Series: Interpreting the Bible

Interpreting The Bible: The Basics

Logic

There is only one domain of human knowledge that trades in absolute certainty, and that is Propositional Logic. For that very reason, a lot of our traditions have approached the Bible as if it could be understood this way - as if it MUST be understood this way.

Propositional logic works like this:

(A) All cats are red
(B) Sam is a cat
(C) Sam is red

Interpreting The Bible: A Start

If our task is discover the story which makes sense of all the Bible's complexity, we need an idea of where to start. The Bible is complex, and understanding the big picture is hard. And as a result, many candidate stories are floating around. Many of them are stories I held to unquestioningly as I was reading the Bible.

"The Bible exists to deliver morals, and to make us become moral"

"The Bible exists to teach us the correct things to believe"

"The Bible exists to deliver a pattern for the organization of a church"