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

[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. :~)