Interpreting Parables and Prophecies, Part I (Religion)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Thursday, January 17, 2013, 22:14 (4111 days ago)

After a discussion with DHW where I admittedly lost my patience with him (which I am profusely sorry for, it is something I shall have to work on), I decided that instead of losing my patience and pulling out what little hair I have left, I would instead start a thread about the nature of parables and figurative language in the context of biblical texts. -**For the purpose of this thread, I am going to assume that the characters portrayed are real. That is the basic assumption of this article, though in most cases it is also a matter of fact according to archaeological records.**-For starters, it is imperative to realize that the the bible is purposefully obfuscatated. Jesus himself said, "That is why I use these parables, For they look, but they don't really see. They hear, but they don't really listen or understand.....This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world." (Matt 13:13 & Matt 13:35)-However, because the Bible does an excellent job at revealing the meanings of the parables to anyone willing to make an honest effort to find it, I see this as a simple filter. It is a way of sorting those that are serious in their attempts, and those that are not. -
In later additions to this thread, I will get into some of the actual parables and prophecies themselves, but for this article, I want to talk a little about how one goes about interpretting these parables. -Interpretation-Contrary to popular belief, you can not simply take a single verse from the bible, read it out of context, and expect to understand it. As mentioned previously, much of the information is intentionally obscured. However, there are additional challenges that must be faced. -The first, as is so often mentioned, is that there is a language barrier. The OT was written in Hebrew, and the NT primarily in Greek and/or Aramaic. None of these languages exist as they did at the time the books were written, so this naturally introduces a layer of uncertainty as concerns the translations. -The second major issue is that of bias on the part of the translator where by the translators personal prejudice biases the way that he translates key words or phrases in the text. Fortunately, of the two, this is the easiest to work around by the simple virtue of referencing multiple translations, and, when possible, referencing the source text.-The third major issue, is one of methodology. When interpreting biblical parables and prophecies, it is important to remember that they are generally cross-referenced through out the bible, and give a clear indication of what the proper interpretation should be, or at least what the context of that interpretation should be. For example, the wild beast with multiple heads and horns that is spoken of in the book of Revelation is cross-referenced to the book of Daniel(chapter 7/8), where the same type construct is used to specify political powers and kings. -Certain key words are also used through out the text in figurative senses where the meaning is uniform in its context. For example, earth, water, river, stream, wind, breath, all have a very uniform distribution of figurative examples throughout the text in which their meaning becomes clear. In short, it should never be up to the interpreter to interpret the bible. Instead, the interpreter should allow the bible to interpret itself. -
The next post in this series will discuss the interpretation of prophecy and the problems inherent in it, as well as the final checks and balances that are needed when interpreting the bible.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.