martin luther

Text and Author’s Cultural Location

June 16, 2010

What happens when we claim the text and the author have a very specific cultural location that makes some of what is in the text “no longer correct?” Ouch, I know. For some of us we have been taught and trained to hear those as fighting words and to remind the offender this is the inspired word of God they are talking about.

What if each culture being written to and each author writing is at a particular stage of development or stage of cultural progress and we HAVE to take THAT into consideration as we think about the bible? That was the suggestion at the end of our last post.

This is of course one of what might be several possible solutions. I think some in more traditional church contexts as well as seminaries and more technical hermeneutics texts have tried to make it sound that because the text is inspired there is a muting of the culture boundedness of the text. If we continue to maintain that position we have learned nothing from the most glaring example where we tried using that line of defense. (a “defense” we don’t need)

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Our Metaphor for the Sacred Text is Too Modern

May 2, 2010

In our modern world we have used a metaphor for approaching our sacred text that may be responsible for a growing set of problems. We have said the Bible is our Owner’s Manual for Life, and we start using this idea early. Metaphors are lenses we use to give us insight. But we have to remember the limits of metaphors. They are illustrative. Metaphors work because there is a an element of truth that rings clear. But metaphors breakdown. Metaphors are culture specific. Metaphors that work today may not work tomorrow. We have been referring to the Bible as an “Owners Manual for Life,” and that metaphor has outlasted it’s welcome. Life can’t be negotiated with an owners manual. Life is too dynamic and too situational to yield to simple looked up entries in an index that refers us to a page for “the answer.”
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