Interpretation and Truth

I am much taken with the problems of interpretation as related to literary translations – to the meaning of self, religion, society, family, freedom, love and a dozen or so other themes important to our lives. I wince, and sometimes deplore, the applications when varieties of interpretations are applied to biblical passages. Some persons make the Bible literature only, and others nearly equate Scripture with God. (We must remember that God is a person in human terms and not to be equated with any other factor than himself.)

Planet Earth: We are told by serious scholars that it all began with a big bang – and it may have. What caused the big bang? Why would God be denied as the source of the big bang? We have no other cause available in nature’s context except that it just happened and the willy-nilly of matter exploding into space is made competent to make the magnificent living machine. In its illustrious refinements we can see, hear, be conscious, and wrestle with both known and unknown concepts. The leading unknown must have intelligence that formed mankind into near masters of nature. Without that intelligence how can we really explain the lonely planet with water, plants, animals, and all else related to this sphere? A vital question, of course, is: If the big bang could make this magnificent planet carrying manageable characteristics for life, why have we not found a few others among the masses of planets that have done something similar?

Human Thought: Why do human thought patterns change from generation to generation with tendencies to force some current interpretations upon former societies holding different views about a conduct, a concept, a reason for this or that, and the like. George Washington was ill, with a throat infection, easily curable in our day – even curable in his day. The doctors bled him four times in search for relief and cure. He became weaker and weaker. One doctor proposed a tracheotomy that might have saved him even after some of the bleeding episodes. The senior doctor present simply turned it down as too dangerous. Hippocrates, two millennia earlier might have been appalled – believing that the first duty of the physician should be to do no harm. Saved from presumed danger, Washington died at sixty-seven years of age – from a sore throat – with the help of friends monitoring bleeding prescriptions. Every day the workings of the mind do all kinds of things that muddle life, and invite trouble, misunderstanding, even death. Even a slight can be interpreted in the voice of a conversationalist, creating anger, perhaps a brawl, and accidental death. Educated persons have made decisions that violate even their own logics, and may destroy them and others. Our habits often challenge our intelligence. With so much failure, how can we believe so surely one way or the other about the unknown? God suggests that it may be done by faith, the only structural means related to the human being. If followed according to instructions our faith works.

Scripture: We may feel embarrassed about the manner in which Scripture is interpreted, as scientists are troubled about the way some of their colleagues treat the facts of nature available to them. My favorite illustration of the distortion of Scripture is found in Hebrews 4:12 a reference explained on another Page. The reference is not to Scripture although virtually all the materials I have seen and conversations I have had in the context of the verse miss the meaning. The reference has to be to Christ as the one who can achieve the meaning of the verse. The following verse uses a masculine pronoun, and the context is discussion about the differences between persons, with the ultimate accent upon a serious person beyond all other persons – The Word of God (Christ). We have no trouble with interpreting John’s introduction, in his Gospel, as related to Christ, and the same word (logos) is used here. It may be the most powerful statement about how Christ by the Holy Spirit is able to reach into the self of those who invite him into their lives. They are changed in the nature of their beings. Our interpretations are often treated, not so much in contradictions as this one, but in the failure to take them at their face value as deep meaning and life changing. They are meant to give us the sense of the ever-present God in our lives, his mercy to assist us, competent to aid us to live up to what he asks. We may miss the greatest elevations to spiritual truth.