Non-Bible sources?

[Notthemama1984]

I am reading Dr. Schreiner's commentary on Romans as we speak and he is making his argument on Romans 4 based on the text, but reinforced through Pseudopigrapha.

My understanding of Sola Scriptura is that I interpret Scripture with Scripture and nothing else. Do you agree or is what Dr. Schreiner (and several other commentary writers that I own) doing acceptable?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Boliver,
I would say that Scripture IS its own interpreter therefore primary and decisive in all cases, however, to ignore what's going on around Scripture (for example: in the social context, what sort of vocabulary is being used in the contemporary religious discourse, etc) is unnecessarily narrow. If it sheds some additional light, then its a good thing. I doubt if the man is suggesting that the Pseudopigrapha is a necessary component to right understanding.

Beside which, it would be almost impossible to construct a dictionary of ancient language and usage if we paid no attention to as much of an ancient corpus as we could. Some scholar or other has made it possible to have in your hands an accurate, readable, comprehensible Bible.

 

[LawrenceU]

Bruce,
You are spot on. I recently had a conversation with a good man who is out of a desire to read nothing but the Bible in regards to the history of the period violently wrenching meanings from Scripture that are ridiculous if one understands the cultural context and vernacular usage.

(That is an awful sentence.)

 

[Elimelek]

Dear chaplainintraining and others

I'm not clear if you may be confused between sola scriptura and solus scriptura

My personal stance on the interpretation of the Bible with the Bible is that there may be cases where an understanding of the social context and other ancient texts are shedding more light on a passage in the Bible. If you take Psalm 82:1 for instance is can be translated:

God [Elohim] is standing in the meeting of the gods [elohim]
In the midst of the gods [elohim] He judges/reigns.

Traditionally the text the "gods" are understood as "rulers" based on the traditional Jewish exegesis of the psalm in the Targums as well as Jesus' quote in the Gospel of John.

However this psalm came into being before the Targums and Jesus' sojourning on earth in a time when people acknowledged many gods. The Israelites living between the Canaanites were faced with the challenge of believing in the Lord as the only God or just as another of the gods. Asaph uses the well-known imagery of the meeting of the gods found in the clay tablets of Ugarit (written in Ugaritic, probably an ancestor-language of Hebrew), to link with the perceptions most people thought was true. However in the psalm he turns everything on its head by proclaiming the incompetence of the gods (in verse 2-4 the gods act unjustly - fitting in with the general practice of ancient people to manipulate the gods through sacrifice, the richer you are the better the results from the gods and visa versa - while verse 5 tells us that while the gods are ruling/judging/reigning, their indifference threatens the existence of the universe) and God declaring them mortal and therefore no longer gods (verse 6). There is only one god and that is God.

The psalm may sound shocking to us today without having background on the actual social context in which it came into being. Yet reading it against its background, it reaffirms our believe in God as the only god. It also warns that idolatry leads to unrighteousness to rule the world and that one should not try to manipulate God.

The Ugaritic language has helped Biblical Scholarship tremendously in the interpretation of the Bible, due to the common background and cultural backgrounds the Ugaritic people and the Israelites shared.

All this said, when one is using source outside of the Bible itself to illuminate the Bible text, it should be done with great caution. Ugaritic clay tablets are not equal to Biblical texts.

Something I find interesting is that Hebrew, Phoenician and Ugaritic share the same words when it comes to sacrifices. The Canaanite (Moabite and Ammonite etc) inscriptions we have are probably written in a Hebrew dialect, with little or no difference from early Biblical Hebrew.

(Remember that Psalm 82 is poetry and should not be understood as describing something that has happened literally or historically. God was described in a Canaanite context (God in the midst of the gods) to convince ancient people to turn from their gods to the one and true God.)

I think that when commentators use other texts that is not part of the Bible, to interpret the Bible, we need to be cautious, but not closed for it. Sometimes a person may distraught the Bible, yet there are a lot of cases where context and extra-Biblical texts holds the key to a better understanding of the Bible.

Kind regards


Elimelek

 

[tgoerz]

Bruce,
You are spot on. I recently had a conversation with a good man who is out of a desire to read nothing but the Bible in regards to the history of the period violently wrenching meanings from Scripture that are ridiculous if one understands the cultural context and vernacular usage.

(That is an awful sentence.)

Bout like Jonathan Edwards...=).