1. The Bible: What it is & What it Isn’t
Getting Serious about Taking
Scripture in Context

2. Goal (this session and the previous)
Don’t
Think about the Bible …
Talk about the Bible …
In ways that make the idea of inspiration indefensible or vulnerable to attack.

3. Misconceptions

4. What do we mean? Passage focus More academic Verses before and after
Grammatical-historical Exegesis
Historical backdrop
Specific occasion
Internal consistency / Bible as a whole
Biblical languages

5. What do we mean? Bigger issue than all that
We’re been trained (conscious or otherwise) to not see what interpreting Scripture in context really means and requires
Must understand what interpreting the Bible in context does NOT mean …

6. Foreign Contexts The Church Fathers (of any era)
The proper context for accurately understanding the Bible is not:
The Church Fathers (of any era)
The Roman Catholic Church
The Protestant Reformation
Denominational Distinctives
Evangelicalism
Modern Critical Approaches
Any modern context

7. Correct Context The one in which it was written.
The proper context for accurately understanding the Bible is :
The one in which it was written.
The Bible was written for us, but not to us

8. What does that mean?

9. Broadly …
You need to think like the original biblical writers – and the original readers to whom the biblical books were written.
You need their worldview in your head

10. Broadly …
The Bible is filled with insider information, but we are outsiders when it comes to their world.
We do not share their outlook and knowledge in every area …

11. Broadly … Social (cultural attitudes, customs, biases)
Science (natural world, medicine, biology, micro-biology, astronomy, navigation, geography, etc.)
Communication (written, oral)
Religious (unseen realm, afterlife, divine knowledge)

12. Specifics

13. Foreign Worldview of Bible
Bears Marks of ANE Culture
Jacob and Laban – goats (Gen 30)
Numbers 5 test for adultery
Casting Lots
Justice
Avenger of blood, crime and punishment (e.g., Deut. 25:11)
Status of women
Polygamy, Levirate Marriage, Divorce, Property

14. Phenomena of the Text Use of Ancient Literary Structures
Covenant treaty structures
Lawsuit genre
Afterlife sighting genre
Epistolary literature
Parallelism, recapitulation, chiasm

15. Phenomena of the Text Content is Ancient / Primitive
Medicine / Science
seat of emotions, intellect
reproductive biology
cosmology

16. Phenomena of the Text Theological Communication
Not always (or even mostly) propositional
Story, narrative, concepts
Chaos
Leviathan
Fire
Stars
Divine home / office / council

17. So … what to do?

18. Summation
A coherent understanding of inspiration needs to account for what is actually found in the text.
We need to
set aside our assumptions
focus on the biblical data
LET THE BIBLE BE WHAT IT IS, not make it what it isn’t

19. What is the Bible? Ancient Mediterranean document …
Pre-scientific in worldview …
Supernatural in worldview …
Presumes the culture of its writers …
God knew who he was using and what he was getting
Providential guidance – a PROCESS, not an event
We honor God’s decisions