1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Biblical interpretation and Christian unity

Discussion in '2004 Archive' started by Matt Black, Sep 3, 2004.

  1. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2003
    Messages:
    11,548
    Likes Received:
    193
    Well, to address the question credibly, we'd have to hone down what we mean by:

    (1) The Bible - whose? Do we include the Apocrypha, and (more importantly) do we pay attention to some quite serious nuances of meaning depending on the translation? A whole (insert collective noun here)* of dead horses, I think

    (2) The idea of the meaning - how can we claim that a text (more properly a large group of texts) has a meaning? And who decides this singular meaning?

    (3) The idea of clear enough - enough for whom? And who, falling within "enough" is included, and who, falling outside "enough" is excluded, from those we hold to be reading the meaning of the Bible "correctly" (i.e. according to the meaning)?

    (4) Breadth of meaning vs. a single clear meaning. Again, we run into problems of who has the authority to interpret, to set the boundaries, etc. - you're also running into the territory of (sorry about this) the compossibility of multiple meanings, and how that might work.

    (5) Core issues. Big one, that. What are the core issues? Sexual morality? Economic ethics? Social structures and values? The Trinity? The Incarnation? Six-day creation? The existence of the state of Israel? The immorality of having tattoos? Who decides what the core issues are, and by what authority?


    PS I think we should really leave the Creed out of this. It's not scripture, and therefore is a red herring in the discussion.

    * What is the collective noun for dead horses?

    Yours in Christ

    Matt
     
Loading...