Mystifying moments in Bible interpretation: An exploration of some implied backgrounds to three kinds of unusual Bible readings

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Mystifying moments in Bible interpretation: An exploration of some implied backgrounds to three kinds of unusual Bible readings
 
Creator Lombaard, Christoffel
 
Subject Biblical Spirituality; exegesis; hermeneutics Unusual Bible readings
Description This contribution is part of a series on Methodology and Biblical Spirituality. In this, the fourth contribution, the scope is widened; more practical-analytically oriented, three thoroughly different but nevertheless all unusual kinds of interpretations of the Bible are described, characterised and contextualised. Namely:• In order to explain what are perceived as textual anomalies, some Old Testament authors have been described by US-based medical practitioners as having suffered psychiatric dysfunctions.• The Garden of Eden from Genesis 2 and further has been located by a recently diseased Nigerian scholar as having been in her home country, with a Nigerian race having been the predecessors of biblical Adam and Eve.• Rastafarians, primarily Jamaica-based, regard marijuana as a holy herb and find direct support for their religious use of this plant in the Bible.However strange such ‘mystifying’ interpretations may seem within the theological mainstreams of Judeo-Christianity, there is more to these kinds of interpretations than simple whim. Certain cultural conditions along with personal, particularly spiritual, commitments enable these interpretations, which must be taken seriously in order to come to a fuller understanding of the text–interpreter dynamic. These then can cast at least some form of reflective light on the more usual current biblical-interpretative mainstreams within Judeo-Christianity, posing in a new light the question of what constitutes legitimate interpretations, also within mainstream interpretations, as religiously inclined people try to live their lives in the light of Scripture.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor None
Date 2017-02-08
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Literature study
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v73i3.3495
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 73, No 3 (2017); 8 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3495/9233 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3495/9234 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3495/9235 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3495/9236
 
Coverage International Contemporary Literature study
Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Christoffel Lombaard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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