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Welcome to Day 1569 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study – Worldview of the Author and Word Meanings – Meditation MondayWelcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! Wisdom is the final frontier in gaining true knowledge. Our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, seek out discernment and insights, and boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; this is Gramps; thanks for coming along on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy Today is Day 1564 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.
We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our current insights are focusing on accurately interpreting the Bible. Today let us meditate on:
Bible Study – Worldview of the Author and Word Meanings· Insight Fifty-Seven: You Can’t Understand the Bible Without Understanding the Worldview of the People Who Wrote It
I’ve talked before about the importance of context for interpretation. The context of the Bible involves many things. Think about the many contexts for anything we write. Our past and present experiences naturally color the way we look at the world. What enters our minds in various forms of media becomes part of how we intellectually process the world. How we were taught to express ourselves informs how we communicate. We are a product of the intellectual climate and resources that we absorb. So were the biblical writers.
Much of what we find in the Bible cannot be understood well (or even at all) unless we see what’s written through ancient eyes. We must be able to think like the ancient writer. Doing that requires sharing his worldview. Obviously, we can’t hope to accomplish that task ultimately. But we providentially live at a time where it’s more possible than ever to get inside the head of biblical writers with respect to their worldview.
The key to discovering the biblical writers’ worldview is to read material that reflects their time and culture. Archaeology has uncovered a large amount of the intellectual output of the cultures that were part of the biblical world. Numerous tablets and manuscripts have been translated into English. That makes it possible for us to think more as they did. We can not only read about what people from Egypt, Babylon, and Canaan wrote and thought, we can read that material ourselves.
Some outstanding resources help us navigate this terrain. The best starting points are two books, Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies. Both volumes are guides to the background literature produced by the civilizations of the ancient biblical world. The nine-volume Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary is also a premium reference tool.
Among the many resources these titles will direct you to are anthologies—collections of ancient English translation texts. The most up-to-date scholarly set is the three-volume Context of Scripture. James Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament is a one-volume anthology. Other volumes focus solely on one writer or collection, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, or Philo. Access to the thinking of the ancient biblical world has never been more widely...