Why is the bible never read in context? Eg. just read the passage straight through and learn from that passage. Why is there always something to decode? Either jumping from random pages to the next. Oh in the book of Exodus some people died and that relates to the paul going around preaching and his books.
A simple strange question.
by vomit 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
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BizzyBee
Good question. I suggest you don't wait for it - read it in context for yourself. And decide for yourself what the message is - quite a trip!
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free2beme
I thought this was something that only the Witnesses did for a long time, until I got away from their religion and spoke to other Christians. I saw that it was not a Witness thing, but rather a Christian thing. Very common! I personally think it is done, as Christians feel the whole Bible is written by God and they are just moving from chapter to chapter and do not realize the large times table between books, the conflicts, or the history to what books are in and what ones were ignored. It is so simple, if you want it to be and the way Christians use it and treat it in discussion is to make it simple.
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lovelylil
Good question.
Every group is different. Some do read the bible in its context. I found that those who believe they have the only real truth are the ones who pull scripture out of context to prove their points. Now when I see people playing hop scotch in the bible - I immediately run the other way. Lilly
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jayhawk1
If anybody thinks the Bible is hard to read, try reading the Dictionary sometime. That book started off talking about Aardvarks and by the time I finished reading it, it was talking about Zymurgy. The most confusing read of my life.
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Satanus
They call it bible marking - http://www.geocities.com/biblemarking/help/methods.html I think that it was started within protestantism.
S
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Ade
Hi,
Because people want more than there is, they are never satisfied with simplicity like this.
Life before the law.
Life with the law - to show men their transgressions, that they are not righteous.
Life after Jesus fulfilled the law, no need for law codes just have faith and wait.
The bible has become like technoology to many religions, they have to make it seem more and more advanced . When it is really quite a simple message.
There is also the man who wishes to lift himself above others, so will invent meanings to passages and link passages together which actually have no bearing to one another.
Lastly i will add, if you study the bible and start a group, eventually, if it grows you can deviate from the actual meaning of text and the majority of followers will simply accept what you have said to be truths.
Arrogance, ignorance, laziness all wonderfully inherited flaws which some would be lost without.
God bless you and yours
Ade -
OnTheWayOut
The Bible is a huge book. You are supposed to just read it in context from one end to the other.
(Even JW's want people to do that) The religion itself, though, would be very liberal and free if
it just allowed commenting on the reading or had surmons that were not chaining scriptures.
Yeah, that might be a good thing. -
Ade
Hi onthewayout,
Thats exactly how my bible study group operates, we read from the scriptures, give thoughts , correct each other if its wrong. nothing more nothing less.
All the best
Ade -
Narkissos
The "patchwork" approach is not original to JWs -- actually, taking passages out of context and connecting them artificially is the only way you can get a consistent creed or catechism out of the Bible imo. Only, as ever, JWs have carried this traditional method to a grotesque level.
Simply reading the Bible can be a mind-blowing experience to a JW (or any dogmatic believer for that matter), and it is ironic the practice is officially encouraged -- like E.A. Poe's famous letter, a case of "hidden in plain sight".
Why it usually doesn't work is because most Bible readers already have the catechism in mind when they start to read any Bible text. So they generate their own harmonising paratext as they read. Protestant readers who have learnt salvation-by faith-alone-not-works can go through Matthew and hardly notice any difference. It takes mental discipline to forget what (you think) you know and open your mind to what the text actually says, instead of reading into it what other texts (or an official synthesis) say.
What makes it even more difficult is that intertextuality is an integral part of every Bible text (even the older ones which went through later redactions under the influence of other texts). The Bible is a collection of books, not a collection of unrelated books: the texts actually quote each other, allude to each other, and it is very unnatural for the believing reader to integrate the possibility that this intertextuality involves reinterpretion, or plain disagreement. Unlearning previous syntheses is perhaps the single most important factor in Bible exegesis. And it takes time. When you read 50-year-old commentaries it's amazing how much dogmatic material previous generations of scholars took for granted which nobody takes for granted anymore. The dogmatics we still take for granted is impossible for us to see, but will certainly raise smiles in the future.