Search This Blog

Monday, December 12, 2011

Studying the Bible

When I was in seminary, I learned two basic principles for interpreting the Bible that have forever changed the way I read it.  Those two principles are selection and arrangement.  The idea is this: every author begins with a blank page and a message.  His job is to use the best strategies available to communicate that message.

The first strategy used to communicate an author's intended message is selection.  He needs to decide what to include and what to omit.  This is especially true when telling a story.  There are so many details that could be included that most need to be left out.  What an author omits from the text is often an important clue to what he thinks is truly important.

For example, in 2 Kings 17 we read the story of the Assyrians conquest of Samaria and the exile of the northern ten tribes.  This is an important story.  There is a lot that could be written about politics, military strategy, the back story of key characters, troubled alliances, and the like.  Instead, the author takes six verses (basically one paragraph) to tell us the very simplest of details about the historical dimensions of this story.  He doesn't even tell us that the Assyrian king (Shalmaneser) who started the siege of Israel's capital is not the same king who finished it (Sargon).  After dismissing the details of the story in six verses, the author proceeds to take thirty-five verses to tell us why the exile occurred and to preach about the evils of idolatry.  His choice to omit history in favor of theology points us to his intended message: Israel's exile was punishment for idolatry; therefore, the reader should avoid idolatry.

The second principle I learned is arrangement.   Once an author decides through selection what to include, he needs to put that material in a particular order that will best communicate his message.  You don't have to read far in the Bible to get a great example of this.  Genesis 1 illustrates the importance of selection and arrangement in communicating an author's intended message.

First, notice how much information is omitted from the creation story.  So many details are left out that we immediately realize the author's purpose was not to satisfy our curiosities about the way it happened, as much as we might have liked that.  Instead, a select amount of material is placed in a very careful order.  The events of day 1 parallel day 4 (light - lights).  Day 2 parallels day 5 (sea and sky formed; sea and sky filled).  Day 3 parallels day 6 (land formed; land filled).  Day 7 stands alone as unique.  The overall effect of this arrangement is move the world from darkness to light, from chaos to order, from emptiness to fullness, and from abandonment to blessing.  The creation account is written as a story of redemption.  It reveals God as someone who is able to take what is formless and empty and give it form and fullness, so that its final state can be said to be "very good," "blessed," and at "rest."  How many of us would like that to be said about our lives?

In my next blog, I will explore how the principles of selection and arrangement and can help us understand the author's intended message in Luke's version of the Christmas story.

(Just a note on the age of the earth.  The creation account is written as if from the perspective of one standing on earth watching the planet being transformed.  On day one of creation, one standing on the earth would have seen light enter the atmosphere for the first time.  The question remains whether God created the entire universe in its finished form on the first day of creation, or whether the seven days of creation were used to take a planet that had been in existence for eons and turn it into a garden planet capable of supporting life.  How long had the planet been formless and empty; covered with water and darkness?  The text is vague on this point.  It is possible that the earth and therefore the stones, etc. are quite old and that everything at one time was under water not only from the flood of Noah but from this pre-transformation condition.

This is not theistic evolution, nor does it leave room for the evolution of life.  It does, however, open the door for the idea that it really did take billions of years for the light of the stars to reach the earth.  The point is not that light was created on day one, but that someone standing on the earth would have seen light for the first time.  It is also worth noting that the text does not say that the sun, moon, and stars were created on day four, but that they appeared on day four.  This may well imply that they had been around for awhile, but that God did a work on the earth's atmosphere that made them clearly visible for the first time on day four, thus filling the night sky with lights.

This is not a final answer, but it is an observation I have been encouraged by many to put into writing.)  


  1. Very interesting, Marcus! Thank you for sharing. I had not that about that aspect. Both articles very interesting. I really enjoyed the conversation on selection and arrangement. Merry Christmas to you and your sweet family.
    PAMela Mutz

  2. My bible says that on day four of creation - God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day , and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. May I ask- what bible are you reading from? Maybe I did not understand you correctly. Truthseeker.

    1. You are right. It does say that God made two great lights. However, in Hebrew the tense of the words is flexible and can mean either that they were created on day four, or that they had been created already. According to Dr. John Sailhamer, when we read in v. 1 that God created the heavens and the earth, the normal way to understand that is that God created all of the heavenly hosts. This is also the understanding of Keil and Delitzsch. Some people (like K and D) believe that God created most of the starry host on day one but then added to that on day four. Others believe that on day four God was assigning a purpose to the sun, moon, and stars; i.e., making them "to be for signs ..." as opposed to making them on that day. I am not adamant about this, because a good case can be made for the point you make. I