Translation Lesson 4 Interpretation

Textual criticism (What are the original, inspired words?)

Translation (What are the words in my language?)

Delivery (How did the Bible come to us?)

Interpretation (What is the meaning of the text?)

Exhortation (Preaching: what does this mean for you?)

Textual criticism (What are the original, inspired words?)

What is the manuscript evidence?

Translation (What are the words in my language?)

The 2 choices a translator makes...

Delivery (How did the Bible come to us?)

Interpretation (What is the meaning of the text?)

Can a Bible passage have two different meanings?

Have you even been surprised about a Bible passage that you already knew?

Have you ever totally misunderstood a Bible passage until someone explained it differently?

If we interpret the Bible differently, does that mean that all Christians before us were wrong?

John 8:43–47 CSB

Why don’t you understand what I say? Because you cannot listen to my word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Who among you can convict me of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? The one who is from God listens to God’s words. This is why you don’t listen, because you are not from God.”

It is important to be able to understand the Bible, and to understand it correctly.

Take, for example, Jonah and the great fish. Easy story, right? We put it on felt boards for our kids.

There are 4 main ways people have approached the text: Literal, Moral, Allegorical, and Analogical

Literal: The primary meaning of the text is strictly the words as they are written. Complex analysis is not required to understand the text. Cultural considerations are a distant second to the pain meaning of the words.

In literal interpretations, the events of Jonah took place in history exactly as written, in the order they were written. You can apply the Book of Jonah immediately when reading it. God used a miracle to save Jonah from the great fish, so God uses miracles to save me. Chuck Swindoll and Billy Graham are famous examples.

Moral: The primary meaning of the text is moral instruction. The details of the text are less important. Whether or not it actually happened in history is less important. Primarily, the reader should know how to behave from the text.

For moral interpreters, its not very important whether Jonah really happened or not. Since Jonah kept a secret from the sailors on his ship and got caught, I should know that I can’t keep secrets either. Rick Warren and Robert Jeffress are examples of pastors who often use moral interpretation.

Allegorical: Allegorical interpretation, sometimes called typological interpretation, looks beyond the primary meaning of the text for instruction on things not mentioned in the text. Jesus primarily taught in parables (“the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed”), and looking for the allegories in the Bible helps us understand the big picture. We apply the text to our lives through the big picture, not the exact words of the text.

For allegorical interpreters, the primary meaning of Jonah was explained by Jesus himself. Jesus compared his death and resurrection as the “sign of Jonah”. Jonah’s descent into the deep is like Jesus’s death. Jonah brought new life to Nineveh just like Jesus brings new life to his followers. Charles Spurgeon, Augustine, and many others have quotes similar to “Christ is on every page of the Bible.”

Analogical : The analogical, or “mystical”, interpretation tries to understand the spiritual things in the Bible through the physical. The prophets, like Ezekiel, talked about the Heavenly Jerusalem. So we can understand Heaven like a city. The stories themselves only help us to understand the spiritual.

Mystical interpretation doesn’t have good boundaries. Maybe the ocean in Jonah represents hell, the great fish represents the devil, and Jonah only dreamed it all. Jesus cooks fish in the gospel of John to show he has overcome the devil. Thomas à Kempis wrote The Imitation of Christ as analogical. Bishop T.D. Jakes and Catholic Theology about the Virgin Mary are other examples.

Jonah 1:4–6 CSB

But the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart. The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep. The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”

Changing Methods

Before the Reformation, early Christians favored the allegorical approach, especially of the Old Testament. In the middle ages, the allegorical approach was expanded to include the other three . The “Four Horse Chariot” was finding a literal, moral, allegorical, and analogical/mystic interpretation for EACH passage of scripture. A lot of the strange interpretations that came out of the middle ages wasn’t that they didn’t have a regular interpretation, but that they strained to find an interpretation using each method.

Starting with Martin Luther, Protestants began interpreting the Bible as the Biblical author would have intended it to be interpreted. So, for example, you start with what an Israelite would have understood the Book of Jonah to mean, then you can add additional meaning provided by the New Testament. You still have the problem of knowing what the author intended, but Protestants began relying on the Bible to give meaning, rather than the meaning inherited from the Church Fathers or popes.

The Reformation gave us the understanding that the Bible should interpret itself. We know a lot about Nineveh, Israel, seafaring, and prophesy in the Old Testament, so we can bring those into our primary interpretation of the Book of Jonah. But since Jesus himself used Jonah as an allegory of his own death and resurrection, we can rightly interpret Jonah as an allegory also. God does declare the actions of Nineveh and Jonah wrong, but also the text indicates that the repentance of Jonah and of Nineveh are right. So we can legitimately interpret the book morally.

A common analogical/mystical interpretation of the Book of Jonah is that Jonah represents Israel, who wanders into the “sea” of idolatry before God uses fish to bring Israel back to the promised “land”. Personally, I don’t see a mystical interpretation of Jonah necessary.

20th Century

The 20th Century saw the rise of the historical-critical method of interpretation. The emphasis here was to understand the broader context of the world of the biblical authors. Now, 150 years after the modern archaeological movement, we have enough texts and information to better understand what the words of the Bible would have mean to the original writers.

The historical-critical method isn’t wrong, but it has certainly been done wrong.

One example of the historical-critical method done incorrectly is called “The New Perspective on Paul”.

The Protestant understanding of the NT is that Paul’s view of salvation is justification by faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of the law. The New Perspective on Paul, however, examined many other Jewish writers in the first century, especially those that wrote in Greek like Paul. The claim is that other Jewish writers used ideas like “circumcision” and “works of the law” as covenant markers. The claim is that Paul was against these covenant markers (don’t have to be Jewish to be Christian), but not against good works contributing to salvation. Salvation was for Paul, they claim, mystical (i.e. “united” in Christ) rather than a “legal” justification (i.e. Jesus “paid” the “penalty”).

If we let the Bible interpret itself, so to speak, the New Perspective on Paul falls apart. The NT teaches salvation by faith. In the last 20 years the New Perspective on Paul has fallen apart because of new research on 2nd Temple Judaism. Advocates of the New Perspective on Paul have had to change their definitions because of the new research.

Even though the New Perspective on Paul was mostly bogus, the historical-critical method has contributed positively to the study of Paul. New Perspective people were correct in stating that many of Paul’s ideas were not new to him. We now have many examples of 2nd Temple era Jews believing in salvation by faith (in God but not in Jesus). Paul added Jesus.

Romans 3:21–24 CSB

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Although the Literary Approach sounds a bit like “anything goes”, it acknowledges a relationship between the different sources of knowledge about the text. For example, the Book of Jonah isn’t only what the author wrote. It also has meaning from history. It doesn’t explain the history or importance of Nineveh, for example. We are expected to know that Nineveh was the worst of the worst, an enemy of God and his people. By knowing that, we can make sense of what the author is saying.

We can find meaning by “looking” in different places. We expect these places to compliment each other, not contradict one another.

By “looking” in different places, we can get meaning within each general category (literal, moral, allegorical, anagogical/mystical), while still letting the Bible tell us which to use. We can supplement our understanding with the historical-critical method. For example, I agree with Augustine about what Paul mean in salvation, but Augustine didn’t know about my Will Smith meme (no benefit from the historical approach).

These things let us have a richer meaning of the Bible. Based on how the NT authors interpret the OT, I think that’s a good thing.

John 11:35 CSB

Jesus wept.

NT281 How We Got the New Testament The Example of Jeremiah

The Example of Jeremiah

I’m going to take you back to an OT passage that I think is helpful here: Jer 25:13. We read, “I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations.” Now, if you notice carefully, this passage has God essentially viewing the things that Jeremiah wrote as His own thoughts, as His own words.