How can hermeneutics answer questions phrased "Why did God [do x]?" I have read lots of meta questions about the scope of the site and tried to understand what the site is about, and also what the hermeneutical process really entails, and I just don't understand how some of the recently migrated questions are better fits here. Any opinions?

(examples that puzzle me include hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/29842 or hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/29388)

@JonEricson I have found a lot of meta questions that say it is ok to ping you directly in this chat room, but they are old. Do you have time to enlighten me on site scope?

@CWilson I'm about to go watch my son in marching band.

Generally speaking, if a question is about the interpretation of a biblical passage, it should be fine.

Well, that is more important, have fun. I guess I still don't understand, but thanks for stopping by.

I'll see if I can answer more fully tomorrow.

Thinking about how to better phrase my question, perhaps a better understanding of 'interpretation' would help me. I thought that 'interpret ancient words in ways that are understandable to modern ears', or 'interpret how a specific group of people in a certain time/culture/situation would understand a statement/passage', or even (especially?) 'interpret the group of words or phrases together to tease out likely meanings, or at least discount unlikely meanings' would all be in scope.

But, for these questions, it appears 'interpret' refers to 'interpret the mind and will of deity, using the cited passage'. I wouldn't hold questions from low rep users as examples, except they were brought here and accepted by a moderator, so they must be good examples. Can you (or someone) help me better understand the scope of questions on this site?

Is this site set up to declare the mind and will of the Lord, the purposes of God, the mysteries of Godliness? Can I ask those sorts of questions here? Are there people on this site that have the Truth and are disseminating it freely if I would only soften my heart? Or is my prior understanding of site scope closer to the intention, and most recent answers (and questions) I find here are by well meaning people who are learning site scope as I am?

@CWilson My understanding of site scope is that "interpretation" has a broad meaning, but BH.SE has focused on allowing any method that can "show your work" (how you come to the conclusions you do on the text). Many here lean toward a grammatical/historical form (in some way) of approaching the text, but not all.

@CWilson So in some respect, all your three ideas can be true.

Each person comes with his/her own presuppositions, and many Christians come with the understanding that the biblical text is inspired by God, and so is His word as much as it is the human author's. So from that perspective, trying to discern what God is saying through the text is a valid question.

However, "Why?" questions are actually very hard to answer directly; some inference is needed. But sometimes they are answerable (at least with some probability) based on cross-referencing of other texts or thinking through some logical points. But some cannot be answered from the text, and those might be off topic.

But until people have a chance to ponder those from the text of Scripture, it is hard to tell if it is answerable or not; some immediately dismiss something as unanswerable, where another person finds an answer. Letting those questions at least have a shot for people to answer is, I think, in scope.

That's all I have time for at present, but I hope that helps see "one" perspective on those types of questions.