We are walking in today: How to Study The Bible: Principle of Interpretation, Part 6
Witness language throughout the Bible: H3956 lashon--tongue (of men), tongue (literal), tongue (organ of speech); language
Est 1:22 For he sent letters into all the king's provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, H3956 that every man should bear rule in his own house, and that it should be published according to the language H3956 of every people.
The Torah testifies...............
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The prophets proclaim..................
Jer 5:15 Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language H3956 thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.
The writings bear witness...........................
Est 8:9 Then were the king's scribes called at that time in the third month, that is, the month Sivan, on the three and twentieth day thereof; and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews, and to the lieutenants, and the deputies and rulers of the provinces which are from India unto Ethiopia, an hundred twenty and seven provinces, unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language, H3956 and to the Jews according to their writing, and according to their language. H3956
Zec 8:23 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages H3956 of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.
The language is a very important part of humanetics. All of the old testament was written in Hebrew. Surprisingly except for just a few short statements. Some of them were written in Aramaic because of the carrying over into Babylon. When they went into Babylon and the Most High sent them, as punishment they took the books with them. They took the testaments with them that Moses had. And they learned the language of the oppressor. Aramaic. So some of the interpretation was written in the language that they learned in Babylon as you know for a long time. So they learned the language of the people that were oppressing them and therefore they taught and they wrote in that language. So there are short passages in the Bible that are written in Aramaic and most of them are written during the period of the exile to Babylon. Do you know that the people in the African countries have probably in many cases a better interpretation of the Bible then we do here in the United States?? Because in those countries, those people still have the cultural concepts that are closer to the Bible than we do, because we have been moved and transported. People in the countries of Africa and their rituals are so close to the rituals of the Bible. Like washing your hands and not using two hands to do the same thing. They still do the same thing--even today, if you go to Nigeria you can’t eat with any hand that you want. The customs are still there and there are a lot of things that they still do that are so close to the biblical experience, than us who have been contaminated by the western experience.
I believe this is because we have lost touch with the Bible as an eastern book. It is not a western book!! The Bible is an eastern book! All the languages of the Bible are eastern languages. So these books must be translated from the concepts of the east. Hebrew and Aramaic are a part of what they call the Semite language family. That word is always referring to of course the Hebrews and that is important because if you are going to study the Bible. You have to appreciate that these languages come from that area. So we have to understand what these people understood so that we don’t try to overlay on these people our English version of life!! Examples that I think we constantly have is, how the Hebrew word or the Semitic word have different meanings than what we think they do in English. They are completely different. We need to be careful not to overlay our meanings on them.The word that the Most High gave for His name. When the Most High used the term “I AM” in the Hebrew language it meant something really different from the English. I AM that I AM, I will be, who I will be! The name of a thing in Hebrew is the exact thing and it is what it is named. So when you call a name in Hebrew, you’re calling the thing--what it is!! You are actually consuming all of its characteristics. That is why naming is so difficult in Hebrew and when you don’t understand that you end up dividing, in a sense, the scriptures. You abuse them, you mutilate them because you begin to apply our understanding of words to the Bible. We have to be cautious with that.
The New Testament is written in Greek. But the old testament also has some great translations but it is basically Hebrew. Can anyone tell me why the New Testament is written in Greek? Because of the time. Once again. We are talking about the Hellenistic period they call it. When the Greeks ruled the world and the Greek language of course was propagated as the language of commerce. It was the language of communication for the world and that is why we have so many writings from people like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle because the language of the Greek was very, very sophisticated. The Most High is wise because the Greek language is so perfect. It is such a perfect language that the Most High waited until the Greek language was ruling the world before He sent Yahusha.
When the Romans took over the world they defeated the Greeks, but the Romans kept the Greek language. The Most High wanted to make sure that we got the gospel in its fullest. The Most High could not have used a better language than Greek for the New Testament because it is such an exact language. That’s why I tell you there are four languages for love. It is exact. You cannot miss it. When Yahusha said to His disciples, I love you, He used a different word than He would say I love the flowers. Now if He was speaking English we would have misunderstood Him. But in Greek they could not misunderstand Him. He used agape for them and then He used philos for something else. So The Most High in His wisdom preserved the right language so that there would be minimum misunderstanding even 2000 years later!!
The other thing about the Greek language is that it is so well preserved. If the Most High would have used English we would be in trouble. Ten years ago bread was bread that you eat. Now bread is money. I do not know what you mean anymore. I remember when cool meant cold. Thank The Most High that He did not use English. The Most High used a language called Greek and Greek is so perfect. It is such an exact language and The Most High did that to preserve His word. This is textual criticism. This word you will probably hear a lot in different circles of theological study. Textual criticism.
Aramaic became the principal language of the Mesopotamian area and of Syria and Palestine and it became the secondary language of the Persian empire. Now remember that Persia, is Babylon and they took over of course and they ruled everybody! The Persian empire spoke Aramaic. People like Daniel were under Babylon. That is when they were in exile. So parts of Daniel are written in Aramaic because Daniel was under the influence of the Persian empire. So Aramaic was introduced during that period of the exile and it continued in its influence all the way up until Yahusha time. There are some statements in the New Testament that Yahusha spoke that are actually Aramaic statements. I did not say Arabic. Aramaic is a Persian language and this is the language that Yahusha himself understood. Aramaic was a very common language among the people in the area. The word Palestine, that is where Yahusha lived. That is where Israel is, that is where Canaan is. It is in the Palestine area. So all of that area was covered with that language and they spoke it as a common language every day. So they were covered by the Roman authority and they spoke Greek as the classical language. The teachers spoke that, the people with high class, they spoke Greek. Then the Aramaic language was a local language, but then you had Hebrew of course among the people. But Hebrew was kind of a lost language in the time of Yahusha because during the exile, people lost the language.
So there is a whole lot of stuff going on when you talk about the Bible. When Yahusha came He spoke Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew. Hebrew is a modern language today. Hebrew was reinvented after 1948. If you go to Israel you will see that they speak Hebrew, but it is not pure Hebrew. It has been contaminated by modern words that were put in to reconstruct the language. Pure Hebrew is found way back in the writings of these old testament writings.
I am saying this to say, sometimes when Yahusha would make a statement He would make a statement using a Aramaic idiom and if you do not understand His Aramaic idiom, you do not understand what He was saying. Then you end up with a wrong interpretation. Then you end up with wrong application and you kill yourself in bondage. So when we talk about Greek and Aramaic it is very important that we understand the new testament was written mostly in Greek but there were some statements in Aramaic because of the culture that they were in.
History means that you must use extra biblical resources and sources to interpret the Bible. When you are going to interpret the Bible it has its own objectives. The Bible is written in time and that time has a context of history. That history includes people, culture, social conditions, economic conditions, wars, and rumors of wars. It includes poverty and wealth and all kinds of changes. The Bible was written in the midst of all of that. So when you are going to interpret the Bible you cannot ignore the historical information that surrounds all of the periods that you are reading. It is important to read historical writings to verify and validate and confirm what the Bible is saying. Okay, so it's important to read history. That's why if you can interpret the Scriptures, you must not ignore the historical documents. Read other books that relate to what's going on. The third principle is drawn from philosophy. If you interpret scripture, you must understand that there's a philosophical assumption that influences interpretation. Everybody comes with their philosophy and this is when we get into people like Martin Luther. Also, famous St. Augustine. They influenced Christian theology. But many of them have different philosophies that they brought to their interpretation. So you have to be aware of what they interpret. Is it their philosophy? Because they interpret based on their assumptions and bring it philosophically. For example, you have people who believe in once saved, always saved, it comes from a different philosophy.So when you read the Bible you look for that. So then you see if you can find that and you dig it out and then you confirm what you feel, and that becomes what? Your philosophy. So your philosophy influences the way you interpret Scripture. Once again philosophy is “do it the way you think”. When you start to study and start to interpret the Bible, you have to consider the philosophical approach so you can understand why this person came to this conclusion. It may not be the one that you came to but you understand why they came to that conclusion. Interpreting the Bible has to do with schools of thought. Schools of theological influences affect the way you interpret the scripture. Everybody has a school of thought. When you interpret Scripture, you have to take an honest look at the theology that is being communicated in that interpretation. Martin Luther for example when he read the Bible as a Catholic priest, He had a revelation concerning salvation And he got it from reading the book of Romans. He concluded that a person is saved by grace through faith in Christ and not by paying for penance and confessing their sins so much. So he said look, based on what I read here we are saved by grace through faith in Yahusha. He says we don’t have to pay all this money and do all these things so he ends up with a theology that creates a problem for the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church at that time got a lot of money from people paying penance. In Europe it was tough to be Catholic. You had to pay everything there, trying to get your sins forgiven. That's how bad it was. So Martin Luther says, I don't know but there's something wrong with this and He read the Bible and says we are saved by grace through the work of Yahusha, not through paying all this money and doing all these things. So that was his theology and it covered all of his writings. So when you interpret the Bible if you are a Catholic you can see a difference and you interpret the Bible a little differently. If you are from the Protestant theological view, you interpret the Bible a little differently. You look and you see something different. So interpretation is very very subjective in a sense to the principles of theology. And that's why theology is important because it's the study of how you see The Most High. How do you see The Most High? And how you see The Most High is how you interpret his word. Make sure our theology is based on what Yahusha believed and what Yahusha says. The last thing is, The Bible never changes. People change but not the Bible. The Bible is the number one best-selling book in history and still is. The Bible has survived every attempt to be destroyed which makes the book a miraculous book in itself. Some of you when you read scriptures will find out where it talks about nations that the people of The Most High were killed and everything was destroyed and burned, then a thousand years later they went back to that place and rebuilt it and they found the Bible under some rocks. For example the Dead Sea Scrolls, so it was just a cage. There's a hole and it's been there for 200 years. The Most High's Word is surviving every attempt to be destroyed Thank you Most High for giving us Your word!!!!!
I believe this is because we have lost touch with the Bible as an eastern book. It is not a western book!! The Bible is an eastern book! All the languages of the Bible are eastern languages. So these books must be translated from the concepts of the east. Hebrew and Aramaic are a part of what they call the Semite language family. That word is always referring to of course the Hebrews and that is important because if you are going to study the Bible. You have to appreciate that these languages come from that area. So we have to understand what these people understood so that we don’t try to overlay on these people our English version of life!! Examples that I think we constantly have is, how the Hebrew word or the Semitic word have different meanings than what we think they do in English. They are completely different. We need to be careful not to overlay our meanings on them.The word that the Most High gave for His name. When the Most High used the term “I AM” in the Hebrew language it meant something really different from the English. I AM that I AM, I will be, who I will be! The name of a thing in Hebrew is the exact thing and it is what it is named. So when you call a name in Hebrew, you’re calling the thing--what it is!! You are actually consuming all of its characteristics. That is why naming is so difficult in Hebrew and when you don’t understand that you end up dividing, in a sense, the scriptures. You abuse them, you mutilate them because you begin to apply our understanding of words to the Bible. We have to be cautious with that.
The New Testament is written in Greek. But the old testament also has some great translations but it is basically Hebrew. Can anyone tell me why the New Testament is written in Greek? Because of the time. Once again. We are talking about the Hellenistic period they call it. When the Greeks ruled the world and the Greek language of course was propagated as the language of commerce. It was the language of communication for the world and that is why we have so many writings from people like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle because the language of the Greek was very, very sophisticated. The Most High is wise because the Greek language is so perfect. It is such a perfect language that the Most High waited until the Greek language was ruling the world before He sent Yahusha.
When the Romans took over the world they defeated the Greeks, but the Romans kept the Greek language. The Most High wanted to make sure that we got the gospel in its fullest. The Most High could not have used a better language than Greek for the New Testament because it is such an exact language. That’s why I tell you there are four languages for love. It is exact. You cannot miss it. When Yahusha said to His disciples, I love you, He used a different word than He would say I love the flowers. Now if He was speaking English we would have misunderstood Him. But in Greek they could not misunderstand Him. He used agape for them and then He used philos for something else. So The Most High in His wisdom preserved the right language so that there would be minimum misunderstanding even 2000 years later!!
The other thing about the Greek language is that it is so well preserved. If the Most High would have used English we would be in trouble. Ten years ago bread was bread that you eat. Now bread is money. I do not know what you mean anymore. I remember when cool meant cold. Thank The Most High that He did not use English. The Most High used a language called Greek and Greek is so perfect. It is such an exact language and The Most High did that to preserve His word. This is textual criticism. This word you will probably hear a lot in different circles of theological study. Textual criticism.
Aramaic became the principal language of the Mesopotamian area and of Syria and Palestine and it became the secondary language of the Persian empire. Now remember that Persia, is Babylon and they took over of course and they ruled everybody! The Persian empire spoke Aramaic. People like Daniel were under Babylon. That is when they were in exile. So parts of Daniel are written in Aramaic because Daniel was under the influence of the Persian empire. So Aramaic was introduced during that period of the exile and it continued in its influence all the way up until Yahusha time. There are some statements in the New Testament that Yahusha spoke that are actually Aramaic statements. I did not say Arabic. Aramaic is a Persian language and this is the language that Yahusha himself understood. Aramaic was a very common language among the people in the area. The word Palestine, that is where Yahusha lived. That is where Israel is, that is where Canaan is. It is in the Palestine area. So all of that area was covered with that language and they spoke it as a common language every day. So they were covered by the Roman authority and they spoke Greek as the classical language. The teachers spoke that, the people with high class, they spoke Greek. Then the Aramaic language was a local language, but then you had Hebrew of course among the people. But Hebrew was kind of a lost language in the time of Yahusha because during the exile, people lost the language.
So there is a whole lot of stuff going on when you talk about the Bible. When Yahusha came He spoke Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew. Hebrew is a modern language today. Hebrew was reinvented after 1948. If you go to Israel you will see that they speak Hebrew, but it is not pure Hebrew. It has been contaminated by modern words that were put in to reconstruct the language. Pure Hebrew is found way back in the writings of these old testament writings.
I am saying this to say, sometimes when Yahusha would make a statement He would make a statement using a Aramaic idiom and if you do not understand His Aramaic idiom, you do not understand what He was saying. Then you end up with a wrong interpretation. Then you end up with wrong application and you kill yourself in bondage. So when we talk about Greek and Aramaic it is very important that we understand the new testament was written mostly in Greek but there were some statements in Aramaic because of the culture that they were in.
History means that you must use extra biblical resources and sources to interpret the Bible. When you are going to interpret the Bible it has its own objectives. The Bible is written in time and that time has a context of history. That history includes people, culture, social conditions, economic conditions, wars, and rumors of wars. It includes poverty and wealth and all kinds of changes. The Bible was written in the midst of all of that. So when you are going to interpret the Bible you cannot ignore the historical information that surrounds all of the periods that you are reading. It is important to read historical writings to verify and validate and confirm what the Bible is saying. Okay, so it's important to read history. That's why if you can interpret the Scriptures, you must not ignore the historical documents. Read other books that relate to what's going on. The third principle is drawn from philosophy. If you interpret scripture, you must understand that there's a philosophical assumption that influences interpretation. Everybody comes with their philosophy and this is when we get into people like Martin Luther. Also, famous St. Augustine. They influenced Christian theology. But many of them have different philosophies that they brought to their interpretation. So you have to be aware of what they interpret. Is it their philosophy? Because they interpret based on their assumptions and bring it philosophically. For example, you have people who believe in once saved, always saved, it comes from a different philosophy.So when you read the Bible you look for that. So then you see if you can find that and you dig it out and then you confirm what you feel, and that becomes what? Your philosophy. So your philosophy influences the way you interpret Scripture. Once again philosophy is “do it the way you think”. When you start to study and start to interpret the Bible, you have to consider the philosophical approach so you can understand why this person came to this conclusion. It may not be the one that you came to but you understand why they came to that conclusion. Interpreting the Bible has to do with schools of thought. Schools of theological influences affect the way you interpret the scripture. Everybody has a school of thought. When you interpret Scripture, you have to take an honest look at the theology that is being communicated in that interpretation. Martin Luther for example when he read the Bible as a Catholic priest, He had a revelation concerning salvation And he got it from reading the book of Romans. He concluded that a person is saved by grace through faith in Christ and not by paying for penance and confessing their sins so much. So he said look, based on what I read here we are saved by grace through faith in Yahusha. He says we don’t have to pay all this money and do all these things so he ends up with a theology that creates a problem for the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church at that time got a lot of money from people paying penance. In Europe it was tough to be Catholic. You had to pay everything there, trying to get your sins forgiven. That's how bad it was. So Martin Luther says, I don't know but there's something wrong with this and He read the Bible and says we are saved by grace through the work of Yahusha, not through paying all this money and doing all these things. So that was his theology and it covered all of his writings. So when you interpret the Bible if you are a Catholic you can see a difference and you interpret the Bible a little differently. If you are from the Protestant theological view, you interpret the Bible a little differently. You look and you see something different. So interpretation is very very subjective in a sense to the principles of theology. And that's why theology is important because it's the study of how you see The Most High. How do you see The Most High? And how you see The Most High is how you interpret his word. Make sure our theology is based on what Yahusha believed and what Yahusha says. The last thing is, The Bible never changes. People change but not the Bible. The Bible is the number one best-selling book in history and still is. The Bible has survived every attempt to be destroyed which makes the book a miraculous book in itself. Some of you when you read scriptures will find out where it talks about nations that the people of The Most High were killed and everything was destroyed and burned, then a thousand years later they went back to that place and rebuilt it and they found the Bible under some rocks. For example the Dead Sea Scrolls, so it was just a cage. There's a hole and it's been there for 200 years. The Most High's Word is surviving every attempt to be destroyed Thank you Most High for giving us Your word!!!!!
https://youtu.be/OlPwvGHCYIQShema Selah what is the thoughts behind your philosophy?? Are they from the Most High? If not you are out of alignment with HIM!!! https://youtu.be/OlPwvGHCYIQ
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