Well, if I were a god, I'd try. But I am not. So... why do you ask Sir2u to perform a task which only gods are required to do? This is like asking a sea mollusk to solve a second degree equation system with five unknowns. You simply can't ask a mortal to perform the job of a god. That is not fair. — szardosszemagad

Exactly my point. You admit you couldn't do any better, so how is it fair to ask a god to do the same thing just because of their title?

So you claim. Like I (or rather, Mr Paine) said, hearsay. — andrewk

A revelation has nothing to do with who it is coming from. You seem to think that if someone hears the voice of God, and the other reads the same thing in the Bible, for the latter it is not revelation. It absolutely is, if what is revealed is not known before.

This sounds similar to the claims in the preface of my Quran, which say that the numerological patterns in the surahs, the language etc, are so intricate that they could not have been constructed by any human - hence they must have been written by Allah. — andrewk

His claim was that the Bible was written by stupid and uneducated men and women. That claim, given the text, is absurd, and not even worth debating. It's like claiming that the works of Shakespeare were written by an analphabet.

You seem to think that if someone hears the voice of God, and the other reads the same thing in the Bible, for the latter it is not revelation. It absolutely is, if what is revealed is not known before. — Agustino

Yes, of course it is my position that the former can be revelation and the latter cannot. There's no 'seems' about it. I stated that position already, and furthermore it's the only reasonable one.

In the latter case, all they know is that somebody wrote down a claim about something. They have no reason to believe it is true, so they don't know something that they did not know before. Whereas if they hear the voice of God, and they know that it is God speaking, it is reasonable for them to assume that what the voice says is true, so they can learn something new.

In the latter case, all they know is that somebody wrote down a claim about something. They have no reason to believe it is true, so they don't know something that they did not know before. Whereas if they hear the voice of God, and they know that it is God speaking, it is reasonable for them to assume that what the voice says is true, so they can learn something new. — andrewk

Right, I expect you to then renounce all scientific truths, because you just read them in some books and don't hear them directly from God. Therefore you have no reason to believe them.

And by the way, something is still a revelation if it's true and you are exposed to it, even if you don't believe it.

That's not true, anymore than you can understand what "Fire!" means just by reading that word. — Agustino

On the contrary, you have to understand it first. Then and only then, and together with the context, can you select the exact meaning from all the possible meanings.

In my private opinion the bible was written by uneducated, stupid men and women, and there is nothing godly about it. It is a badly written book for guidance and knowledge, and that's about the size of it. — szardosszemagad

Your reputation as an educated intelligent man or woman would have been better served by keeping your private opinion private.

Uneducated? No Harvard degrees, true. They may or may not have written or read script, but they were literate the same way Homer was literate--verbally. They had a solid grasp of their cultural history, and they wrote fine poetry (Psalms, for instance). They were "inspired" -- and by inspired I mean creative in ordinary human terms, not that they were telegraphing dictation from God.

Open the Bible to any page, and there is a good chance that whatever text your eyes land on will not be very compelling. The same thing goes for just about every published work in the history of civilization. You have to read and study any book to give it a fair evaluation.

Exactly my point. You admit you couldn't do any better, so how is it fair to ask a god to do the same thing just because of their title? — BlueBanana

The god has no title. God God. Or the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is not unique to God.

So you are appealing to something I missed which does not even exist.

-----------------------

Sir God. Lady God. Mr. God. Rev. God. The Right Honourable God. President God. None of these ring right.

The only title I can think of that sticks is E-Gad, which stands, I guess, for Electric God.

Near as I can tell, the question of the OP is still unaddressed. Maybe this. Exegesis is defined as getting meaning out of a text. It's sometimes referred to as interpretation, but for present purpose "getting meaning" keeps exposed a distinction that I think matters. Eisegesis means putting your own meaning in. Here, from online:

"Eisegesis is best understood when contrasted with exegesis. While exegesis is the process of drawing out the meaning from a text in accordance with the context and discoverable meaning of its author, eisegesis occurs when a reader imposes his or her interpretation into and onto the text."

The Bible, claimed as the word of God, is - should be - read for meaning, using techniques of exegesis and hermeneutics; and common sense, on the passages that common sense can understand. However, the movement - any movement - beyond getting meaning and into interpretation, to my way of thinking, voids any validity of the claim that the "interpretation" is or represents any "word of God."

God itself is the title I'm referring to. Did you purposefully dodge my point?

Right, I expect you to then renounce all scientific truths, because you just read them in some books and don't hear them directly from God. Therefore you have no reason to believe them. — Agustino

No, I verify them for myself, and if they survive the verification process, I (provisionally, being a sceptic) believe them. Admittedly, that does make me a slow reader. But when I read something, it stays read.

The Bible, on the other hand, is qualified as the “Word of God.” Now it’s a simple question: how does the word of God come to fall under any interpretation at all? If the words in a given sequence of words are intelligible - understandable – how do you get past that to something else and preserve the qualification? — tim wood

To even read it is an act of interpretation. The idea that it has a monolithic, single meaning is one of the unfortunate characteristics of American fundamentalism, in particular. Origen, one of the Church Fathers, ridiculed biblical literalism in the second century AD, saying there were three levels or layers of meaning and woe betide unto those who confused them. Have a look at a book on Amazon, The Bible Made Impossible, by Christian Smith, http://a.co/0cQfwHu.

The other point is, hermeneutics or exegesis both require an interpretive framework which is obviously not objective in the modern sense. I mean, it's not like reading the instructions for a device, or for an experiment. The intended aim is spiritual, and in the case of such texts, the reader is also the subject in an important sense.

To even read it is an act of interpretation. — Wayfarer

Then where does meaning come from? I agree that there is something called "interpretation," but in order to interpret, you need something to interpret. And if it's all interpretation, then what is meaning?

"The truth is that all Christians have believed this to be so, so whether it's actually true, it certainly isn't "only my opinion"

I was not addressing the rest of the christians or I would have included them as well. And as far as I know there is no such thing as a group opinion, only a group with the same opinion.

"You think this understanding what it says is a straightforward matter that involves just reading the words."

And just how do you know this not to be true? Do you have access to some secret bible readers manual that the rest of us have been denied a chance to see? Just where does it say anywhere that the bible has hidden things or ways to interpret the writings of long dead people?

"That's your non-expert opinion ;) - to adopt one of your favorite tropes X-)"

Have I ever actually ever used that phrase? Don't think so, but I do like it.

Please name one person that has had the right to call him/herself an expert on the meaning of the bible. But let's apply a couple of conditions that could be applied to anyone trying to verify a work of art.

1. Has had direct access no the original writings of the people that are supposed to have written the bible. Including non biblical writings to act as benchmarks for style and so on.
2. Has been allowed to review the writings that were either removed from the bible or are contemporary, and of similar content to it and not allowed to be included.
3. Has been allowed to review historical, psychological, personality, educational records of those writers to try to deduce veracity of their existence and competence to write the book of a god.
4. Someone that has not been trained by someone that does not have the above.

I simply utilize my 12th level intellect to discern all the ancient secrets 's'all.

Then where does meaning come from? I agree that there is something called "interpretation," but in order to interpret, you need something to interpret. And if it's all interpretation, then what is meaning? — tim wood

The Bible contains an enormous wealth of stories, historical accounts, mythological accounts, anecdotes, parables, prophecies. So it's not only a matter of interpretation, you're interpreting all of that material.

Nowadays, in a post-religious culture, I think there is a general lack of spiritual literacy. I'm not talking down saying that, or holding myself up as an authority. But I have studied religions, mainly to make sense of certain questions that always struck me as important. But 'spiritual literacy' is comparable to the 'computer literacy' that you need to understand how to interact with computers - internet terminology and the like. It's like a general background understanding, and in this case, is often absent.

God itself is the title I'm referring to. Did you purposefully dodge my point? — BlueBanana

God is His name. Not His title. I am not dodging anything. You may refer to God as His job title, or occupation name, which is not quite the same as "title". For instance, Mr. President: Mr. is his title, President is his job title.

You asked me if I were dodging your point. I ask you: Do you get most of your reading comprehension and language skills honed by reading the Gospel and/or the Old Testament?

Sorry to be so pointed. But your "yes" would explain a lot.

Your reputation as an educated intelligent man or woman would have been better served by keeping your private opinion private. — Bitter Crank

I have to admit that my values are more precious to me than reputation.

And I do proselytize my way; the religious do it their own way. I do it by fighting the mental and intellectual sludge-lodge of miasma of religious teaching and dogma by pointing out exactly what they are.

Then where does meaning come from? I agree that there is something called "interpretation," but in order to interpret, you need something to interpret. And if it's all interpretation, then what is meaning?
— tim wood

The Bible contains an enormous wealth of stories, historical accounts, mythological accounts, anecdotes, parables, prophecies. So it's not only a matter of interpretation, you're interpreting all of that material. — Wayfarer

I'm not getting across. How do you know the Bible contains all that - unless you read. What you read conveys meaning. Once you've got that, then you can start interpreting. If you start interpreting before you've read, then what are you interpreting? Not the text, because you have not read it!

If you're arguing that the reading is interpretation, then, if you think about it, the question, "What are you interpreting?" still stands.Because if you're not interpreting what you read, then you're interpreting your interpretation - and where did that come from?

You asked me if I were dodging your point. I ask you: Do you get most of your reading comprehension and language skills honed by reading the Gospel and/or the Old Testament? — szardosszemagad

First, that answers neither of my questions. Second, no.

First, that answers neither of my questions. Second, no. — BlueBanana

Both of your questions were so worded that they defied a reasonable answer. First you appealed to me to perform a job a deity can only do (to your credit, at that time you were not aware I am a mere mortal). Secondly, your question involved a concept which does not exist (title of God). Your attempt at, and then later your abandoning attempting to, meaningfully respond to my criticism of your questions' nature leaves no question by you to be answered.

First of all, please explain on what ground you expect a mortal to do the job of a God; in my opinion it's an expectation that is too high. On the other hand, expecting God to be better than what a mortal can do is only reasonable, and that's exactly where the God of the Christian Bible fails its call.

Second of all, you asked why I defer the quality of workmanship expected in thought to God's title, and I replied there is no title that God uses. After that you abandoned the title issue, and demand an answer from me anyway.

Your questions were so worded and the thoughts behind them were so wrong that no reasonable person could come up with a direct answer to them.

Please, if you want me to answer any of your questions, ask some that can be answered by applying reasonable thought.

First of all, please explain on what ground you expect a mortal to do the job of a God — szardosszemagad

As I have stated, I don't. I'm asking on what ground you expect a god to do that job, as you wouldn't expect anyone else, including yourself, to be able to do that.

Second of all, you asked why I defer the quality of workmanship expected in thought to God's title, and I replied there is no title that God uses. — szardosszemagad

Given that part of the question didn't make sense, as I wasn't aware of the existences of both terms title and job title, one could have, especially on the basis of the sentence structure, considered the question without that part. That being said:

You admit you couldn't do any better, so how is it fair to ask a god to do the same thing — BlueBanana

Ie. what justifies the unreasonable expectations set on deities by us mortals?

No, I verify them for myself, and if they survive the verification process, I (provisionally, being a sceptic) believe them. Admittedly, that does make me a slow reader. But when I read something, it stays read. — andrewk

My point still holds, something being a revelation has nothing to do with whether you believe it or not.

I was not addressing the rest of the christians or I would have included them as well. And as far as I know there is no such thing as a group opinion, only a group with the same opinion. — Sir2u

Okay, but it's not "only" my opinion as you said ;)

And just how do you know this not to be true? — Sir2u

Because no text is understood just by reading the words.

Just where does it say anywhere that the bible has hidden things or ways to interpret the writings of long dead people? — Sir2u

Here:

So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.” — Matthew 13:35

Let's recap. Your problem seems to be the literal/non-literal reading (I'm intentionally avoiding the word "interpretation" here) and the notion that God's Word or the Word of God or whatever can't have a non-literal reading because anything non-literal is "interpretation" and interpretation adds to the text. — Πετροκότσυφας

Nope. My question was - is - about the validity of a claim, not to be confused with the truth or falsity or accuracy of the claim. The claim, made by some people, is that the Bible is the word of God. As it sits, I suppose it a valid claim; again, not to be confused with whether I think it true or not. It seems to me that when a person makes a claim, maybe they ought to act in a manner consistent with the claim. Of course this is absurd as a matter of human practices and foibles, but at least in terms of the logic of the thing I expect people to act within the horizons of their own beliefs.

What is that belief/claim? That the Bible is the word of God. How do they begin to start to know that? Well, they read it. So far so good. Then quite a few of them undertake to be sources of information on what it says, the content often departing from the plain meaning of the words. This new content I call interpretation. The question I am asking is, when you re-present meaning beyond the scope of the words of a text and that text is supposed to be the word of God, then have you not turned the text into something that is not the word of God? And at the same time invalidated the claim that the text is the word of God?

Perhaps where you're having trouble with this is that I presuppose a) the people in question can read and b) reading in itself is not an issue, here.

If you continue to insist that reading itself is interpretation (as if the word "interpretation" means "reading"), then please answer where you get it. Because you have ruled out your encounter with the text. In case you're missing it even now, I am distinguishing between reading and interpretation, If you don't get that, then the rest is a waste of time.

Or a different tack: A girl kisses you. That's the text. If in consultation with her you arrive at an understanding of what the kiss meant, as a "fleshing out" of the immediate sense of the experience, that's exegesis, and exegesis is a respected technique for developing meaning from a text. If instead you go home and have some fantasy about the kiss, that would be eisegesis, a kind of interpretation that does violence to texts and distorts and destroys their meaning and even significance, and certainly the validity of any prior claim about the text the eisegete might have made.

What is that belief/claim? That the Bible is the word of God. How do they begin to start to know that? Well, they read it. So far so good. Then quite a few of them undertake to be sources of information on what it says, the content often departing from the plain meaning of the words. This new content I call interpretation. The question I am asking is, when you re-present meaning beyond the scope of the words of a text and that text is supposed to be the word of God, then have you not turned the text into something that is not the word of God? And at the same time invalidated the claim that the text is the word of God? — tim wood

First they believe it is the word of God, rich with spiritual meaning. And then they endeavour to interpret it in the right spirit, knowing that no human interpretation can be perfect, but that some will be closer to the truth than others.

You are looking at the wrong way; as though its being the word of God is some kind of propositional claim that could be validated or falsified; this is a trivialization of the text.

something being a revelation has nothing to do with whether you believe it or not. — Agustino

That use of the word 'revelation' is completely different from how I have ever seen it used. You are free to define the word however you want, but with that definition it becomes a weak and trivial word that is of no interest to philosophical discussion. It cannot convey anything of the power and significance of what the stories say happened to Saul on the road to Damascus.

First they believe it is the word of God, rich with spiritual meaning. And then they endeavour to interpret it in the right spirit, knowing that no human interpretation can be perfect, but that some will be closer to the truth than others. — Janus

Doesn't anyone here recognize a distinction between reading and interpreting? They're different words; they mean different things.

How do you understand the distinction between reading and interpretation, and how do think it is relevant to what I have said here?

It cannot convey anything of the power and significance of what the stories say happened to Saul on the road to Damascus — andrewk

If you read a text, whether that be a work of philosophy, a poem or a religious work, and something is revealed to you in the form of insight; the intensity of that experience may be relatively slight or very profound. The difference between that order of experience and Paul's experience on the road to Damascus may be one of degree, but not so much one of kind.

Doesn't anyone here recognize a distinction between reading and interpreting? — tim wood

I suspect everyone here knows the difference between reading and interpreting--though sometimes interpretation is concurrent with reading.

One reads the words (word recognition, identify meaning, part of speech, etc -- all pretty much automatic once one is an accomplished reader) then there is interpretation. "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." Hosea said. All pretty common words; no accomplished reader will pause over their connotative meaning.

But... What does "Do Justice" mean? Start the revolution? Vote for Donald Trump? What? That's the interpretation part. What does "love mercy" mean? The Jerusalem Bible translates the phrase "Love tenderly". Then the "walk humbly with God". Keep God company? What? I've never been sure exactly what that means.

Yes, something is revealed, but the word 'revelation' is not used unless that something is significant. In English one does not say 'I was just browsing through the telephone book and had the revelation that the number of Esme Brown is 9876 5432', unless that piece of information is of particular interest.