BOAZ

"1/ Who was speaking? (including the narrator of a report)
2/ To whom was he/she speaking?
3/ What do we know about the social/cultural/political conditions of the day?
4/ When was it spoken?
5/ How was it communicated?"

1. The prophets
2. The 'flock'
3. We know that what the prophets said were condidered facts and the Word of God. The Word of God was considered to be absolute.
4. When the prophets spoke it.
5. Voice or perhaps the prophets wrote it down.

In other words, no one has given any religious figure the authority to intepret the sacred religious texts like the new testament. In fact, knowing how superstitious and ignorant they were, we know they would have believed every last penny of what was written to the letter and expected it to be seen as such by the followers.

extracted from
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/index.html#alphabet

"Our sacred literature does not use obscure language, but describes most things in words
clearly indicating their meaning.
Therefore it is necessary at all times to delve into the literal meaning of words
to achieve complete understanding of what is actually meant."
--Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888)

Ancient Hebrew Word Meanings
Truth ~ emet
By Jeff A. Benner
--



The root of this word is aman, a word often translated as "believe"
but more literally means "support"
as we see in Isaiah 22:23
where it says "I will drive him like a peg in a place of support...
" A belief in God is not a mental exercise of knowing that God exists but
rather our responsibility to show him our support.

The word "emet" has the similar meaning of firmness,
something that is firmly set in place.
Psalmes 119:142 says, "the 'Torah' (the teachings of God) is 'emet' (set firmly in place).


The problem is compounded by the fact that a language is tied to the culture
that uses that language.

When the text is read by a culture different from the one it is written in,
it loses its cultural context.
A biblical example of this can be found in the Hebrew word tsur
which is translated as a rock -

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;
I shall not be greatly moved (Psalm 62:2, RSV).

What is a rock and how does it apply to God?
To us it may mean solid, heavy or hard
but the cultural meaning of the word tsur is a high place in the rocks
where one goes for defense, a place of salvation.

see also
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2006-November/030891.html
http://www.skeptically.org/oldtestament/id8.html

The third choice is, without believing, or wasting time of life, or praying, going to church, making money from religion.etc.
Being born was the purity, and as long as you follow all the rules of the heart, and die with the purity, this is the neutral and you can stay out of the fight. Once you have committed to one side or other, you have automatically created war and have become a soldier, hence your everlasting fear of the devil.

Well, that's how I interpreted it.

EVO

Boazy,

Suppose when claiming Mout Everest, I come across a volume, containing related two books, claiming to be the Word of God. How do we test it as the Word of God? If we do not know it is the Word of God; how can we interpret the volume as the Word of God. Surely, not its self-reference, not because, it says so. Or some 325 years after the climax of the book a Council of Elders says it is the Word of God and super-add notions of a godhead, a Trinity, which was a theme developed by the Egyptians centuries beforehand. Herein, I posit, we cannot take the Book at its face-value. WE need more.

[1] We must know how to measure/recognize the Word of God.

[2] Only then are we confident that it is the Word of God we are
interpresting.

[3] We interpret by looking at alternative explanations and looking
for cultural, physical and political evidence: to confirm or
refute.

[4] We look for "borrowed" stories.

[5] We need to knew the source is God and not a religion, of which
there have been thousand throughout history.

Similarly, if come across an Arab guy, who has just spent a long time in the dessert, returning stating, he has the power to recite the Word of God, we need to test claim, before we can interpret it. Could it be, our voyger is trying to unite the Arabs against Chriatians, Jews and Persians, because, "united we stand divided we fall"?

We can only interpret the motiivations for creating The Shroud of Turin, after we have tested it and found it to be a fake. Not why did God send us this message; but why was the forgery created?

The same rules apply for alleged religious documents, as for secular documents; because, religious documents are secular documents, until proven otherwise.

Best wishes,

O.

Oliver you are forgetting one thing: The religious who hold the most power and get the most say in politics (and their religion) are the extremists. They are the ones who turn that harvested money into $$$ to influence and bribe politicians.

The moderates are irrelevant, except to prolong the death of religion and keep the funding base as wide as possible.Notice that the moderates never interpret the bible in opposition to the extremists point of view, or they will be expelled, shunned, demoted and excommunicated (if applicable).

Ok..I'm extending my 'shepherds crook' and reigning in some of you :)

TOPIC.. "how to interpret documents"....

Oliver said:

"How do we test it as the Word of God? If we do not know it is the Word of God; how can we interpret the volume as the Word of God."

Oliver.. excellent point. The 'point' I'm trying to make here..is..NOT "is this the Word of God" ..no no no :)

The POINT.....I'm laboring is.. 'WHAT DOES the 'text' SAY and what does it mean in everyday normal meanings of those words....

Now..on the issue of 'Word of God'.. that my friend will always be an act of faith. So.. lets try.. tryyyy oh so hard :) to separate 'what documents say' from 'the faith that they produce'.

For example.. Lets take Mark 1:1

"The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (a)the Son of God"

Now..I bracketed "Son of God" not because of any 'interpretive' operation, but because there are some early documents which do not have this phrase at that point. In the Gospel of Mark this is footnoted.

a.Some manuscripts do not have "the Son of God."

The fact that it is included.. reflects the weight of documentary evidence for that.

Leaving the faith aspects aside for a moment.. I think we can all agree on the following:

The book, called "The Gospel of Mark" begins with a self description as follows:

-The beginning of
-The 'Gospel'
-of Jesus...Christ.

Now.. requiring 'interpretation' are the following:

"Gospel"
"Christ"

We know that "Jesus" was the name of the subject, so..what do 'Gospel' and 'Christ' mean?

"GOSPEL" (Historic Background to the word)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_news_%28Christianity%29

[[the English translation of the Koine Greek (euangelion, "good message"). The gospel was the good news that runners carried throughout the Greek city-states proclaiming that the Saviour-King had ascended to his throne.]]

Now.. knowing that historic use of the word 'Gospel' from the Greek city states.. puts a rather higher level of import on the word than simple 'Good news'..right?

"CHRIST" can be next post:)