How to interpret the Holy Bible?

[DiscipleOfTruth]

How should a person determine if the intended interpretation of a scripture should be literal or figurative?

[greentwiga]

ttruscott. I like and use your rules, but I use a couple of more in addition to yours. If there are two reasonable interpretations, and one doesn't conflict with science, history, etc., I take that one. A corollary to that is I take the interpretation that does not require me to make up a miracle that is not in scriptures.

Another rule is that I look for the words that everyone seems to have blinders about. For example, I was studying the Exodus story. I realized that the simple word "up" was being understood as going out or leaving. When I looked, every time the word was used, they went uphill from that location. Ignoring that simple plain interpretation has lead people over the centuries to the traditional but bad interpretation of the location of Mt Sinai.

[danialgomes2125]

Hi Everyone,
I have published a book on Amazon which has hit the Top 10 under 'Christianity & Education'
"How to Memorize Bible Verses: The fast and easy way to memorizing scripture"

However I am not sure how to spread the word in the Christian community about the
website that goes with it: www[dot]memorizebiblescripture[dot]com

If any one has any ideas at all let me know, as everyone who has listened to the Audio's
has really appreciated it. I have been told to offer a large margin for affiliates and that
seems to be helping

Thank you.

[The Tongue]

The golden rule of biblical interpretation is that usually the plainest sense or interpretation most closely resembles what GOD wants us to do or know.

peace

Actually this is the worst rule imaginable. It's also ungrounded. Ignore it.

I would like to pass on to you, in a very short discourse, what GOD has lead me to believe...(from a longer work):

First, I believe that to correctly interpret the Bible, one must accept it as the authority it claims to be, to wit: the Book of (by, from) GOD. In other words, one must eventually become willing to obey or trust in the message if you happen to find one.

Second, one must determine the correct text (what did the original say?) for which study there is a set of rules to guide the student[6]. In other words, is the translation you're reading correct?

Third, one must correctly interpret the text (what did the writer really mean when he said what he said?) for which there is a set of rules also.[7]Well, I hope that you can now see that obtaining good assurance as to the correctness of one's interpretations of the Bible does not come easily. It takes some hard intellectual work and study, and even then one might not be right.

Well, as if this was not tough enough, it gets even harder because every interpretation seems to have its share of experts and priests proclaiming its authenticity. This leads us to another aspect of the problem, to wit: that even if your expert or priest knows all the rules on how to correctly interpret the Bible, often it is written in such a way[8] that even such learned people need one more thing to arrive at the correct interpretation. This wild card aspect of interpreting the Bible is called the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and He does not give it to everyone.

[Herein lies one of the reasons for why we get so many denominations. Certain Scriptures can be interpreted more than one way, even after one has applied all the rules, and in such instances we are left with only our own, or some (S)spirit's illumination, to guide us on the path.]

In other words, in the final analysis, it is not so much how much you know (although this is extremely important) but it is (W)who knows you that determines the correctness of your interpretation.

Now, I hope that this does not make you want to keep your Bible on the shelf as has been the honoured tradition of so many Christians for so long. Rather, I hope you might see that interpreting the Bible is not a light matter, and that if you are going to successfully escape some of satan's pit falls through some study of the Bible (rather than falling into one through your study of the Word) both a correct attitude toward GOD and some diligent study will be required.

Now, having brought all this to your attention, I would like to add one more thing, which is the number one rule of scriptural interpretation:

The golden rule of biblical interpretation is that usually the plainest sense or interpretation most closely resembles what GOD wants us to do or know.

Now although this seems to be very easy, such things are never allowed to be so simple as to make the illumination of the Holy Spirit unnecessary. Therefore, GOD has put in some exceptions to the rule and of course, everyone seems to have a different number of them, for there are some hard to understand figures of speech and symbols, et cetera, and most of all, as soon as a Scripture in its plainest sense fails to line up with the prevailing theological presuppositions of the reader, that Scripture quickly becomes an exception to this golden rule.

Notes:

1 - God, Yhwh, He = an individual Person of the triune Godhead.

They, Their, Them = two or three Members of the Godhead.

GOD, YHWH, HE = the GODHEAD viewed incorporately as ONE.

PERsons, THEir, THEm = GOD plus any number of Their creatures.

...

6 - This discipline is called Textual Criticism and the rules are called canons. (http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn ... fCrit.html)

7 - This discipline is called Hermeneutics or Exegetical Theology, which is “that branch of theological learning which deals with the interpretation of the Scriptures and the subjects therewith connected.� (Webster's Dictionary #1.)

8 - For example, it often leaves out the very word that would clarify the meaning of a certain verse. It "seems" to be left out because it is to be "understood", most likely only by those to whom the Holy Spirit gives the right word to put in the hole. It definitely is an holey book!

Peace, Ted

A pre-human animal, has no conception that the death of the body is the end of the life.

It was the first humans who broke free of the indwelling gathered animal ancestral Information and rather that blindly follow their indwelling animal instincts, (Which was the original sin, "Disobedience to the ancestral spirit) they decided to judge all things for themselves. It was through their physical observations, it was when they saw a body of their ancestors die and decompose in the process of being returned to the elements from which it was created, that they concluded that the death of the body, was also the death of the invisible mind/spirit/information that was gathered through the senses of that body, and it was then that the concept, that the death of the body was the end of the person that develops within that body, and the fear of death became the ruler of the world of the godless.

2 Corinthians 5:7; But we, who believe in the resurrection of the dead, live by faith, not by sight, (ie physical proof).

We who believe by faith and not by physical observations alone, know that God is: the FIRST and the LAST
The BEGINNING and the END
The ALPHA and the OMEGA
The FATHER and the SON.

God is ONE, He is the expanded singularity of origin, in who all things exist, and who exists in all things, and the reason for the existence of all that exists.

The soul is the life force, the animating principle that pervades the entire universal body, the genetic thread of life which connects the Alpha to the Omega, the soul to which is gathered all the information that is taken in through the physical senses of the living receptors within the living universal body of the evolving Godhead to this generation of the universe.

It is along that slender thread of life that connects the Alpha to the Omega, that we are able, in a state of meditation, hypnosis, or deep sleep, to mentally traverse into the past and merge with the minds of our ancestors, Human and pre-human. Some, have been known, while in their comatose state in their present time, to speak in the foreign language of the mind with who they are merged in the past, they speak in the unknown tongue of their ancestor.

Others who are seen as prophets, sometimes babble incomprehensible rubbish as they speak in the unknown tongue of their far and distant descendant, who in their point in time, is still as yet unborn. Or they try to put words to the visions that they are receiving from a mind of the far and distant future, visions of things that the terminology to express, had not yet evolved in their point in time. They saw things that looked to them like flying grasshoppers with wings above their heads, whose wings made the sound of a roaring waterfall and which spat fire from their tails.

MIND TRAVEL.

Come travel with me on a journey through time;
Not in some capsule, but in our minds.
To the inner most sanctuary will we descend,
To the single cell from which your body began.
In the inner most sanctuary where all is one,
Where all of space and time is joined.
We'll mingle there with other minds,
From other lands, in other times.
Minds of the past who seem dead and gone
And minds of the future, who are yet unborn.
For they in THEIR time, whether here on this world,
Or some distant planet to which they've been lured,
Will enter their inner most sanctuary too,
And there perhaps, they might merge with you.
Ah! To travel through space in the wink of an eye
Merged with your child from some world way on high,
And if this is but madness, then madness it be,
So come my mad brothers, come......fly with me..... The Tongue.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to post 1 by DiscipleOfTruth]

I think that the first step would be to familiarize oneself with all of the figures of speech. There are some exhaustive studies on the subject, e.g. Bullinger's "Figures of Speech" etc. There are only a few hundred with as many variations so it shouldn't take that long. Otherwise you're just guessing.

When you've become familiar with all of the figures you shouldn't have too much trouble recognizing them when you see (or even hear) them.

[YahDough]

How should a person determine if the intended interpretation of a scripture should be literal or figurative?

The easiest way is to become a believer and receive the Holy Ghost who will teach you all things pertaining to Truth.