From time to time I hear someone tell me that the bible is up for interpretation. What they refer to as the bible is something that I more literally refer to as scripture. I do this because I think that it is important to let the scriptures interpret themselves. Very similarly to the way a specialist takes an unknown language and then begins to compare the symbols with each other until he eventually find meaning in the previously unknown symbols.
I wonder what target he 'is' gonna hit?
Someone more familiar with this idea than myself listed this idea in these terms –> The text of Scripture must be interpreted by historical exegesis, taking an account of its literary forms and devices, letting Scripture interpret Scripture and not relying on the knowledge of man. The reason we should let the Scripture interpret itself is because the bible always tells the truth concerning everything it talks about, but man continually makes errors. If man interprets the bible then the interpretation is open to error, but if the bible interprets the bible, it will always be completely true. This is why the exegesis of passages is important, so that we know what the scripture is actually saying, contrary to what we think it is saying.
It’s usually the people that have something they don’t want to give up that like to adopt the idea that the scripture is up to interpretation. Of course if they ever accept the idea of letting the scriptures interpret themselves then they’ll probably resort to some other form of poking holes in the idea. They would rather do that than think that they themselves are not living up to a mark that the believe is true. “The mark” obviously has to change, because they certainly are not going to change :-)
