Readings in Old Testament Studies

The basic need to interpret Biblical
texts (in general) must be considered
in terms of the dimensions of time and
the audience addressed. All the
Biblical texts were written more than
two-thousand years ago, and with no
doubt have ways of living and the
context settings in which these divine
words and thoughts were uttered very
much changed since then. Such
context settings were meaningful to the
contemporaries of their respective
time, but this is not necessarily the
case with contemporary readers of
nowadays.
Such contextual settings relate to a)
historical, b) cultural, c) spiritual
circumstances at the time when these
divine words were uttered. To
understand the the spiritual message
(the 'kerygma') of a biblical periocope,
we need to 'explore' such background
of settings to answer important
questions such as: (i) What was the
reason of such message from God?,
(ii) what was the content, and (iii) what
objective did it have to have An impact
on the lifes of the people (audience)
addressed? Only after having
succesfully answered such questions,
can we develop the 'kerygma' behind
and apply to our lives today. These are
methodical requirements of such a
preliminary procedure to 'dig out' the
kerygma behind, and in doing so, we
avoid misinterpretation of the divine
message in presenting biblically
incorrect conclusions that lead people
astray from what the Lord really
wanted to communicate to mankind.
Doing this is an analytic effort of some
intellectual standing that we have to
follow each time when teaching or
preaching to other people around us. It
must be done not only out of highest
respect for God´s Word delivered to
mankind but also of the huge responsibility we have in delivering it
'uncorrupted' to our audience, without
adding or missing anything that was
transmitted to us. Church history, in the
past and recently, teaches us a very
important lesson: The fact that so
many different denominations evolved
during the course of time in the period
after the Early Church in Jerusalem
points out to differences in doctrine
that have split Christianity and continue
to do so today. They all have
'interpreted' portions or the whole of
the Bible in 'their way', and exactly this
shows the high potential of 'private
ontology' that can influence
conclusions and concepts claimed to
be in accord with the Bible but which
are nothing else than human based
'errors'. Our point of orientation is that
what the Bible actually says and not
what we think it says. [...]