Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my fourth episode. Tonight I want to explore the ways in which we may approach the Bible. I had previously said that the Bible could possibly be the most sophisticated text known to man. I stand by that claim, and I’ll elaborate further on it today. First we need to ask ourselves this question: why is Bible interpretation important? I believe the answer is because there is only one true and perfect interpretation. Any interpretation that departs from the truth becomes opinion at best, and false teaching at worst. I also believe that humanity is no where close to fully understanding that true and perfect interpretation. We don’t yet have enough information. So what are we going to do?
It’s always best to start by studying the Scriptures inductively. This means trying to figure out the author’s intended meaning. Scripture interprets Scripture, so taking all of the context into consideration is a key part of inductive study. After this, we can use what we know is true about reality to test our interpretation for mistakes. A word of caution: history shows humanity to be wrong about many concepts they believed to be true about reality. The earth being flat, for example. So in some ways our Bible interpretation is bound to our imperfect understanding of reality. We will always be slightly off the mark unless we discover everything there is to know about existence. However, that does not mean we can’t use what we’ve tested and known to be true to help us get closer to the mark. So you might say, aren’t you just reading reality into the Bible? And the answer is precisely yes, because I think that’s what we are intended to do.
Allow me to elaborate by referencing part of a dialogue from the notable atheist Sam Harris. Harris is the author of multiple best selling books and he is an intellectual powerhouse. He is seriously brilliant. In one of the arguments he puts forward in the end notes of his first book The End of Faith he selects a recipe book randomly from the shelf at a Barnes and Noble and reads it as if it is an ancient spiritual text. I’m going to quote him verbatim:
And therein I discovered an as yet uncelebrated mystical treatise. While it appears to be a recipe for wok-seared fish and shrimp cakes with ogo-tomato relish. We need only study its list of ingredients to know that we are in the presence of an unrivaled spiritual intelligence. Then he lists the ingredients:
snapper filet, cubed
3 teaspoons chopped scallions
salt and freshly ground black pepper
a dash of cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
8 shrimp, peeled, deveined, and cubed
1/2 cup heavy cream; 2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 teaspoons rice wine; 2 cups bread crumbs
3 tablespoons vegetable oil; 2 1/2 cups ogo tomato relish
The snapper filet, of course, is the individual himself — you and I — awash in the sea of existence. But here we find it cubed, which is to say that our situation must be remedied in all three dimensions of body, mind, and spirit.
Three teaspoons of chopped scallions further partakes of the cubic symmetry, suggesting that that which we need add to each level of our being by way of antidote comes likewise in equal proportions. The import of the passage is clear: the body, mind, and spirit need to be tended to with the same care.
Salt and freshly ground black pepper: here we have the perennial invocation of opposites — the white and the black aspects of our nature. Both good and evil must be understood if we would fulfill the recipe for spiritual life. Nothing, after all, can be excluded from the human experience (this seems to be a Tantric text). What is more, salt and pepper come to us in the form of grains, which is to say that our good and bad qualities are born of the tiniest actions. Thus, we are not good or evil in general, but only by virtue of innumerable moments, which color the stream of our being by force of repetition.
A dash of cayenne pepper: clearly, being of such robust color and flavor, this signifies the spiritual influence of an enlightened adept. What shall we make of the ambiguity of its measurement? How large is a dash? Here we must rely upon the wisdom of the universe at large. The teacher himself will know precisely what we need by way of instruction. And it is at just this point in the text that the ingredients that bespeak the heat of spiritual endeavor are added to the list — for after a dash of cayenne pepper, we find two teaspoons of chopped fresh ginger and one teaspoon of minced garlic. These form an isosceles trinity of sorts, signifying the two sides of our spiritual nature (male and female) united with the object meditation.
Next comes eight shrimp — peeled, deveined, and cubed. The eight shrimp, of course, represent the eight worldly concerns that every spiritual aspirant must decry: fame and shame; loss and gain; pleasure and pain; praise and blame. Each needs to be deveined, peeled, and cubed — that is, purged of its power to entrance us and incorporated on the path of practice.
Oh, I just love that. So basically what he’s saying here is that you can provide a commentary on virtually any text and come up with something that sounds spiritual and truthful. That argument sounds like a powerful one, but the premise of it is what I’m interested in. How do we know whether the recipe is a recipe or Scripture? The best way to determine the purpose of the text is to ask the author. So if we know that the author’s intention is to write a recipe, then we also know that a spiritual commentary on such recipe is not an accurate interpretation. Now contrast that with the Bible: Scripture inspired by God intended as a revelation of Himself to us.
So our instructions for reading it should be in alignment with what it is: inspired text from our Creator. Since the Bible describes God as the one true and living God, then it stands to reason that all of our existential disciplines: history, metaphysics, psychology, etc. should support the biblical claims when our interpretations of those disciplines are accurate. And that’s what is so magnificently amazing about the Bible. You can take any discipline as your angle on Scripture and glean new information which you can then pair with a different disciplinary angle and the information from each angle is complementary. They fit together like pieces in a cosmic puzzle. And there’s more: the further we progress in each discipline and the better we understand reality, the more information the Bible dispenses to us. Reading the Bible in that way causes it to explode into life as a potentially infinite source of wisdom and information. And the Bible itself tells us to read it this way.
With that idea put together, it dawned on me that I have in my hands a text that will never stop teaching me. I can read it a thousand times and each time will be a new experience because I am a living being operating in the same reality it is divinely designed to be paired with. And that process actually works.
So let’s return to our original question in order to summarize our findings. How do you read the Bible? You should approach the Bible as if it is the inspired Word of God and is inerrant in its original form. Throughout your exegesis (or textual interpretation) you should caution to keep all verses and passages in context with each chapter, and with each book, and finally with all 66 books as a whole. Once you have this core exegetical interpretation, you should cross examine it with the best known truth-claims of reality. If human understanding of reality is accurate, you should have a well-done exegesis that has been refined and tempered by reality. At this point, you are ready to begin taking aim at Scripture from the lenses of each existential discipline. For example, you can determine the psychological significance of any given passage and as long as that angle doesn’t disrupt your core interpretation, you will unveil reliable information.
A basic example of this is Noah’s Flood. If you look at Noah’s Flood from a psychological perspective you might discover that the flood represents chaos and tragedy coming into your life. And you can see that Noah is given the opportunity to ride out the flood on his ark because he is a Godly man. Thus, you are far more likely to survive being blindsided by tragedy or chaos in your life if you are walking in step with God. Your Christlike principles will act as an ark allowing you to survive the deep waters.
The great thing about taking this angle on the story of Noah’s Flood is that you learn a valuable lesson without ever changing your core interpretation. You aren’t saying that the flood never happened and that it was just an illustration of Noah’s psychology. You’re just learning real truths that are taught to us by the story. Now imagine if you opened your Bible and did that for every passage the whole way through. And that’s just one of the many angles you can take. When the Bible is viewed from the perspective by which it is built to be viewed – it transforms into a source of information so vast that its existence can only be explained by transcendence. By God.
If you find this content valuable, feel free to share it and to use it in your own studies. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at http://www.patreon.com/michaelhbaun. There is a link in the description. Your generosity goes a long way to promoting the growth of this enterprise and the cause of free speech. Thank you all for joining me this evening, and I will see you in the next episode.
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