Reading the Bible on its own terms Podcast with Pastor Erick Episode 1

“Reading the Bible on its own terms” – a course in basic Bible interpretation.

Session 1 “Getting Connected”

Warm-up Question: What do you expect from this course and this conversation?  What are you looking for? Why did you come?

Topics:

Library – 66 books, 39 + 27, or 73 Catholic (includes apocryphal/intertestamentary), or 81/88/100+ Ethiopian

Authors, or editors, or “attributed to”: in OT final version never signed and dated

The manuscript trail – what is the actual inspired version of the Bible?

Different types of Literature: A proverb is what usually happens, poems don’t rhyme, history told with purpose, apocalyptic is just really strange.

Power and politics and theological preference: the miracle of how the Bible seems to have slid through history relatively unscathed.

Interpretation: what does “all Scripture is God-breathed” mean?  Dictation, the people involved were alive, each passage is equal, God oversees the process, etc?

Favourite passages, central passages, Scripture interprets Scripture.

Literal reading: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” and other bumper sticker sayings that may need further assessment.

Translations:  which is the best?  Depends on what you are trying to do.

Tools: footnotes, cross-references, word-study, websites and books and blogs and podcasts

Issues: contradictions, confusing passages, cultural adaptation etc

Questions for you:  From the list above…

1.         Choose which topic most interests or excites you.

2.         Which least interests or excites?

3.         What is a question that comes to mind about one, two or three of these topics?

What we won’t be doing:  interpreting actual passages in detail

Homework Question: What is the Bible? (give a brief answer that includes the purpose of the Bible)