If allegorical interpretation is a slippery slope, it's of the semantic variety. When you start reading things allegorically, it's certainly possible to stop when the interpretations don't make sense anymore. But it's difficult to draw a clear line between a passage that is intended to be taken...
@Soldarnal Looks like you are borrowing the idea of giving bounties to spur answers to older questions. Nice! (I got the idea from Richard!)
It's also a great way to highlight questions in need of a second opinion.
@JonEricson Yeah, if you (or anyone else) see any questions in particular need of a second opinion, let me know. I'd be glad to add my third bounty to that.
First we must lay out two basic interpretive principles. Then I will list the meaning of the 144,000 (Revelation 7:4-8; 14:1-5) for each of the four main Christian interpretive approaches to the book of Revelation.
Interpretive Principles
First we must decide if the 144,000 mentioned in Revelat...
I thought Mike's answer was good, but the average number of responses per question won't raise itself.... :P
I just lost 1/2 of my job due to cutbacks, but last week a major bank called me and asked for my resume to work in the forensic IT dept. Seems they need someone good with pattern recognition, so God was watching out for me before I knew I needed it.
@Bob you may or may not be aware there is a 'formative' debate going on on the 'meta' site at the moment. If you have the time/inclination your input would be valuable
@Jack it is a bit difficult to get excited about such things when there is always a move to marginalize me. If there was any sense that people were actually interested it might be different. So I rarely post anymore, and when I did it was to test the hermeneutic against questions that I didn't generate (sort of a blind test).
I've been asked to write the commentary stuff for a study Bible based on the hermeneutic that I use. So my time for 'play' has been reduced.
I get excited to see Christ in the scriptures. It's no fun to always have someone dumping water on it when you share.
If you look at my posts on Judah and Tamar, Acts 12, Gen1 and John 1, I see those kinds of pictures everywhere. I find it discouraging that those who say they love Christ would chuck it by a knee jerk reaction.
I have venues to teach where it is accepted enthusiastically. And people are seeing them for themselves. So it's not really worth my time to try and share it here.
I am currently teaching a class from Matthew to show how he demonstrates the hermeneutic.
@Jack Not really interested in that. There is one guy who is absolutely abusive, others who complain that IO give Christian answers to OT questions (obviously singled out from others who do the same)
@Jack the practice of down voting without comment, is presumably prejudice based on preconceptions rather than being helpful in producing 'good'answers
There is an inherent tension in a site that seeks to exegete a body of texts without a common ground. The main participants at this site seem to be Jews and Christians, but an atheist or a Buddhist or a Muslim could participate here too if they were interested in hermeneutics of ancient texts.
W...
@Jack as for policies that make it difficult to participate: self-referencing. I have no one else to reference. I have literally been asked to write the book on it. You say you want experts, but that is not apparent from the policy.
@BobJones Questions must start from the text or be about hermeneutical methods. If you follow those guidelines and anyone objects to your question please let me know!
@BobJones this is not supposed to be a site for just one hermemeutical method
and though I approach God's revelation very differently to you, I have found your answers very useful a number of times: I know in my heart I need to adjust my framework, but I'm not sure how yet. My approach (and my heart) is just too... dry
With the current environment, it is unlikely I would generate new questions, and I may dabble at others if they present an opportunity to show a unique angle. I just added to one where "He shall live" is hidden in "only" referring to Isaac as the only son
So God Told Abraham that Isaac would live while he was asking him to be sacrificed
@Jack The method I use frees people up to get the same kind of testimony that Peter had when he said that Jesus was the Messiah, Son of God, and Jesus said that he Father had revealed it to him.
The Holy Ghost 'brings to remembrance' the things that need correlated in order to see the pictures of Christ.
Mt 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Mt 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed [it] unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
10 ¶ And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
The first part of the commentary is a stack of expositions like those I gave to Dan showing the hidden picture in every chapter of the OT
@Jack the reason we are told that Jesus was in the temple at 12 yrs is because it fulfills the prophecy in the narrative of the nine kings of Chedloamer.
@BobJones I hesitate to add to this discussion, but... the issue isn't self-referenceing. You say (and I'm not saying otherwise) that you're an expert in a technique that, to some of us, doesn't look legitimate. So we ask you to show your work. No matter how expert you are, we're all just names on the internet, so a good answer needs to connect the dots. Asserting that X means Y, on its own, is maybe an interesting idea but nothing more.
Sorry, I didn't catch that you were in the middle of another thread while I was typing that. I won't be offended if you set my comment aside for the moment.
@monica.. actually I've had very direct conversations with Jon about self-referencing. If every metaphor were justified in the text of an answer the article becomes too large. Having offsite violates the polkicy of self-referencing
@monica no problem... Hope you had a nice holiday.
@BobJones Ok, obviously I don't have the context you do but that surprises me. Unless what you mean is that you want to store parts of answers elsewhere? That wouldn't work so well, but people link to external articles/books/etc all the time.
@Jack @Monica People score any way they want, which will always be that way, so many people give credit if they agree with it. I look to see if it gives a well-reasoned answer, or information I did not have previously. But the community is what it is.
@BobJones I think the majority here do the same with a bit of laziness thrown in. If an answer is long or unfamiliar folk are very much less likely to up-vote but I don't think there is much we can do about that...
structuring answers with a catchy and concise summary at the top (rather than a conclusion at the bottom) helps I think
@BobJones I'm working my way backward through the chat messages. I think what I said was that it probably wasn't a good idea to flood the site with questions to justify each metaphor. One or two a week (or even more as we grow) would be great. 10 would be overwhelming.
The core criteria for writing answers on the Stack Exchange model, not only on this site but across the entire network, is one of usefulness; this can be reflected simply by hovering over the vote buttons on the side of every post:
Usefulness, unfortunately, is highly subjective. Unlike our pr...
I think it might be good if someone wrote a version of this post for BH.
they have to start insisting on wikipedia style 'supported' answers because they don't have the same solid ground as SO (as you say) and bh.se too in my opinion. Even on SO there not everything is rosy but it works well enough for the site to be useful overall.
" I'm working my way backward through the chat messages" ... that expolains why you never understand my posts ... I'll have to start writing them from the bottom up ;-)
@JackDouglas Have you noticed long answers getting fewer votes? I find them helpful (if well-structured and if they stay on-topic); a long answer that provides its supporting arguments and anticipates and addresses followup issues is exactly the kind of answer I want to vote up.
@BobJones if you're running through the questions (front page, by tag, whatever) then you should be fine. If you're starting from a user's list of answers, that's where you can run into problems.
Over on the Skeptic site, they have a rule that all answers include references to sources. It's a hugely different site than ours, so such a rule isn't necessarily appropriate here. But there are answers that draw on knowledge outside of the texts in question that probably need to cite referenc...
@Soldarnal wrote: "So I'm not sure that we should require sources, since often something can be reasoned from the text. But their presence or lack thereof is certainly something to consider when deciding whether an answer is useful."
" For instance, if someone has written a paper or article on the subject at hand, they could cite themselves. (I really hope this would be uncommon unless the author is an established expert. But I understand that this may be the only option for some Sensus Plenior answers.)"
@JonEricson and hence how to vote: I agree with all that
but not with any move to 'encourage' by other means
at any rate, if we could have somewhat of research base --- a repo for citations --- would that make citing things a bit more integrated from the SE perspective?
@swasheck Tools we have available include tag wikis and canonical answers. We may find some questions (or answers) getting linked because they already address something. That's a good thing IMO.
@MonicaCellio I think self-answered questions work well for this sort of thing. One advantage is that the answersreferences are vetted in the same way that all other content is vetted: voting.
@JonEricson Please do get to Galatians eventually. :) I was hoping after your recent answer that you might address my question which I had written hoping for an answer from @BobJones as well
@Soldarnal Perfect. I was thinking the best way to answer the comments was with another self-answered question. You saved me the effort of writing the question!
The two languages are related (both are Northwest Semtic languages) and eventually shared a script. Hebrew, prior to the exile used its own script called Paleo-Hebrew. It was still used afterwards in isolated places and instances, but what we now call Aramaic Square replaced it for the most par...
@JackDouglas The Aramaic I've learned has been as a side-effect of studying (a) talmud and (b) liturgy. So I've noticed (and asked about) some of the things he points out, but others are new to me. It highlights my need for a more structured treatment.
I am a seminary graduate and have been studying Biblical Hebrew since 1997 when I first took it from Dr. Robert L. Cate. He was recognized as one of the top Hebrew scholars of his generation. He also held to the documentary hypothesis (at least to some extent). That was at Oklahoma State. I then went to seminary and studied under Dr. Roger Cotton and Dr. Wave Nunnally. Unfortunately, Dr. Stanley Horton (also one of the best in his generation) had retired by then.
@MonicaCellio btw your comment serves to back up Franks answer to a certain extent, at least I think a newcomer would see it that way. That and the votes he gets...
@JackDouglas backing him up was my primary purpose in commenting. But given all the discussions we've been having, I couldn't not ask for a source. :-)
@BruceAlderman I'm glad you are making the effort to do that, thanks. I think the site is going through a formative period where crucial decisions are made as to direction—I hope you find you'd like to add your own input.
@MonicaCellio You did it is a way that I whole-heartedly approve of fwiw
@JackDouglas I think we need a meta post that differentiates the sorts of interactions that build up people on the site (and the site itself) from similar interactions that tear people down. (And encourages more of the former. ;-)
@DanO'Day neat. The participle part was new to me, and while I'd noticed the terminal alef I hadn't quite picked up that it's a definite-article marker.
Some I know from liturgy, e.g. we sing psukei d'zimra, songs of praise.
But if you are strong in Hebrew, you won't have issues with it. I'm sure you'd be fine @MonicaCellio (you're stronger in Hebrew than I was when I took it)
@DanO'Day wait, what? I'm not all that strong in Hebrew; I just know how to use reference books. :-) (There are several verb stems that I can't reliably recognize in the wild yet.)
yeah but you are exposed to it a lot more. I just took a few semesters of it in college
and I'm doing a sort of biblical language renewal the past couple of years by retaking courses in languages at a local seminary (for credit - forces me to be accountable)
but I'm debating taking any actual exegesis course because so much theology/doctrine is injected into the instruction - and I come from a very different perspective than that of the seminary
@DanO'Day true, I encounter it a lot more than I suspect you do. I'd like to take a formal class but I haven't found a local one that doesn't meet during the work day.
(I've taken some "adult ed" style Hebrew classes, but they didn't go deep enough.)
@MonicaCellio I read though the answers (and the linked blog post) and it really seems like we have a similar sort of issue here. We are very close to agreement in principle, but the details about how to put that principle into practice get tricky. Sorting them out might take some time...
@JonEricson The issues are similar, yes. (I'm glad you picked up on the comment link; I figured you would, which is why I didn't link the question explicitly as well.) Here on BH I'm perceiving a pretty big difference between you and @JackDouglas, and even though mods are exception-handlers I think people do look to you for direction. You, in turn, look to the community -- and the community doesn't have anything like consensus.
Over on Mi Yodeya, the question in the town hall (that turned into my meta question) was asked by Isaac Moses, the founder of the site and a pro-tem moderator until the elections. (He chose not to run to make room for others. AFAIK he would have easily won a seat otherwise.)
@MonicaCellio There were too few slots for the bounty of moderator candidate y'all have.
@MonicaCellio I think we have a cultural touchstone, however: our respect for the Biblical texts. That's why we are all here, after all.
Our respect takes different forms. Some of us are most interested in discovering what the ancient writers meant and some of us are most interested in discovering what God means to tell us. (But since I'm in the first camp, I might be misrepresenting the second.)
@JonEricson yes, agreed. And the analogue on Mi Yodeya is that we're all there because Jewish tradition is important to us, but that means different things to different people and our sources don't all agree with each other on everything besides. "Two Jews, three opinions" isn't a new idea.
@JonEricson I'm hoping that we'll get big enough that we can add the other two pro-tem mods who aren't mods now -- but by the time we get that big we'll have several other solid partiipants who maybe oughta be mods too, so we may never be able to get ahead of that one. :-) But still, that would be a good problem to have -- one of the recent podcasts mentioned that we're still pretty small.
@BobJones I bring freeze-dried stuff in case the fishing is bad. But if I had a pack team, I'd probably do like you do (and bring a Dutch oven or two ;-).
@BobJones Do you identify Paul as the author of Hebrews?
@BobJones Cool. We don't have a question about who wrote Hebrews yet, as far as I know. The reference to Hebrews was a stumbling block for me as I start reading your answer.
@monica.. yep.. that's why the Bereans checked everything they said against the scriptures. The gentiles were not under the law, and simply by practicing love fulfilled it.
@swash let's not open that one up too far ;-) Seven messengers to the church: Matthew, Peter (Mark), Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude
@swash There are four layers of interpretation by the voices of Prophet, Priest, King, Judge. In one layer it speaks of the authors of the NT, In one layer the seven messengers are figuratively one messenger in fullness, etc.
@swash in one layer the identity of the beast in Rev 17 is resolved by the genealogies of Cain and Seth, and point to Christ (no surprise... in that layer everything points to Christ)
@SWASH WHICH PRESUPPOSITION?
OOPS
The four voices? are not a presupposition, they are an observation.
And they are also Catholic doctrine, and Jewish hermeneutic
@BobJones i invite you to refute me. i'm really not trying to be antagonisic, and i guess i need a more basic explanation of SP than exists on this site, etc.
I am not here to refute or debate. Nor to twist the arms of those who have already decided. sensusplenior.net start with the rules. If you do not understand how the rules set SP apart from Gnosticism and every other hermeneutic method then we can't have a conversation.
If allegorical interpretation is a slippery slope, it's of the semantic variety. When you start reading things allegorically, it's certainly possible to stop when the interpretations don't make sense anymore. But it's difficult to draw a clear line between a passage that is intended to be taken...
First we must lay out two basic interpretive principles. Then I will list the meaning of the 144,000 (Revelation 7:4-8; 14:1-5) for each of the four main Christian interpretive approaches to the book of Revelation.
Interpretive Principles
First we must decide if the 144,000 mentioned in Revelat...
The two languages are related (both are Northwest Semtic languages) and eventually shared a script. Hebrew, prior to the exile used its own script called Paleo-Hebrew. It was still used afterwards in isolated places and instances, but what we now call Aramaic Square replaced it for the most par...
