Tag: hermeneutics
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A Living Text
Once upon a time in a class, the professor said, offhand, in passing, not the main point, “so you have the juxtaposition of images – the source of all meaning …” That basic theory has stayed with me, like a meteor crater, one of the things I really learned in seminary. The juxtaposition of images […]
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Reflecting on 2 Samuel 6
What should we ourselves make out of the story we are studying for Sunday, September 12, the story of David bringing the Ark of God up to Jerusalem (in 2 Samuel 6)? The story describes dramatic events that happen long ago, far away, and that center on a powerfully sacred object that no longer exists. […]
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A lot to think about
Whenever an author writes anything, it’s the author who chooses the words, the language. Well, more or less, depending on what that author has to choose from. An author who only speaks English can’t choose words that aren’t available in English. And then, if the author wants the writing to mean anything to anyone, she […]
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“What It Means”
I’m sitting at the registration desk in the emergency room. The cheerful young lady on the other side of the Plexiglas barrier hands me a sheet of paper with a lot of words on it, and x’s by all the blank lines. “Initial four places and sign once,” she instructs. I skim the paragraphs. “I […]
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New Perspectives, and Their Implications
Our wonderful pastor preached on 2 Samuel 11:1-15 yesterday – from one perspective, “the familiar story of David and Bathsheba.” She pointed out that historically Christian readers have carefully protected the Great King David’s reputation, even here. The NRSV’s editorial heading reads “David commits adultery with Bathsheba.” Even though “commits adultery” presumes or assumes, and […]
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Studying Jonah 3
We are studying Jonah 3 for Sunday, May 30. This is the dramatic peak of the story, when Jonah finally goes to Nineveh, and the Ninevites repent, and God doesn’t destroy that great city. We studied the entire book of Jonah several years ago; those notes are still online: Jonah 1 Jonah 2 Jonah 3 […]
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Reflecting on Ezra 10 1-12
We are studying Ezra 10:1-12 for Sunday, April 11. This is a critical part of the episode of the post-exilic community’s decision to “separate” from “foreign wives and the ones born to them.” Ezra, scribe and priest, along with other community leaders interpreted these intermarriages with “the people of the land” as an enormous problem. […]
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A Quick Thought on Staying Non-Reactionary, Non-Defensive, and Non-Anxious
Two different articles from two wildly different authors that came across email a day or so ago seemed to speak to one another, which made me think. One came from Pete Enns, on the moment of insight that shaped his “life’s work of trying to understand the Bible rather than defend it,” the moment he […]
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Studying Luke 4 14-22
We are studying Luke 4:14-22, Jesus’s Torah commentary in the synagogue in Nazareth, for Sunday, January 3. Our designated verses stop short of Luke’s record of the controversy Jesus’s appearance in Nazareth generates; if we want to look at that, too, we’ll need to read through the end of the chapter. [Some questions on the […]
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Slaves of Christ/ians
Southern clergy defended the morality of slavery through an elaborate scriptural defense built on the infallibility of the Bible, which they held up as the universal and objective standard for moral issues. Religious messages from pulpit and from a growing religious press accounted in large part for the extreme, uncompromising, ideological atmosphere of the time. […]
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Studying Isaiah 42 1-9
We are studying Isaiah 42:1-9 for April 5 – Palm / Passion Sunday, or Palm Sunday of Christ’s Passion. This is the first part of the first of the “Servant Songs” in Second Isaiah. [Some questions on the text are here.] Here are my notes on that text: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: The book of Isaiah […]
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Who Makes the To Do List?
I got to thinking about “complementarianism” and “egalitarianism” this past week, of bicentennial celebration madness at our church. We took on A LOT of planning and preparation, and by “we” I mean the members of the planning task force, and then the various other individuals we enlisted to do all the kinds of things that […]
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If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Bultmann?
Zimmermann, Jens. Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press, 2015. [An Installment of the “Read Me” Project.] This is the last of the three “little” books I picked up at Carmichael’s on a day I really hadn’t even planned to go to a bookstore.[*] As the title announces, this is a “very short” introduction […]
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A Little More Love for Judges?
This month’s “special study” was the book of Judges. The curriculum consisted of Marc Zvi Brettler’s short, interesting non-commentary on the book of Judges. I say “non-commentary,” because Brettler announces explicitly in his preface that the work, a volume in the Old Testament Readings series, is “not intended as a commentary; instead its focus, following […]
Matters of Interpretation 