Interpretation is a Choice

During a class in Divinity School, one of my professors was trying to help the class to understand how we make meaning from the bible. She used a simple illustration that was perhaps so simple that it was profound. She took a copy of the bible, placed it on a table in the center of the room and said that if we wanted to know what the bible said about a certain subject, we could ask it. Of course, the bible itself wasn't going to speak back to us. That was the point.

The bible doesn't say anything. It is a book. The letters on the page are meaningless to anyone who doesn't read the language in which that bible was printed. And knowing that the bible was written in ancient forms of languages that most of us aren't able to read, we have to realize that whatever we get in our English language bibles has already been interpreted for us by the folks who translated it.

Those squiggles on the page that we call letters only have meaning when we give them meaning. So, the only way there is meaning in the printed words on the page of the bible, or any other book for that matter, is when we give those words meaning. Even with the same exact words on the page, with many of the same life experiences, we may come up with vastly different ways of reading a text.

Here's a silly example: what do you think of when you hear the word "car?" Most of us would probably think of those things that we drive around, but some might think of train cars or cars on roller coasters. There may be other different types of cars. But even those of us who think of those things we drive around, what type of car do we think of? Is it new? Old? Red? Small? All of the different types of cars can come to mind just with that one word. So even though we have the same word in the same context, there is no reason to think we would all be thinking of the same thing.

That is greatly multiplied when we read an ancient text that has been translated into our modern language. 

But there is one constant. Whatever meaning we make of the language, it is a meaning that we make. In other words, the words on the page don't mean anything until we create that meaning for them.

My point is this. We choose how we interpret words, paragraphs, whole books. We make meaning as we go along. That meaning isn't even fixed for us... How many times have we re-read something we read at a different time in our lives and found a completely different meaning?

The bible itself does not exclude anyone. It doesn't oppress anyone. It doesn't hurt anyone. Those things only happen because people choose that meaning from scripture. In short, the bible doesn't exclude, people do that.

We have much better tools to study scripture than were available just a few years ago. We have better understandings of culture, more examples of ancient languages, new theories of understanding. Those can all assist us in making meaning of the bible or any other writing. But ultimately we choose what those writings mean, for good for ourselves and others or for bad for ourselves and others.

I believe in a God who is good and loving to the world. I believe that the book inspired by that God would not be intended to harm people. That's how I choose to interpret the scripture.

Whatever you choose, recognize that the bible doesn't make meaning of itself, only we do that.

That's the view from where I stand...