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Sloppy Hermeneutics

Another example of speaking for God comes from my Fundamentalist friends. I love their general approach to scripture and doctrine, but more than once I have heard a preacher say, "The Bible says that drinking alcohol is a sin."

Now I am a teetotaler. So I have no horse in the race. Nevertheless the Bible does not say that, and to state that it does undermines your message.

Does anyone else have an example of people misquoting God?
 
Proverbs 31:6,7 "Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."

Guess they missed that one, and they misuse the previous verse which calls for KINGS to not drink as it would affect their judgment. This prohibition for kings, which is actually just advice from Lemuel's mommy, falls a bit short of a general prohibition.
 
NeoPatriarch said:
I would love to see a Patriarchal Study Bible made like the Evidence Bible. Wouldn't that be sweet? Footnotes and mini articles would make for a strong learning tool.
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A project I should probably work on at some point in my life if I ever get the time. I have lots of notes on Abraham, Jacob/Israel, and David, even a few on Saul and Solomon. Honestly though, most of it is more geared at disproving the mono only folks rather than teaching the Biblical standard in a general, cross dispensational way.
 
I too don't drink, but can't stand it when people try to say that the Bible teaches that - what about "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." (1 Timothy 5:23). In that case, it's quite probable that where Timothy lived they had contaminated water, so the wine was safer and didn't upset your stomach - but that still is an instance of wine being recommended, no prohibition there. Being a tetotaller is great for the budget and runs less risk of embarrassing yourself - but is nothing directly to do with Christianity.

In some ways, the Bible without any footnotes IS a patriarchal study Bible! The footnotes can try to explain away what is so obvious in the text. We have been reading to the boys about David and Bathsheba over the last couple of nights for instance, and the story is very clear - "David had lots of wives, but took the only wife of Uriah, just like a rich man having lots of sheep but stealing the one lamb that belonged to a poor man". Very clear, very patriarchal, it's all about theft of something belonging to another and implicitly accepts that a man can own many sheep or wives. You just need to be willing to open your eyes and actually read what it says without prejudice.

Having said that, footnotes reminding you to do that would be extremely good. The best study bible I've found yet is the MacArthur ESV, bought one for my brother for his wedding. It's pretty difficult to find a study bible that has both decent notes and a decent translation. Make those notes PM-friendly and it would be pretty good. My own is a Harper NRSV, the notes are ok but I've come to distrust that translation now.

For a laugh, note that my 4 year old gets the words "wife" and "mother" mixed up, because Sarah is both a wife and a mother. So our conversation went something like
Me: "What did David do?"
James: "He had special cuddles with Bathsheba"
Me: "Was that good or bad"
James: "Bad"
Me: "Why was it bad?"
James: "Because she wasn't his mother". :o
 
Of course the next thing you might hear is that, "wine in the Bible times was grape juice" or that somehow it was not a very effective alcohol. Coincidently, I have only heard such things from those who claimed the drinking of alcohol to be a sin.

Oh what a tangled web...
 
FollowingHim said:
Having said that, footnotes reminding you to do that would be extremely good. The best study bible I've found yet is the MacArthur ESV, bought one for my brother for his wedding. It's pretty difficult to find a study bible that has both decent notes and a decent translation. Make those notes PM-friendly and it would be pretty good. My own is a Harper NRSV, the notes are ok but I've come to distrust that translation now.
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I have MacArthur's NASB study Bible, good for lots of things, but his teaching from the pulpit specifically prohibits polygamy. I have not checked certain topics in his notes that would probably bring out his opinions on this issue, but I doubt he has a fair and unbiased rendering. That said, MacArthur generally uses the ESV as it is translated with a specific Reformed leaning on key passages.
 
NeoPatriarch said:
Of course the next thing you might hear is that, "wine in the Bible times was grape juice" or that somehow it was not a very effective alcohol. Coincidently, I have only heard such things from those who claimed the drinking of alcohol to be a sin.

Oh what a tangled web...
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So why did the wedding guests at Cana enjoy it so much :lol:
 
'weak wine also wouldn't help that dying man too much.
 
Cow fam said:
I have MacArthur's NASB study Bible, good for lots of things, but his teaching from the pulpit specifically prohibits polygamy. I have not checked certain topics in his notes that would probably bring out his opinions on this issue, but I doubt he has a fair and unbiased rendering. That said, MacArthur generally uses the ESV as it is translated with a specific Reformed leaning on key passages.
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Virtually everybody's teaching from the pulpit specifically prohibits polygamy, so that's not really anything unique. I don't have a copy to hand, but I remember checking a range of key passages when I bought it for my brother and found it pretty sound on other issues.

When checking translations and notes I tend to look at Genesis 1 (check the notes accept the account literally, ensure the translation isn't tweaked to accommodate the gap theory) andJob 39-40 - Check Behemoth and Leviathan are translated as such (particularly dodgy translations such as the CEV substitute "Hippopotamus" and "Crocodile" or other nonsense, when in reality we just don't know what they are). Those two passages tend to show the translator's general attitude and weed out the worst nonsense.
 
Robert, Agreed, I too have only heard the grape juice from those who label drinking as a sin.
 
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