In Reply to: Re: Addenda posted by Mr. Don on May 04, 2006 at 12:25:12:
It's really cool to see how excited you are by your studies. After I was done posting last night, I thought for a long while about the professor who taught me the basics scripture scholarship 25 years ago. She did her PhD on interpreting parables as a literary form, and so we spent a lot of time reading parables and writing papers about audience level, point of view, irony, conventions of the parable form, etc. This professor also lead devotional studies at the church I attended. In that setting, I was "allowed" to read all kinds of subjective meaning into the texts. But when it came to the classroom, I had to apply the interpretive methods I was being taught and produce lengthy, well-reasoned papers. That approach freed me from the burden of my own pre-conceived ideas and let me see hidden truths.
This really is why I love scripture, even when I'm not sure I have much love for the church or Christian devotional life. Often I can't believe a certain level of stuff contained in scripture, but then scripture continues to speak anyway and say many things that move and excite and convict me.