Posts tagged as:

hermeneutics

History and science – the human errors of Jesus and the Bible?

February 24, 2010

The title of this post is, I point out, a question. It arose because I was struck by the openness and honesty of the comment David Couchman left on this post. He said:

On the one hand, I’m very uncomfortable with the kind of conservative position which says ‘if science seems to contradict the Bible, so [...]

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The difference between a conservative and a fundamentalist? Pants!

August 24, 2009

(Updated 25/08/09: see below)
I think an argument between Claude Mariottini and a fundamentalist opponent illustrates the distinction between conservatives and fundamentalists well.
I begin by noting that I am tremendously impressed by Claude’s patience as he picks apart a particularly stupid argument. Claude had posted a long reasoned argument which concluded:
The law in Deuteronomy 22:5 is [...]

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Bewailing her virginity

August 20, 2009

Today the first reading at Mass was the story of Jepthah’s daughter (Judges 11:29-40). It is some distance from being the most edifying story in the Bible, and even more of a contender for David Ker’s Bad Boy Bible study than Elisha and the bears. Coming up with a short reflection was made even more [...]

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Write off the Bible, why don’t you?

August 16, 2009

I can understand why Duane Smith wishes to treat Scripture both as needing to be put in scare quotes and as any other literary corpus. And in fact he has a serious and oft-unnoticed point when he decries the false dichotomy between confessional readings and a relativist free-for-all.
I am intrigued that David Ker wants to [...]

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Baldy, bad boys and the big bear: a strange Bible meme

August 12, 2009
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David Ker has followed up his bad boy bible reading approach with a reading of this classic story from the Elisha cycle.

From there he went up to Bethel, and while he was on the road, some small boys came out of the town and jeered at him. ‘Hurry up, baldy!’ they shouted. ‘Come on up, [...]

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Interpretation or interruption? Canon and conversation.

July 22, 2009

I really liked this post by Daniel Kirk on Christian reading of the Bible. I think I might have said not too dissimilar things in the past (although possibly not as well). So it was interesting that, seeing it said by someone else, my reaction was more of a “Yes, but …”. There are clearly [...]

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Keeping religion away from the BIble?

June 19, 2009

There’s an interesting conversation going on between (among others no doubt) Doug Mangum, Phil Sumpter and Ken Brown about (historical) objectivity and (religious) interpretation of Scripture.
There was a time, many moons ago, when I believed there was an (essentially singular) objective and original meaning to texts which should control our interpretations, and that we could [...]

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