Indeed, I was born through iniquity; with sin my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5 (David Lambert translation) Born– My goodness, what theological mileage has been fueled with this verse! Augustine told us that it confirmed the essential sinfulness of human beings. It is a standard proof-text for the doctrine of original sin. Others have tried to…
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Exodus 20:2 NASB Brought you out – Israel Finkelstein makes some challenging points in the book, The Quest for the Historical Israel. He notes that archeology is not in the business of exegesis. Exegesis is the process of…
(Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he used to say, “Come, and let us go to the seer”; for he who is called a prophet now was formerly called a seer.) 1 Samuel 9:9 NASB Prophet/Seer – Once in awhile, if you are paying attention, you run across a sentence…
They seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant. Mark 9:10 NASB Meant – Do you find this verse a bit odd? It suggests that the disciples didn’t quite know what Yeshua was talking about when he told them to keep quiet until the Son of Man should rise…
As we come close to the end of 2016, I thought it useful to articulate as best I can how I approach the Scriptures. This is really a simplified version of what I think about the paradigms of the authors. I try my best to figure out what they thought and how they viewed the…
What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:3 NASB What – Want to try a little exercise? Let’s see what it takes to exegetically analyze this single verse. We’ll take it a step at a time. We’ll attempt to build a model that can be used…
How do we read and understand the Bible? Most of us began this process by simply picking up a translation and reading the words as if they were written by one of our contemporaries. What I mean is that even though we know the Bible was written centuries ago, we treat the words and ideas…
And Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? Luke 5:34 NASB Bridegroom – “Most commentators assume that Jesus’ mention of the bridegroom refers to Himself as the Messiah; however, within Jewish tradition, the bridegroom never refers to the Messiah. As we…
“Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.” Luke 8:11 NASB Parable – Peter complained that Paul’s writing was difficult to follow, but Paul’s letters are a piece of cake compared to the teachings of Yeshua in the Gospels. Why? Because I can at least follow Paul’s arguments and reasoning with…
My view of exegesis has certainly developed over several decades. I used to think that a good lexicon, a solid historical understanding of doctrine, and prayer were all that was required in order to know what the Bible says. That paradigm was shattered long ago. In its place I have come to realize several important,…
