Scriptural fundamentalism & literal interpretation

[reba]

I'm sorry Reba for that and I appreciate your drawing that to my attention. I'll do my best to make some changes.

My fundamental questions are:

1. What is scriptural fundamentalism?
   
2. Do you support literal interpretation of any text, whether that be the Bible or the local newspaper? If so, what is your understanding of the meaning of literal interpretation?

Blessings,
Oz

1. I would think 'scriptural fundamentalism' could/would mean different things to different people..
2. Sometimes... literal interpretation - the blue Ford ran a red light.. means a blue ford ran a red light .... ( never mind newspapers are not honest)
example of a Simple Bible literal interpretation .. Joh_11:35 Jesus wept.-Jesus cried ..

 

[reba]

That is not what those who are experts in that field of interpretation indicate and I've given references to some of them. Literal interpretation means that all figures of speech are included in literal interpretation.

I would not bother to even try to have a conversation with so called experts..

For an expert of most anything to communicate with me they woud have to also be an expert is simplicity bring the "lecture" or communication to my level...

To me God does just that ... There is an understanding of Scripture for those of your education and comprehension and also for one of my education and comprehension.

 

[Edward]

It's BOTH, literal and spiritual metaphor.
This subject is no different than many others among us Christians. We seem to be only able to think in terms of 'either, or'. But the Bible is both literal and metaphor. The literal does not suddenly become not literal just because the literal points to a metaphorical, spiritual truth.

Absolutely. We can't forget who the author is. This is actually the crux of the talk, lol. A lifetime of study couldn't unlock all its secrets, even with the Holy Spirit giving enlightenment and revelation.

 

[reba]

Look out Edward i agree

 

[Butch5]

That is not what those who are experts in that field of interpretation indicate and I've given references to some of them. Literal interpretation means that all figures of speech are included in literal interpretation.

I agree!

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Literal or metaphor?
"4Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." (Deuteronomy 25:4 NASB)

Literal.
It's only fair.

It's a metaphor:
"9For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?12If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?" (1 Corinthians 9:9-12 NASB)

Paul, especially, gives us the precedent for gleaning deeper spiritual truths out of literal understandings. My relationship with God is full and vibrant and meaningful because of these spiritual insights. If I was locked into just the face value of the words of the Bible I'd be nothing more than a Pharisee probably.

 

[OzSpen]

Both, if there is a metaphorical interpretation to be gleaned from the passage.

So is the metaphorical interpretation what you create for the text?

I asked, 'What is literal interpretation?' Your response was: 'What the words literally mean'. As I've explained above, that is not what specialists in hermeneutics determine as the meaning of literal interpretation. Your view is that of literalism and not of literal interpretation.

I look for figures and types, analogies, etc.
As far as the Bible goes, you'll prolly just end up being a hard nosed Pharisee if you don't plug into the spiritual truths that exist beyond just the literal words of the Bible (no, I'm not talking about Edward ). I've found most strict, to the letter, non-spiritual readers of the Bible to be angry, insensitive, and judgmental. I have found in my own life that it is spiritual revelation contained in the literal words of the Bible that solicits the calming presence and character changing power of the Holy Spirit.

There's not an ounce of hard nosed Pharisee in me. Those who plug into your kind of 'spiritual truths', as I've found through many years of careful study, have been those who pursued neo-Orthodoxy, Gnosticism and postmodernism. I run a country mile from that kind of imposition on the biblical text.

'Non-spiritual readers' are angry, insensitive, and judgmental, you say. What have you been to me? Judgmental! It's the pot calling the kettle black.

'Spiritual revelation' in my experience in Pentecostal-charismatic circles has involved extra-biblical revelation and many times I've seen that contradict Scripture. Scripture is my standard for determining orthodoxy, not 'spiritual revelation'.

Oz

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Literal interpretation includes metaphor and all other figures of speech. We must get this right.

Why?
Why don't we just stick with the matter of the face value of the words in the Bible, and the spiritual truths one can glean from beneath the surface of those words. This is what is important to the church.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

As I've explained above, that is not what specialists in hermeneutics determine as the meaning of literal interpretation. Your view is that of literalism and not of literal interpretation.

For us simpletons in the church it's the difference between just taking the Bible at face value only, and being able to discern the greater spiritual truths that God wove into the those plain words. I don't see any value in trying to put the correct label on it.

 

[OzSpen]

Why?
Why don't we just stick with the matter of the face value of the words in the Bible, and the spiritual truths one can glean from beneath the surface of those words. This is what is important to the church.

The simple reason is that that is not what literal interpretation means. Let's look at the face value of the word, 'matter':

• It's doesn't matter if I run an amber light;
• The fact of the matter is that I own a Toyota Camry and not a Mazda 6.
• The matter of which my body is composed will disintegrate into dust at death;
• I just cleaned some gunky matter out of the corner of my eye.
• Your statement: 'Why don't we just stick with the matter of the face value of the words in the Bible'.

The facts are that we CAN'T simply stick with the face value of words because a single word in context can mean a number of things, as the above examples demonstrate.

Now, are you going to to glean some spiritual truths from these dot points that use 'matter' in 5 different ways?

You wrote of the 'spiritual truths one can glean from beneath the surface of those words', i.e. beneath face value of those words. Why is this not the way to go? Surely if you know the history of the church, you know the devastation that that view had on the church in its first three centuries. This was the heresy of Gnosticism, the very thing you are advocating, that caused Irenaeus to write, Against Heresies in about AD 180 to counter this false teaching.

Till the last breath leaves my body, I will be opposing this secret, esoteric knowledge that supposedly lies beneath the surface of the words of the Bible. What happens is your Gnosticism is different from another's Gnosticism of secret knowledge. Subjectivism rules the church with no foundation in objective truth.

Your promotion of this is a classic example of what happens when the church loses its will to engage in literal interpretation and relies on the esoteric, subjective knowledge of alleged deeper meaning. It really is another form of religion that is not Christianity - although it has some appearance of Christianity.

Oz

 

[reba]

Till the last breath leaves my body, I will be opposing this secret, esoteric knowledge that supposedly lies beneath the surface of the words of the Bible. What happens is your Gnosticism is different from another's Gnosticism of secret knowledge. Subjectivism rules the church with no foundation in objective truth.

HUH?

 

[OzSpen]

For us simpletons in the church it's the difference between just taking the Bible at face value only, and being able to discern the greater spiritual truths that God wove into the those plain words. I don't see any value in trying to put the correct label on it.

No, it's not a matter of taking the Bible at face value only. What do you want to do? You ADD to what the Bible says at face value and that ADDING, in your words, is 'to discern the greater spiritual truths that God wove into those plain words'. These ADDED 'spiritual truths' are your form of the New Gnosticism.

Of course you don't want to put the correct label on it because it is a rampant heresy that devastated the early church - Gnosticism. It is ruining the church of today in some quarters because your secret knowledge, spiritual truth, is different from the next person's views and so in a given church we have a multitude of esoteric knowledge, that you call spiritual truth, floating around a congregation. The content of the esoteric knowledge is conflicting in many areas.

The commitment to the objective truth of Scripture is replaced by subjective 'insight' that is not grounded in reality.

I don't fall for your line, 'us simpletons'. God has given you the ability to read, type and use the computer - as your participation on CFnet demonstrates. You have submitted to a view of esoteric knowledge that is contrary to what is taught in Scripture.

Irenaeus exposed this many years ago in Against Heresies. You are repeating what he and Scripture refute.

To what should you be turning to discern spiritual realities? 'All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV).

Oz

 

[OzSpen]

HUH?

Yep! Esoteric knowledge is not biblical Christianity.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

'Spiritual revelation' in my experience in Pentecostal-charismatic circles has involved extra-biblical revelation and many times I've seen that contradict Scripture. Scripture is my standard for determining orthodoxy, not 'spiritual revelation'.

Nobody's defending the imaginations of men's minds that pollute the church. All you have to do is read your Bible and have a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit to discern when somebody's feeding you a bunch of bull. EVERY true believer has the power available to them to eventually discern if what they are being fed is truth or not:

"20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.e 21I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.

26I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him." (1 John 2:20-21, 26-27 NASB)

The answer for the problem of men's imaginations creating false doctrine in the church is not your answer--toss out all spiritual revelations that come to a person. No, the answer is to be Spirit-filled and have the God given capacity to discern bad doctrine from good. That's what the Bible says is the answer. Your answer is not in the Bible. I reject your answer on that basis.

 

[OzSpen]

The answer for the problem of men's imaginations creating false doctrine in the church is not your answer--toss out all spiritual revelations that come to a person. No, the answer is to be Spirit-filled and have the God given capacity to discern bad doctrine from good. That's what the Bible says is the answer. Your answer is not in the Bible. I reject your answer on that basis.

That's what I've been doing with your promotion of 'spiritual revelations' and 'esoteric knowledge' - and you don't like it.

I happen to be a Spirit-filled person who rejects the extra-biblical revelation of esoteric, subjective knowledge. My answer is in the Bible See 2 Tim 3:16-17 (NIV).

Oz

 

[Jethro Bodine]

You wrote of the 'spiritual truths one can glean from beneath the surface of those words', i.e. beneath face value of those words. Why is this not the way to go? Surely if you know the history of the church, you know the devastation that that view had on the church in its first three centuries.

Surely you are aware of how it was Paul's gleaning of spiritual truth beneath the plain words of the law that devastated Judaism. Yet you reject that altogether as a valid source of learning. What you should be rejecting is erroneous esoteric learning, not esotericism altogether. I shared an example of Paul's esotericism already in this thread. Did you catch it? Turns out not muzzling the oxen wasn't really about the oxen after all. But if we listen to you we should never allow such interpretation to creep into the church.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

You are back to esoteric, existential 'spiritual insights and revelations' that you previous claimed were behind or underneath the words of Scripture. That's the new Gnosticism that is contrary to Scripture.

Then Paul was a gnostic.
Your essential problem is you are tainted by the connotation that 'esoteric' has attached to it. The Bible is FULL of esoteric knowledge. Only the person with the Holy Spirit is entitled to see and understand that knowledge. That is by pure definition 'esoteric':

"intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest."
https://www.google.com/webhp?source...5&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=esoteric definition​

 

[reba]

Yep! Esoteric knowledge is not biblical Christianity.

es·o·ter·ic
ˌesəˈterik/
adjective

1. intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.
   "esoteric philosophical debates"
   synonyms: abstruse, obscure, arcane, recherché, rarefied, recondite,abstract; More

 

[Jethro Bodine]

es·o·ter·ic
ˌesəˈterik/
adjective

1. intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.
   "esoteric philosophical debates"
   synonyms: abstruse, obscure, arcane, recherché, rarefied, recondite,abstract; More

13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.c14The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit." (1 Corinthians 2:13-14 NIV)

Christianity is definitely esoteric. What I resist is calling people who have this God given power of knowledge and discernment 'Gnostics', when all we really are is, by definition, 'gnostic' (little 'g').

 

[Jethro Bodine]

What are spiritual insights?

Did I answer this?
It's insightful, spiritual learning beyond, but not in contradiction of, the plain words of scripture.
It's what Paul had in revealing for us the spiritual truths hiding behind the literal stipulations of the Mosaic law. His spiritual insights give us the precedent for seeing additional spiritual insights into the words of scripture. And because believers have the capacity for spiritual discernment (1 John 2:27 NASB) we can, ultimately, not be led astray by erroneous so-called spiritual insights.