St.AugustineHermeneutics Lecture Series

I. How to Use the Bible

II. How to Interpret Anything

III. How to Read, Mark,Learn, & Inwardly Digest

the WordIV. How to Read Along:

Scripture and Traditions

St.AugustineHermeneutics Lecture Series

How to Interpre

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II Timothy 2:15

15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

II Timothy 2:14-17

14 Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene.

Not Seeing What’s There

Seeing What’s Not

There

The Iron Bed of Procrustes:

Very hospitable,One size fits all

--or else!

(Theseus vs. Procrustes)

“First, do no harm to the evidence”

Two Ways toStuff Stuff

Into your Mind

Jean Piaget (1896-1980)Cognitive psychologist

Assimilation(recognizing likeness)

Accommodation(making room for the new)

Two Ways toStuff Stuff

Into your Mind

Jean Piaget (1896-1980)Cognitive psychologist

Not Seeing What’s There

Seeing What’s Not

There

Tips intro

1. Squint at it

Tips for Seeing What’s There:

2. Flip it over

3. Find negative space4. Catch the Moment

5. Re-make it

6. Give up your eyes

7. Say what you see

8. Use back- ground knowledge

Applying this to texts

Clear and Unclear

Genre: “What kind of thing is this?”

Parts and Whole

Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation.

…Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable.

-- Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare, 1765

there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work

in its full design and its true proportions;

a close approach shows the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer.

-- Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare, 1765

Parts are not to be examined

till the whole has been surveyed.

How do you get the big picture?

I. Rapid Re-

Reads

II. Outline

As I proceeded,I began to catch the drift of Paul’s thought; or rather, I was caught by it and drawn on. The mighty argument opened out and arose like a great work of art above me till at least it enclosed me within its perfect proportions. It was a revolutionary experience.

I saw for the first time that a book of Scripture is a complete discussion of a single subject; I felt the force of the book as a whole, and I understood the different parts in the light of the whole as I had never understood them when reading them by themselves. Thus to master book after book is to fill the mind with the great thoughts of God.

Outline or Chart

This is an invitation to try

things out

Outline or Chart

Name:__________ Date: __________

Outline I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

1 Adam2 a3 a4 a5 a6 a7 a8 a9 a10 a11 a12 a13 a14 a15 a16 a17 a18 a19 a20 a21 a22 a23 a24 a25 a26 a27 a

Pre-fall

St.AugustineHermeneutics Lecture Series

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