| Author | Message | ||
| Gatororeo7 (Gatororeo7) |
Here's something that has always puzzled me about SDA responses to their obviously out-of-context Bible studies... They always seem to say they follow the set "principles of biblical interpretation." I've been curious, what exactly are those principles? You know, with the way the Christian world is today and the amount of resources available, we can pick up a more modern translation of the Bible and understand perfectly what is being said. The Bible, when it comes down to it, is crystal clear in a lot of places. Yet, Adventists insist that it must all be interpreted correctly. Does the Bible mean what it says or not? Anyways, before I go off on a tangent, my question is simply, what do SDAs consider the proper way to read an interpet Scripture? Joel | ||
| Violet (Violet) |
Joel, In my 30+ years of experiance with the SDA orginization you would go to the "little red books" to find out what the "profit" said (spelling intentional  ). VI | ||
| Jerry (Jerry) |
Ah, yes. I love this question. I will watch this thread with great interest. I have some strong opinions about this based on what I have read, but I will wait until more people who have been inside the church respond. Just a hint. Look up the word hermeneutics on the web. | ||
| Doug222 (Doug222) |
Every former Adventist has probably heard the below passage quoted. It is the very foundation of the SDA prooftexting method--although I must say I haven't heard it much in recent years. The ironic thing about it is that it is a prooftext itself. Read the verse as it is/was oft quoted from the KJV: "9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. 10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: 11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people." Now, go back and read it in context (the entire 28th chapter). For the benefit of those who are not able to do that, here is the same passage in the Amplified Version: 9To whom will He teach knowledge? [Ask the drunkards.] And whom will He make to understand the message? Those who are babies, just weaned from the milk and taken from the breasts? [Is that what He thinks we are?] 10For it is [His prophets repeating over and over]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little. 11No, but [the Lord will teach the rebels in a more humiliating way] by men with stammering lips and another tongue will He speak to this people [says Isaiah, and teach them His lessons]. 12To these [complaining Jews the Lord] had said, This is the true rest [the way to true comfort and happiness] that you shall give to the weary, and, This is the [true] refreshing--yet they would not listen [to His teaching]. 13Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them [merely monotonous repeatings of]: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule; here a little, there a little--that they may go and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken. This was actually a lamentation of the drunkened priests and prophets against God. They felt like he was talking down to them, so they went their own way. In verse 11, Isiah prophesizes that God was about to use the Assyrians to pronounce judgement on Israel. The important thing to notice is that the "line upon line" bit was THEIR perception of God's teaching methods (through the prophets). There is nothing there to suggest that the accepted method of study of the scripture is to jump from unrelated text to unrelated text. If anything, it is saying break the message down to its most simplest form (the Gospel of Christ), and don't move on to meat until the milk can be digested. This is hardly the SDA method of evangelism, where they are teaching the mark of the beast and the 2300 day prophecy to people who haven't even accepted the message of the Gospel. The sad thing is that in all my years in Adventism, I never heard this verse explained in its context. Worse yet, I never went back to read it myself. Thank God for His mercy and grace. In His Grace Doug | ||
| Windmotion (Windmotion) |
I have thought the prophecy principle that a day naturally equals a year is quite scanty indeed. I have only found two references Adventists use to attempt to support this, both of which lack universal significance. Num. 14:34 says "For forty years-one year for each of the forty days you explored the land-you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you." (NIV) and Eze 4:5-6 which says "I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel. After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year." Both of these references have more to do with punishment than with prophecy. Yet they are the two references given in the freely-distributed "seventh-day adventists believe" when explaining the Biblical basis for this principle. Odd indeed. --Hannah | ||
| Jerry (Jerry) |
Recently, you might have noticed the insertion of the word ěhermeneuticsî in various articles and speeches coming from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This word indicates principles of scriptural interpretation. There are as almost many versions of these principles as there are schools of theology. I will give you an excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia. No doubt, you will see an infusion of distinctly Catholic mindset. However, most of these principles are widely used. I will not try to explain them. That would lead to a massive post. However, I will tell you that, in my opinion, most of the official scriptural citations for the distinctive doctrines of the church barely bother to use any of them. X. SUMMARY OF HERMENEUTIC PRINCIPLES 1) The writer begins by dividing the genuine sense of Sacred Scripture like so: i) the literal sense (1) its nature (2) its division (3) its ubiquity (4) its unity and multiplicity (5) The two kinds of a so-called sense of Scripture which at best bear only an analogy to the real Biblical sense: (a) the derivative or consequent sense, (b) and Biblical accommodation. ii) the typical sense. (1) its nature (2) its divisions (3) its existence (4) its occurrence in the Old Testament and in the New (5) its criterion (6) its theological value. 2) In the next place the writer treats of the method of finding the genuine sense of Scripture, considering: i) the human character of the Bible, which demands an historico-grammatical interpretation so that the commentator must keep in mind (1) the significance of the literary expression of its sacred and Scriptural language; (2) the sense of its literary expression, which is often determined by the subject matter of the writing, by its occasion and purpose, by the grammatical and logical context, and by parallel passages; (3) the historical setting of the book and its author. ii) The Divine or inspired character of the Bible requires a so-called Catholic interpretation, which involves additional directions of both (1) a negative character preventing (a) all irreverence and (b) the admission of any error and (2) of a positive nature, which bid the interpreter to respect (a) the definitions of the Church, (b) the patristic interpretation, and (c) the analogy of faith. 3) After the genuine sense of Sacred Scripture has been found, it had to be presented to others by means of i) the version, ii) the paraphrase, iii) the gloss and scholion, iv) the dissertation, v) or finally the commentary. |
