bible studies is the fact it has gone through several languages before it reached me.

Several? Modern translations don't translate into intermediary languages, they go direct from the ancient Hebrew (or Greek) to the destination language. Or did you mean something else?

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Several? Modern translations don't translate into intermediary languages

I was thinking intermediate languages and versions before we get the fixed text of the bible. For example, I doubt the parables were told in Greek. So there'll be the original words straight from Jesus himself, then what his followers remembered of what they heard, both in Aramaic. Then translating it into Greek and probably editing to get a version everyone could agree to, before getting to the version that was translated into English.

[kerravonsen]

For example, I doubt the parables were told in Greek.So there'll be the original words straight from Jesus himself, then what his followers remembered of what they heard, both in Aramaic. Then translating it into Greek...

Um, what makes you think they were all speaking Aramaic rather than Greek?

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I was taught that Aramaic was the language that the ordinary people were speaking at the time, Greek was what the top people used.

Like only the top people speaking French in Norman Britain, the ordinary people continued with English.

Or is that not current thinking? There's been 50 years of gathering new evidence since then.

[kerravonsen]

I'm not sure what current thinking is, but I find the arguments that Koine (low) Greek was commonly spoken to be more convincing to me, even if it's an unpopular view. The Gospels were written in Greek, we know that. They weren't translated from Aramaic, they were actually written in Greek. If Greek was just used by the elite, then one would expect that Luke and maybe John would have been written in Greek and the other two written in Aramaic, but all four of them were written in Koine Greek. That indicates to me that all four Gospel writers were comfortable with Greek. And it makes sense that they were, because in the multi-lingual multicultural Roman Empire, you wouldn't just stick to your native language, you'd have to know Latin or Greek just to get along. Most people would be bilingual or more. (In history, monolingualism has been the exception rather than the rule, but we forget that, since native English speakers tend to be monolingual).

And I really need to go to sleep!

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I agree the gospels were written in Greek, but I always thought that was so there was a text to take up to all those churches St Paul had founded.

I knew I'd read something recently, a modern book on the Arab conquests. It claimed that despite centuries of Greek rule, everyday use of Greek was an urban habit, the villages at the time of the arrival of the Arabs in the 7thC still spoke Aramaic, just as Coptic was still the language of Egypt.

[kerravonsen]

Ah well, neither of us actually knows the answer for sure...

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

That we probably can be sure of. :~)

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

If you want a religion that actually encourages you to argue, drop in on a Jewish Bible studies class. That's why there are so many books and interpretations and interpretations of interpretations. That's why we have so many lawyers and scientists. They know how to argue.

Kathryn, I very much doubt Yeshua of Nazareth spoke Greek, even Koine. It certainly wouldn't have been the everyday language of the Jewish population. Aramaic was much more likely. The fact that the Gospels were written long after his time, however, suggests that perhaps you may be right about the language. I do think, however, that there would have been a lot of translating and rewriting over the centuries.

[kerravonsen]

If you want a religion that actually encourages you to argue, drop in on a Jewish Bible studies class.

Ha! That would be fun.

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

There's a saying: "Two Jews, three opinions." It applies both to religious and secular arguments. It's how the kids learn.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

I liked this post very much!

[kerravonsen]

8-)