Reading the Bible as an Orthodox Christian - Dr Jeannie Constantinou

[Music] okay good morning if you look Christmas there well good morning thanks for coming I appreciate everybody getting up early on Saturday morning to come today we welcome presbytery and dr. PhD and JD also an attorney Jeanie Constantina and for those of you that don't speak Greek or not Orthodox Presbyterians priests wife so she is the wife of father caused us and presbytery a nice book in our last year's Annunciation ladies tea and her talk was very popular and greatly appreciated dr. Constantino teaches biblical studies and early Christianity at the University of San Diego and her research has focused on the interpretation and use of the apocalypse from around 100 to 600 Christian Europe and its reception into the Canon of Scripture that is one of her very well-known areas of specialization and dr. Constantino translated the most important early Eastern commentary on the book of Revelation by Andrew of Caesarea from the original Greek creating the first translation of this influential commentary in a modern language and this is available through the Catholic University of America Press and dr. Jeanne is also a podcaster as most of you know ancient a video with a very popular program search the scriptures which has developed a loyal and international following and a presentation to us this morning is titled reading scripture according to Orthodox tradition and we'd like to welcome and thank you presbytery Jeanne constantina for being our guest with you this morning thank you very much Kevin and thank you everybody here at st. Barnabas has chosen to wake up a little early when we all really felt like sleeping in this morning but here you are and I don't my speaking she has my volume on this a little bit loud is it okay alright can you all hear me all right it's not too loud because I do have a tendency to speak loudly usually I'm only one time recently somebody said you know we really couldn't hear you and I was shocked I rarely get accused of not being heard well enough anyhow so the topic today is reading the Bible is an Orthodox Christian and this is a very broad topic and I wasn't exactly sure what it was that you folks have come here this morning wanted to hear about so whether or not was going to be more theological or theoretical or something more practical so I'm going to try to do a little bit of both and of course as Kevin said we have some time at the end for your questions and maybe some discussion so that will allow us to address the issues which particularly interest you so most of you who are here at st. Barnabas I know our former of angelical Christians or perhaps you're still inquiring into orthodoxy so let's start with what orthodoxy has in common with the Protestant tradition the Orthodox Church always encouraged the reading of the Bible and believed that that was very important in the spiritual life the Orthodox Church never objected to the translation of the Bible into the language of the people in fact it was always at the forefront of doing this that's of course the church in the east so very early on we see the Scriptures translated into Syriac and Armenia and Coptic whereas in the West once they went to Latin they there were also in the West when the church started to move into Western Europe they didn't have alphabets those peoples who were very primitive tribal people in Western Europe didn't have alphabets and the church in the West kept the scriptures in Latin which meant that really ordinary people could not read the scriptures the Orthodox Church didn't do that if they didn't have a knife event we created the alphabet for those people and that's why in many cases the the it is these church which is responsible for the beginning of literature for many of these places such as among the Slavs and people like this so it's always been part of our tradition it's not something that was invented by the Protestant church is always part of the Orthodox tradition and the Fathers of the Church always encouraged the reading of the Bible by ordinary people there was a assumption that everyone would benefit from the reading of the Bible so that's part of something that we hold in common the emphasis on the Bible even though sometimes it when you come to an Orthodox Church or you talk to Orthodox people you don't always get that impression to you that they're very very interested in the study of the Bible but that really is our common tradition now how does orthodoxy differ from Western Christianity in its approach to the Bible well Western Christianity has in general not just for the Bible but for all theological matters have has been very influenced by a kind of a critical analytical rational philosophical approach to theology and this has spilled over also into biblical studies that particularly in the 20th century of course but and so you have in the West also among Catholics a kind of standardization which occurs the Pope and the Magisterium expressed the teachings of the Catholic Church in the form of kind of official proclamations not necessarily always encyclicals but they do produce documents which Catholic theologians and other Catholic faithful who know about these documents always turn - for understanding so there is a kind of centrality and standardization in the Catholic Church among the Western you know tradition so they control very much what how the Bible and the teaching of the church are to be understood so the Protestant tradition of course in reaction against that took a very different approach and it was entirely unbounded by any kind of structure so on the one hand you have Catholic Church with a kind of hierarchical Authority which makes proclamations and expects the faithful to follow it whether or not they do that's a different question but that's the that's the objective and then on the other hand in the West you have Protestantism which has a strong emphasis on individualism and so that you have this idea that well I have the Holy Spirit therefore I've capable of interpreting the Bible myself and I am the sole criterion for interpretation and if I don't agree with what the pastor says well I might just take off and start my own church so that's a very different mentality orthodoxy is somehow in the middle of the two we are united as Orthodox Christians in our interpretation of the of the Bible by a common interpretation there's a sense of consistency in Orthodox interpretation of the Bible not that everybody says the same thing about every passes or even that every father says the same thing about every passage but we do have a kind of consistency that binds us together and a common understanding but that is not created artificially by having a superstructure or one super hierarch who tries to regulate what we think in what we do we don't have that as you know very well what holds us together our common beliefs common teachings from which we know not to stray no one tells us we must conform to this teaching which I don't know if you realize this but this language that you must conform in your will and your intellect to the statements of the Roman pontiff that language is in many papal documents and I'm not talking about from the Middle Ages talking about recent times that is the obligation of Catholics to conform to that to the teachings of the Pope so we don't ever employ that kind of language we never say you must conform somehow we know and we conform ourselves to the mind of the church it isn't imposed upon us from the outside on the from the perspective of individual freedom Protestants exercise that kind of freedom which we also recognize that we have but we have limitations and we those are self imposed by the Orthodox we know that there are boundaries which we will not cross when it comes to the interpretation of Bible there are things that we would never dream of saying because not because somebody tells us we can't say it but because we know it's not right how do we know it's not right because we have an Orthodox mentality an orthodox Thrawn imam so this is what is really difficult about orthodoxy you know I just had somebody ask me okay what is that what is Orthodox one of my students and I tried to explain it and to them it sounds very Catholic and it's very difficult to explain how orthodoxy is different because what really distinguishes us are not the outer structures they have sacraments like we do they have as clergy hyrax like we do it's the way of thought is the manner of thought that we call fro nema it's the mentality that is so different so that's what we want to acquire that's what we that's called the mind of the church I have some markers here so I'll go ahead and write that word on the board for you for those of you who are listening on ancient faith radio in English we would spell that pH ro n e ma Rani ma that's netjet generally means your mentality your outlook your way of thinking there are other Greek words that also express this but that's what we mean that's a very important word in orthodoxy sometimes the most important concepts of are things which we assumed but we don't we don't talk about very often but somehow they're there and they form a foundation for our Orthodox understanding so my experience at USD now I'm a professor there but when I was there as a student in the late 70s I was very interested in biblical studies and in theology I went there is a Poli Sci major ended up as a theology major and really really enjoyed my studies there but there was always something when I was in my theology classes almost every day there was something that the professor said the chest didn't seem right something not quite I get it as sort of right but it's not all the way there and I knew intuitively that many of the things that they were telling me were not correct or they were not Orthodox I didn't really understand I just didn't feel right somehow and over the years because I was very young at the time I was 20 21 years old I thought to myself how did I know that what they were telling me was not correct why didn't it sit well with me I didn't have any theological background my parents weren't super religious they didn't drag us to every church service we had we went to church on a regular basis you know most Sunday's not all Sundays but how did I know what was right and what wasn't and I came to realize that it is from a kind of enculturation that I acquired over the years just by going to church and you can't really explain that so I was in a theology class I knew that there was something not quite right but I didn't know how to express that I didn't really know what was wrong but I knew that if I studied it if I read about it I figure it out but it wasn't that I knew theology that I knew this is there was something wrong so I think this is very very different so for Orthodox it's we don't necessarily approach theology from an academic perspective we're certainly academic and and that's important but the important thing is that we acquire as we said the mind of the church of mentality of the church and this is what really keeps us the straight path and this is what makes us Orthodox and that's very hard to explain to people so we have not just a different form of Christianity but we have the original ancient Christianity we preserve the mode of thought the interpretation the traditions the teachings the mentality of the Orthodox Church and the original Church and that's what we call funnyman so this has tremendous advantages in biblical interpretation you can't really express that to a person who doesn't live it but in biblical interpretation here's the advantage of having the Orthodox for anima the Orthodox mentality and I want you to know that Orthodox Bible scholars are not really respected in the West and that's because there are things we will not say there are conclusions we will not reach and so we are called kind of outdated and capable of real scholarship and capable of independent thought we don't want creative theology we don't engage in speculative theology we don't want independent thought what we want is to have the mind of the church we want to think as the first Christians thought because they're the ones who wrote the Bible doesn't that make sense to you that if you want to understand the Bible you will try to acquire the mentality of the people who wrote it that makes sense to me and that's why I think it's a tremendous advantage that we have this understanding but other people think rigid and conservative and this kind of thing but I want you to understand that if we think as the early Christians thought that's that's not an academic pursuit that's really a way of life so when others don't have that mentality they don't have the Orthodox Ponemah and they read the Bible they're reading into the Bible things that aren't really there okay they're imposing in the Bible for example of the Western ideas of sin and salvation are not in the Bible the kind of atonement theology which developed in the middle of ages is not in the Bible so if you approach the Bible with that mentality you're really bringing something foreign to the Bible okay you're reading it through a lens that distorts what is being read so the truth is in biblical studies today we understand Bible scholars understand that we have to understand the language of a passage week we analyze the language we study the history we study the background of the text but the missing component is that funny mark it's not just the mentality but that presumes the whole life of the church and that's what the biblical scholars hope for all their desires to return to recover the meaning of the original text they don't have that and they don't even know that they don't know it do you understand what I'm saying if obviously we never know what we don't know but they are approaching it from a strictly academic perspective whereas Orthodox biblical scholars it is the academic but also the way of life so I want to give you an example of of this okay I teach the Gospel of John on a somewhat regular basis and last semester I had this lovely class full of wonderful students and a lot of them were very very devout evangelical protestant kids young people you know college students and I was trying to explain to them that the that what John was trying to say in the gospel is that the person who was with the Israelites in the desert the person who made all of the appearances in the Old Testament the God who interacted with Abraham and Moses and Jacob that was the low boss not the father and they didn't believe me they did up even though you know what it's throughout the New Testament if you really understand the New Testament you'll see that consistently the early church taught that the person who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush the one who wrestled with Jacob the one who was the cloud who wandered with him in the wilderness the rock that's why st. Paul said that rock was Christ that was the teaching of the early church that's why that's why st. John when he wrote the gospel he said and the word became flesh guess he knows enough you mean he tempted among us he is the one that we knew back then in the history of Israel he became flesh not the father but the son so it was took me a lot to sort of convince some of this and then I went to the writings of Justin Martyr and Ira Nance and I gave them these things so that they could understand but you could see how much they would miss of not only the Bible but the theology of the church if they don't understand this very basic thing which all early Christians understood and that's why John starts by saying all things were made through him it is the logos who created the world not that the father and the spirit were not involved but it is through him that all things were made so I want to give you another example so I have this commentary on the Gospel of John that I had been reading and when in the Gospel of John when Jesus says I am you know before Abraham ever was I am the commentator writes Jesus is not claiming to be the father but expressing the unity of the Father and the son that's wrong and I wrote in the book clearly this commentator does not understand the thinking of the early church Jesus by saying I am is not expressing the unity of the Father he is not pretending to be the father no early Christian would have thought that what he was saying is that the one who said the I am to Moses in the burning bush is the one who became incarnate but here you have a person knowledgeable enough to write a commentary who doesn't know that okay obviously not an Orthodox Christian so this is really important we have to get into the mind of the early church so orthodoxy has a clarity about the message of the Bible which is undistorted by later developments in Western Christianity our connection to the early church is not through some kind of mechanistic understanding of apostolic succession I hope you don't ever reduce it to that but it's because we share the same beliefs that practices the prayers of the early church the Liturgy of the early church is the same we are naturally by engaging in that way of life kind of immersed in that and we acquire that Roni MA so the Bible is for us in many respects much more organic than it is for Western Christianity so the church was ancient and Eastern and so was the Bible if I was ancient and is written from an Eastern perspective we never lost that perspective so we interpret the Bible within the church and through the church not in a formal or a structured manner because somebody tells us what to believe and not on the other hand because we draw out our interpretation from our own heads our own imagination but because we interpret the Bible through the church the Bible is a product of the church so if we live the same manner of life that the early Christians did we're going to understand it better because the way of life of the church is the life of the Spirit they're one and the same so the Bible can only be understood correctly within the church that is my point and it was interesting because recently I heard about a couple of people who attend Protestant Bible studies and they meet on Sunday morning and one and actually both of these people who told me this because of course I would wouldn't really have reason to know this we're both kind of I don't say marginal Orthodox Christians but I guess so because they don't go to church they said well I can't come by so why haven't I seen you church well I can't come to church because my Bible study meets on Sunday morning you know find another Bible study oh don't don't go to that Bible study is that what happens we've replaced the worship of God with the study of the Bible is that what the early did you know it is that really what we have come to that somehow there's a kind of a worship of the word we don't do that that's a kind of idolatry so we worship God and that's what we're supposed to do on Sunday so when we place and not not to say that we can never have too much emphasis on the Bible but I suppose you can under that context within that context so let's get back to acquiring the Orthodox for nema so maybe you're saying I would like to think as the early church I would like the early church did I would like to understand the Bible from the perspective of the early church how do I do that you do it by coming to church first and foremost by following along with the service by reading the prayers by learning the hymns by singing the hymns that doing the prayers at home reading the Fathers of the Church reading the lives of the saints and all of these things slowly orient you toward the early church because what you see we see a doing the church is exactly what the early church did and exactly what the length the language of the Bible so you know you probably don't recognize that because you're reading your Bibles and translation or the services here are in English but the language that is in the liturgy is the language of the Bible both from the Old Testament Septuagint and from the New Testament and when you hear that in brief you you immediately know it but it's harder I think to acquire that in English but the point is we jump on a train and the train started a couple thousand years ago and we're connected to everybody who came before us and we're joining them on this journey and they're still on it they're still on the journey and they're leaving us but we are following along that same path so the life of the church is not only sacramental and spiritual however it also involves the intellect so I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't study the Bible you should look things up and learn about Samaritans or tax collectors or something like that that's fine you should definitely do that too but I'm not trying to negate the importance of academic study but you know you can be a theologian without ever even knowing how to read okay some of the the most profound statements the deepest insights came from people in the church we have many states who were uneducated so why how do they know they do these things because they had the mind of the church so I know that many of you kind of struggle with this one somebody wrote me recently and asked me a question about let me see if I can say this right it was about if God allows human freedom to what extent is God's still sovereign and I and I was kind of my mind was sort of swimming and I'm like this in the in other words this these kinds of discussions are not part of the early church you'll never find this kind of a discussion among the Fathers of the Church they'll talk about God's sovereign tier to talk about the free will of human beings but they won't sit there and analyze and debate how much free will the person has and how does that relate to the knowledge of that they don't do that a gust of light sometimes okay good he's the one who started that trajectory you see but in the Eastern Church didn't do that what's the point of that and I said don't don't you realize how pointless these discussions are how ruthless they are and how arrogant it is we sit here we'd sit there talk about God is if we can understand the mind of God one of the great things in orthodoxy is knowing when to shut up okay that's important you're laughing but it's it's true st. Gregory the theologian has said theology is not for everyone and then we sit there we talked about the procession of the Holy Spirit as if we what arrogance we have to talk about these things we don't we can't talk about these things we don't know God we don't know the nature of God so we we need to know what is appropriate for us to discuss and what is left to mystery so we're very good about that I think you understand that but sometimes every once in a while you get kind of sucked into some discussion with somebody who is can you start to think you go back into your Western mode and very philosophical very analytical okay but if God is freedom I'm like this and a bud has foreknowledge then that must mean that forget about it don't engage in that well i really suggest to you that if you want to acquire orthodox for you should avoid these convoluted pointless unanswerable theological discussions and debates like where did Cain's wife come from and how did the dinosaurs die before Adam and Eve there was no death and all this you you're missing the point and the worst part of it is that you are taking time and energy away from what it should be directed toward which is understanding what we can understand transforming our lives and instead you're chasing your tail pursuing these absolutely pointless and nonsensical discussions which have no end and really have no conclusion and if you are engaging in these things as you want to convince somebody of something or find the right kind of words to to persuade them forget about it I really think it's a temptation of the devil from our modern age it distracts us away from God so I would advise you if you're trying to acquire an Orthodox run amok stop doing that because you're really tearing your mind away from the Orthodox way of thinking and that if you are struggling to find Orthodox Ronnie MA just persist and the day will come and you'll say to yourself how did I know that how did I I mean it'll just happen but it will happen over time and it's not something which can be can be hurried up okay just you have to be patient but if you're consistent you will you will I believe acquire this Orthodox mentality so how do we interpret the Bible as Orthodox Christians well the classic answer to that question is according to the fatherís that's what they say we interpret the Bible according to the father's well what does that mean well first of all who are the father's the fathers of the church are the ancient usually ancient writers of the church the holy men the great thinkers and writers of the church who were Saints who interpreted the Bible who defined early Christian doctrine and because of their holiness of life and their brilliancy of mind they had insights and they express these things and they preserve the church and it's deliver the church from heresy very often those are the people we call the Fathers of the Church in the Catholic Church to be a father you have to ancient but orthodoxy has more recent fathers with a lot of great holy men of recent centuries too but the Orthodox rely on the father's so some Orthodox believe that when you say according to the father's it means you have to only repeat what they said so if you're if you're you know thesis or your article is not full of quotations from the father sometimes you're not relying upon this I don't think that's the case because we use them as guides we rely on them for inspiration for insight but if you are in line with the mind of the father's you're interpreting the Bible according to the father's if you are expressing the theology of the church the morality of the church and you're consistent with with the early church that's you know I think to be according to the father's you don't the father's in other words didn't invent new things they maintained the apostolic tradition if we do that that we are perfectly in line with the father's so interpreting the Bible within the church forms a kind of framework for us that's spiritual and Theological and there are certain boundaries and Orthodox Christians do not cross and we naturally know what those are we won't say those say these things even though a person who's not aware might come to other conclusion I'll give you a couple another example one example from my open to maybe two example from my studies as a student I was at like about 20 years old in a class I'm Matthew and Mark or something like that Catholic professor discussing the baptism of Jesus and she said Jesus came to be baptized therefore he had sins yeah you know I know enough that that wasn't right like I could tell you how or why but I knew it was a right but look at that kind of conclusion an Orthodox scholar would never say that but Catholics do Catholic scholars I've had students of mine complain to me that some of their professors would say things like this didn't happen in the Bible this really didn't happen Jesus really didn't say this we never ever ever do that we accept the Spirit the scripture as it is and we interpret it as it is and we don't place ourselves in the mind of the author - just to know that or assume that he invented something like that and one of the points that they had made was that I don't really even know which professor this was but and by the way my university is a wonderful University we have a great great university really good education and it's not particularly liberal its kind of middle-of-the-road Catholic but anytime you have the study of theology and the scriptures in the university setting you have these kinds of statements it's a marvel that anybody leaves with any faith at all sometimes it's amazed so because they watch I believe but it's true so what they said was that when Jesus was dying on the cross he didn't they people didn't really gamble his clothes away they didn't really say he trusted in God love him deliver him if he delights in him he didn't do this this didn't happen this didn't happen so these students came up to me and they said well you know professor said that these things didn't happen it was the early church that found those things in the scriptures in the Old Testament of course and wanted to included those details in the story of the crucifixion of Christ and that's what where it came from in other words Jesus religion fulfilled prophecy that's the import of it right so I said well I think that if that's the case they would have found a lot more details because we don't have a lot of details about the crucifixion they wanted to invent something to show that the Lord fulfilled the scriptures to fill the prophecies you'd have a whole lot more details I'm going to have them do we so you know but it's so arrogant of us to say to as if we have any way of knowing what happened back then but this is this is something which is so common unfortunately among many Western Christians so anyhow some practical advice I just want to give you a Kofi's of the practical advice for your Bible reading first of all have a Bible you can understand if you've got the King James Version in Sunday school and you don't understand it which you know a lot of people don't unless they were raised with that you don't have to stick with it you find a Bible you understand all translations are flawed all of them okay so some are better than others but I really think that the best Bible is the one you're going to read that's important just remember that it has its limitations so if something is difficult because I I the most accurate one really is the Revised Standard Version which is kind of hard to find now because it's been replaced by the new revised but they have the politically correct a non sexist language okay I just can't stand it but Bible scholars use Revised Standard the older version okay more traditional more literal than anything else however a lot of people can't understand it if you you want to use New King James you want to use New International Version which is popular among Protestants there's nothing wrong with that is still the Bible okay there's nothing wrong with that so I don't discourage people from reading it I just want you to understand that it's going to have a particular interpretive prospective just in the translation if you understand that that you're reading a translation that's okay okay so you should also of course a tendon Orthodox Bible study which you must have here at st. Barnabas right we also have podcasts like the search the scriptures on ancient faith radio which you could which you can listen to to interpret the Bible you want to learn how to read the Bible a 10 church it makes a difference pay attention to the readings that's why the priest comes out and says let us be attentive let us attend that's because we're kind of distracted especially when there are feast days like best words where we hear a lot of prophecies those are fantastic ask yourself why is this the reading for today the church has chosen specific readings because they express the theology of the church I'm talking about like a Old Testament prophets prophetic readings on feast days of Vespers of great feast days another thing which you should do is on Holy Week but there's a lot of modest a lot of readings come to church with your book and the pencil and pay attention and focus it and really try to live pay attention in church and live the sacramental life okay because you probably know this is the famous Orthodox saying the one who prays is the true theologian we don't believe that we can acquire knowledge of God by study academic study that's that's not how we come to know God but you know things about God we can know about the Bible we do know about the early church we cannot know God through the intellect okay we can only acquire knowledge of God through prayer and that's why it's a very famous saying in the Orthodox Church the one who prays is the theologian the one the theologian is the one who prays so also as I suggested avoid dissensions quarrels stupid disputes and st. Paul also recommended back if you know what I'm talking about there's a passage where he says avoid stupid squirrels and genealogies and controversies about the law that's exactly we should follow the same advice don't try to resolve conundrums that somehow if you just apply your mind to this specific problem or amass enough scriptural citations you could solve this problem which nobody's ever been able to solve since the Bible came into existence okay you understand what I'm telling you so don't waste your time on these things spend your time on things which are which are fruitful these things distract us they take us away from God they take us away from the message of the scripture I would also advise you to be careful of other spiritual pitfalls and there are plenty of those because when we seek to do something which is good especially for you know a Christian of any type who is trying to you know walk on the right path the ordinary things don't really tempt us okay you might not be tempted to go hopefully God god forbid to see a stripper or something like that or gamble in Las Vegas or something like this you might well be tempted by that so how do they how does a devil tempt because he's very clever very tricky he will tempt you by the good things that she dude he will try to lead you astray by the good things you do so when you're reading your Bible you'll say aha so father should not be doing this in the church see or you start to judge other people by what you're reading you see I'm doing this they're not doing that so we have to be careful of that because we can fall into this spiritual pride I know so much about the Bible and I have acquired the Orthodox grandma so I know better than you and this is what you should do this is how you should fast and the preceptor where the cats have all the time and father's beard isn't long enough by the way and you know but this is we have a tendency in orthodoxy it's a bad tendency to judge other people's orthodoxy okay oh she didn't cover her hair and shirt I don't cover my head in church okay oh my gosh you know look at oh she's wearing their arms in church oh this is terrible so we have to be so careful with that because then we become like the Pharisees who were condemned by Christ because we don't know this person's soul this this person could be the most could be the most holy person and yet in our minds we have destroyed them because they didn't conform to what we thought they should be but we don't know their soul okay the same thing goes with sin we don't know how much we even if we know that someone has said we don't know how they've repented we don't know how God has forgiven them we don't know any of that so we have to be so careful so we use sometimes the devil takes the good things we do like reading the Bible and tries to turn it against us so watch out for that and one of the things you can do to avoid that is to go to confession that helps to keep keep us kind of grounded what else it is good to learn about people in places in the Bible why should we also engage in a kind of academic study of the Bible the father's did that to the fathers were the experts in the in the Greek language in the topography of the Bible the history of the Bible they studied it from an academic perspective too they just shouldn't sit back and say I'm waiting for the Holy Spirit to inspire me and then I'll say what it means the Holy Spirit worked through them that it was a synergy you know that I hope you know that word I'm gonna write that on the brokest that's another important one synergy sy n ERG why is the cooperation of human beings with God it's a very popular word now with for other things too but that's what it is it's a human divine cooperation and frankly that's what the Bible is the Bible is the product of a working together between God and the human author whoever he was Matthew Mark Luke John Paul Moses whoever he was God cooperated worked with the human author he enlightened he Illuma the human author so as we work toward a greater understanding of the Bible from an academic perspective if we combine that with our prayer life with our sacramental life then those things work together and God gives us more illumination what else can we do we can memorize parts of the Bible if you come from a pricing background you were very big on that keep doing that by all means we should memorize Psalms of Beatitudes little proverbs things that we read that you know strike us maybe can have like a little journal where you write down verses that you read that really impacted you and memorize those and these things that the memorization of the scriptures is also something which the fathers did they knew large amounts of Scripture do you know that in the early church it was forbidden to to ordain someone a bishop if he didn't know the entire Salter by heart did you know that the entire Salter was him I got it but barely memorize the 50th psalm or something like this they they knew these things by heart Chrysostom we don't know how much he knew by heart but he knew much of this the new testament by heart and people still do that i heard from a podcast somebody wrote to me who's an ethiopian christian he says we still learn desalter by heart and i said wow that's that's amazing so we what do we do today we we know other things we know baseball statistics and we know you know what Angelina Jolie wear to the Oscars where all these other things that distract us from the church so the more we immerse ourselves in the life of the church the more we understand plus we understand the connections between Scripture so what happens if you're reading and you don't understand what you read don't worry about it for so you can come to church and come to the Bible study talk to father about it take father we have two priests here take them out to lunch an asset they would love it if you're not complaining about something in the church and instead you're asking them about the Bible okay bit right father's am I read about their mother I'm hearing about complaint you know this is this is true what do you think the priests hear about most of the time so-and-so said this and this isn't right and father we have to do this and this is broken if we have enough money for this this is this is what you know if somebody said father like take you out to church says I want to talk about the Bible oh thank you you know that's great let's let's go let's meet let's talk and that's fine but you also first have don't not have to church not at coffee hour okay that's not the time but you you know up there what times to engage these things to learn about these things and you should do this but the father's say whatever you understand there's enough in the Bible for us to understand think about that don't be disturbed by what you don't understand just what you do understand think about that and sometimes in time you come to understand the parts that you didn't understand before when you when you go home after being in church talk about the Gospel reading especially with your kids that's a great thing to do it's a it's a wonderful thing I remember one time one of my friends they found out that their son had found some he had found savings bonds which had been given to him as a kid as a baby and when he was like 16 or 17 he found them he took them to the bank and he cashed the moment it was like a few thousand dollars a lot of money so I was telling this okay so what happened you know so and so he he took the money that people had given him and then he went down as Betty says it's like the boy in the story you know he's talking about the prodigal son and I loved that that's our children should relate what happens in everyday life to the story you can ask them what what do you think what is this like what was the Gospel reading about today when you think about that what did father have to say today this is really important and of course to have them read Bible stories from children's storybooks that's perfectly fine the little VeggieTales there's nothing wrong with that it doesn't have to be you know serious Bible study for children is whatever they can absorb that we also have a podcast on hf8 radio for children you know the gospel lessons for children what else can you do you can download apps like the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has an app of daily Bible readings and it has it there in text and you can read it and also the lives of the saints on ancient faith radio we have the path when I go to the office I love to turn on the path and that's it the Epistle and the Gospel reading of the day what's read to me and this is a wonderful thing to do so there are lots of things we can do so those are some practical advice for Bible reading in 10 minutes I'm going to give you some practical advice for biblical interpretation okay not just for the reading interpretation I also already mentioned this understand that all translations are flawed all of them when you're reading something in English don't hang your hat on some word in English because it may not even be there in Greek I'm serious about that sometimes especially if it's a more dynamic translation like new international they add words that aren't there or we were just reading from the Gospel of John for this class I'm teaching a summer class I'm Gospel of John and somebody was reading from the King James Version I let them bring whatever version they want sometimes that gives us an opportunity to talk about differences in translations so somebody was reading from King James and it said I do not seek my own honor but I seek the honor that the father gave me that's what it said the word is not honor its glory it's vote side that's important because in the Gospel of John the glory of Christ is the cross so notice how you know that's Kings you know it was totally wrong and it gives it different nuance so just be aware that if you're reading in English with you know I read only English most of the time that that's okay just be aware that translations have their pitfalls and not only that very often there isn't a good English word for the Greek word which is behind it there's nothing which can really capture that so just be aware okay now number two not all parts of the Bible are equally profitable you know it's not necessarily necessary to read the whole Bible most of you probably here have read the Bible from cover to cover that's great if you've done it if you never have you don't have to Genesis is pretty good exodus sort of Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy Joshua once we gonna Josh when there's a lot of killing and this creates all kinds of problem in a kiss is very strange you don't have to read it like that if you're not accustomed to reading the Bible start with the Gospels or even if you have read the Bible like that but you want to apply this Orthodox wanama start with the Gospels and try to read it differently try to read it as though it's for the first time try to ignore the big letters and big numbers and the small numbers because when these books were written there were no chapters in Matthew Mark Luke and John Paul they never put chapters when you write a letter to somebody you don't put chapters and verses in your lives we'll need it to Paul so when you read it more it reads more like a novel the Gospels read more like a novel it's very hard to just say okay chapter well now we're in chapter 13 okay what happens in chapter 13 you you know it affects the way we read the text it really does and that's why sometimes when you come to church you might see that the Gospel reading or even the Epistle reading is like the end of one chapter in the beginning of another one you go why did they do it like that well that's because there were no chapters when they created the lectionary they created a cycle of readings so some things belong together that we have separated because of the artificial insurgent we need chapter verses so we know what we're referring to but those things are kind of artificial and they do affect how we read the text so start with the Gospels that the epistles of the whistles are great also what else you want to do this when you read the Bible here's another call coming home orange I hope you can read it you want to do when we read the Bible what we want to do is called exegesis maybe you can't read that a little bit light to light we want to do exegesis not isa jesus some people pronounce this I see Jesus see is exegesis means to draw out the meaning of the passage okay see the X like exit X so that's a Greek prefix each means in not to read meaning into it I don't mean not to find meaning in the Bible I mean not to read into it something that isn't there okay so that's what we want to be careful about so exit Jesus is xyg II am sorry exegesis is about e x EG e s is ISA Jesus is e is e GE s is okay so why do we want to do exegesis we want to figure out what the original author wrote what he meant what did John or Paul or Matthew mean when they wrote that we want to know what they intended if we are bringing ourselves to the text by sort of inserting a meaning in the text it isn't there then we're kind of we're misusing the Bible and we're not really doing what it's intended to intended to teach us so we want to draw the meaning of the original author when we do that then we can apply it to our lives so we have to be careful not to be searching in the Bible for things that confirm our own private opinions and then saying look there it is that's east of Jesus we don't want to do that so we want to draw out the meaning of the original author so that we can then apply it to ourselves in our lives so what else would I like to tell you in terms of importation interpretation scriptural language is human language the Bible is spiritual its holy its lofty but it's still human okay it's a product of the divine and human collaboration yes but it's human language and all human language is inadequate to talk about God all human language is mediates God because God is beyond human comprehension so we also have to recognize that the Bible uses kinds of terminology and expressions that it wants we want to talk about God we can't really talk about God because we can't know God as he is in his essence yet we want to talk about God so what we do is we use human terms and concepts and imagery so we have to understand that that functions how that functions in the Bible so we don't get distracted by that and misled by that ok so human laws scriptural language is human and all human language is inadequate to talk about God those are the words of st. John Chrysostom message that's not coming from me it because if he would said this when he was talking about Genesis so when we sit and talk about creation at all but it says this God walked in the garden and look that that is the biblical authors way of expressing a truth so when we get hung up on the little details that are describing God we have to understand God is beyond human description it's trying to point us toward some greater truth that's what we're supposed to take out of it so what else should we remember when interpreting the Bible we use the clear parts to explain the obscure parts not vice-versa we don't use obscure parts to muddle up the clear parts so what happens is sometimes we have one or two or a few verses in the Bible that suggest something I'll give you an example an example is predestination okay so there's a few verses that seem to suggest you know predestination God hardened their hearts or something like this or Paul uses the word they are predestined and some people say so they jump on this bandwagon predestination well the problem with that is that the entirety of the Bible the Bible as a whole is against that idea okay the Bible in throughout the Bible the old and the New Testament God is constantly calling upon people to repent if they're not capable of changing then whether you're talking about the period of when Moses was with the children of Israel in the wilderness but you're talking about Sodom and Gomorrah whether you're talking about the judges period throughout the biblical history all the way to Revelation there were letters of the seven churches repent or else I will remove your lampstand or something like this guy's constantly calling upon people to repent they have an option to change their ultimate destiny then how is there such a thing as predestination why because you've found it in a few verses and you're going to concoct a whole theology based on that can you see how that's a distortion of the biblical message we also have to step back and look at the big picture of the Bible the entirety of the Bible before we reach a theological inclusion okay so what else there are two things this is on the very first day of class you see you know how much this would cost you if you came to UNC I stopped for an hour and you know how much it is perfect you know with it it's a private university so one semester is like $40,000 so you take my class and it's kind of expensive and you get it for free okay this is what I tell them on the first day of class the two most important things to remember when you're interpreting the Bible are this context and purpose you're trying to interpret the Bible you want to understand what the biblical author wrote what did he mean when he said us and such first you must consider the context context has two parts there is a historical context when we just think it's one there is a historical context why did the author write the book what was his purpose in writing the book we call that Scott Boston Greek what was his goal what was his purpose what was his objective so when Paul writes to the Romans and he says we're saved by faith he's not saying we don't have to do good deeds that they don't count for anything he says we're saved by faith in Christ not by following the law of Moses that's the historical context and that must govern the interpretation of the whole book okay because if you arrive at a conclusion or deter predation that contravenes Paul's purpose then you're wrong okay so it's very easy to test so there's a historical context you know when Jesus acted when Jesus spoke things in the temple to the Samaritans whatever it is there's also of course a literary context look at the entirety don't just focus on one verse or group of verses in a passage you have to look at the totality of the argument especially with st. Paul who creates kind of extensive especially in Rome as arguments for things you can't just say well but here he says this but look at what what he said before that what did he say after that if it negates that then obviously you're taking it out of context we all know what it means to take something out of context so if you aren't following both the historical in the literary context then you're going to have the wrong conclusion and of course the same thing with the purpose for what purpose did he write the book or the by the purpose of the Bible so when we look at the purpose which the author wrote if you're arriving at a conclusion or let's a great example of that is book of Revelation okay so what is the purpose of Revelation is it to serve as a roadmap for the end of the world no okay but that's how people use it so clearly their use of it as an abuse of it and it's going to give them the wrong answers that they think that they have found there okay one more thing the thing I like to tell you that the Bible record this is the ancient tradition of the church so this is really important remember context and purpose okay why did he write so the Bible has various layers of meaning you may be reading and thinking this is great I haven't read this anywhere before and sometimes you think you're the first person to ever figure this out I guarantee you there's not it's not possible to have an original thought in the in theology or a biblical site you'd be careful cuz sometimes your thoughts are heretical so be real careful about that I remember I was in class I was in class that's why it's good for us to know something about the theology of the church also when we're reading the scriptures I was in class and this is Catholic guy that was a long time ago Catholic guy I said I had a very interesting book that said that the Holy Trinity was recently published whole it was like the 1990s the Holy Trinity is three different personalities of God and I said that's modalism that's abelian ism it's one of the earliest christian harris dates he didn't know that and he was a catechism teacher okay so we got to be real careful you see there are so many pitfalls in theology that's why it was st. Gregory the theologian said it's not for everyone to be doing theology we should know our place and we should know over capable and then leave the rest of the people who know what they talk about so there are layers of meaning in the Bible there are many layers and you can have multiple interpretations or levels of meanings and that's okay as long as they're not heretic 'el the lowest level maybe I don't know if I should put this as number one I'll put is number one the first level is the literal also sometimes called the historical by the Fathers of the Church Estonia or Grammatik e historia the literal level that is what happened in the story that's what they mean by literal historical is just the story itself what happened okay so we start there right then if we are capable spiritually capable of understanding something higher than that we have what's called the moral level in Greek astrology the what is the moral lesson we can draw out of this story or this saying of the Lord just about everybody who you know comes to church they can you can do this and then the third level is the spiritual what does it say to us about the above Christ about about the church about the kingdom of heaven that's the highest level of interpretation now what happens in things like Genesis is people get very very stuck right here okay because they're trying to say okay kids could it be more than one man a woman what about the dinosaurs and then like where did Cain's they get stuck on the literal historical and sometimes people write to me in there they're just spent hours trying to solve these things that trying to make Genesis conform with science and think of this as a listen you are on the lowest level of understanding and they are obsessed with trying to find answers to these things which are really unanswerable because you're talking about the creation of the universe something no human mind can fathom that's love to pun okay but they're stuck here on this level and they think that they're so advanced because they're thinking about these things and I'm telling you though they're on the lowest level of understanding you have to move beyond that and say what is the story teaching us what's the moral what's the spiritual message of these stories okay so I would encourage you not to allow yourself to get kind of distracted by these kinds of these kinds of discussions when there's something for that you could draw out of the scripture okay not we don't ignore the historical or the literal but we we don't stay there in the Orthodox Church that's not that's not our goal our goal is to achieve the spiritual understanding so we have about 25 minutes left for questions yes sir you they want you to yes yes they want you to use the microphone you have a question I sure hope I can answer this with the pressure that pressure is on I was reading a message board and somebody wrote something you know just love to have your interpretation or your answer to it it was on some alteration of some Roman in cyclic old from way back and the the person wrote some Christians and Christians is in quotes did the same thing same type of thing in those days too the Septuagint copying it back into the words reinterpreted by Paul and other New Testament writers of the Greek such that some dim-witted translator exigence of today make claims that Jesus and other Christian other Christ's followers used the Septuagint and not the Hebrew text as their scriptures using these insertions I proved again in in quotes that the Septuagint was a better and approved version used by the Hellenized Jewish hoi polloi of that day and then he said this of course is a great flaw of the Greek orthodoxy and relying on the Septuagint as their a reliable version of the orthotist iment which the English authorized version translation does not okay thank you very much they said that they that they authorized version so that's King James so there's a goodbye as if somehow the King James is more accurate than the Septuagint the King James which came from you know in 1611 that's more accurate okay I would like to thank you for the question so there's a lot in that question let's start with some of the things that are made were said first of all that the person who wrote that on the message board said that the later copyists of the New Testament changed the words of Paul or whatever and read and inserted the Septuagint language into the language of Paul or Jesus or something like this and that is that is possible but I don't think it to be the case the reason why it's possible is that we know that scribes sometimes did whenever I mean scribes I mean people who are transcriptionists of copying manuscripts sometimes did try to do what we call harmonization and they tried to fix manuscripts and make them conform to what they think it should be a good scribe did not do that but sometimes scribes did however the point of that of that person who wrote that paragraph was that that that the early church did not really use that Septuagint that was a his claim instead that the early church was using basically the Hebrew text okay so and also that the Hellenistic Jews did not use a Septuagint this is what they were saying first of all about Jesus using the Septuagint I don't think Jesus used the Septuagint because Jesus was a Jew who was living in Galilee and traveling off into Judea so he would have been using Hebrew or Aramaic there's there's that's probably true but that the colonized Jews use the Septuagint there is no doubt no doubt that they did and here's how we know because the Septuagint exists it was the scriptures of the Jews way before the time of Christ and they did not know their Bible in Hebrew because the common language of the day was Greek and so in order to be able to read their scriptures they read them in their the translation which they have made the Septuagint is existed before that way before the church it was 300 years before the church so they had made is the decree Hellenistic Jews who made this translation now what happened is this because Christians people who were followers of Jesus also began to use this Greek translation of the scriptures the Jews began to associate it with with Christianity and they created other translations their own translations those came along then that they were also using but that the Hellenized Jews used the Septuagint there's no because Christian Christmas didn't make it what were they reading it's like saying it's like saying that in America where we read the Bible in English why because you know most people don't know Greek or Hebrew so I think that that's a it's seriously flawed and it shows somebody who doesn't even understand the early church the first followers of Jesus were all Jews of course and and after that when Saint Paul goes and takes the gospel into Hellenistic areas you have Hellenized Jews they didn't say oh we have to start reading the Bible in Hebrew now they're reading it in Greek there's nothing wrong with it like when you come here to church the priest reads the Bible and in English for you right there's a read in Greek reason in English what do you think they were reading this in those synagogues you think they're reading Hebrew they didn't know Hebrew people didn't know it and they didn't have such things as we have today the Jews have today bar mitzvahs were the little boys learn to read you know in Hebrew do you think that if you go to an American synagogue they're reading everything in Hebrew and everybody understands it have you ever been to synagogue are they reading everything in Hebrew they might have some some hymns and things like that Hebrew but they read their scriptures in English that's the language of the people so they did that back in those days too so the idea that somehow were misguided the early church and the Hellenistic Jews and there were many many more Hellenistic Jews by that we mean Greek speaking Jews when the church began that Jews who knew who knew Hebrew far more because they were living in Babylon and Egypt and Asia Minor and Greece and Rome and all over the Roman world there were far more but exponentially more Jews who did not know libro than knew Hebrew what were they using prescription they were using the Septuagint that's just a fact just ignorance on the part of the please forgive thank you I'm sorry if that was too long but answer go ahead no well along the same lines what would you recommend you know to us today as far as reading the Septuagint which you know what would be a good place to start but I don't know are you are you talking about the Old Testament in general or the the works the additional books the additional books like which are there some that you would only betters there's something beautiful story some of there are some wonderful books in in them it kind of depends upon what you're interested in we have in the the additional books there in the Septuagint now why if this is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible why are there more books in the Septuagint than in the Hebrew Bible do you know do you know why because the Hebrew Bible was formed after well after the start of Christianity there was no such thing as a set Canon of Scripture even among the Jews here's how you know them okay so you have to explain this to people so we're not doing we're not deviating from the early church by having exception we're not even deviating from Hellenistic Judaism by having the Septuagint we're in line with the early church people read their Bibles in Greek and they every book was separate we think of the Bible as one volume that this is what they got so they translated this this whole big thick volume that's not what they had they had a lot of individual Scrolls there was no agreement even in the first century at the time of Christ which books were Scripture can you think of the story where this comes clear in the new - in the Gospels it's when the Sadducees come to test Jesus okay now the Pharisees believed that the law the Torah and the prophets the Nephi aim were Scripture the Pharisees had that's where the Lord talks about the law and the prophets that's Jewish Authority in the first century long prophets Torah and nevian the nevian the prophets are Josh Berg judges Samuel Kings Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and the book of 12 we'd call those a minor prophets so there are there's the Torah the five books and eight additional books that scripture for many Jews but not all because it was very up in the air the Lord clearly considers the Psalms to be Scripture but not all Jews mr. Thomas of the scripture because he quotes from it David as a scriptural authority right so this the Sadducees come to Jesus and ask him the little story about the woman who was married to seven brothers because they want a human you know the story I'm talking about what was married to man he died without leaving any children so she married his brother that was required by the law of Moses and he died without leaving any children so she married his brother and on - she married seven brothers and then she died and then the question was whose wife will she be in the resurrection because the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection so they were mocking it by saying because the resurrection is something which we see more in the prophets like Ezekiel of the dry bones prophecy and things like this so the Lord answered from the Torah that's why that's so significantly says said did you not know from the scriptures where the Lord said to Moses I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob I am the god I am the god of the living not the dead so he proved the resurrection from the Torah from the book of Exodus you understand what I'm saying but the point of that whole thing is that the Sadducees who were a major sect within Judaism only had five books of Scripture the Pharisees had more so it was up in the air do you understand what I'm telling you so the point is there was no consensus that's why the early church had more books in the they accepted a wider group number of books and then the that number gets pared down later by the Jews so in answer to your question a bit of a long answer I'll try the shorten these what should you read well I'll just tell you some other things over there you can read them all Tobit is a wonderful story about a boy in this guardian angel the books of Maccabees are were very moving stories about persecution of the Jews by a Greek ruler and really the first known case of real religious persecution you have ecclesiasticus the book of wisdom of Sirach is a wonderful book Chrysostom clothes are meant a lot beautiful words of wisdom the story of Susanna is a very big moving but I don't think you have to start winning one or the other just read them dabble in them because these books were quoted by the father's in the especially serac we're really really popular and you see a lot of references to XANA and other things too so I don't think there's any right or wrong way to start thank you just as a quick follow-up question when Paul says that all Scripture is given by inspiration and so forth which which books is he referring to the Septuagint and a whole RZ that's a very good question if Paul says all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable what did he regard as Scripture we can't I can't say for sure but he was he was writing in Greek and he was writing to communities which were Jewish Christians Greek speaking Jewish Christians and the question of what was Scripture for Paul I mean if we have to look at what he quoted but also perhaps there were weren't words that he would have regarded a scripture that did not end up in the Canon of Scripture because there were many works that were very popular among the Jews another another way we know this is by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls among the Dead Sea Scrolls we see books that we would expect to see like Psalms and Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus but we also sent the copies of the book of Jubilees and other books which were very popular among Jews and also read by Greek speaking Jewish Christians and they shut they shaped them into their mentality we can't say for certain what Paul consider Scripture but we know he wasn't talking about the New Testament was he he's talking about the Old Testament and because he was speaking in Greek there's no question that when Paul went to the synagogue to debate with the Jews about the fact that the Messiah has come he was opening the scriptures in Greek and the Jews never said oh you can't read in Greek because today they'll say that you have to make your arguments from the Hebrew text that argument against the Greek came about later as Christianity began growing and the Jews were annoyed with the Christians for taking their own scriptures and saying hey you Jews the Messiah came along and you missed them you didn't recognize him so that's when they take a defensive posture start to back talk about he sir prior to that they didn't do that I don't know I wish I wish I knew what his canner was but does it matter that it doesn't really matter what st. Pauls Canon was because it Church decided on the camera Scripture and no one person decided what would be in the scripture no one bishop no one counsel not say nothin Asia's not saying Gustin this was formed by the consensus of the church over a period of time and that's why it's the scripture of the church yes sir thank you press matera or protest we say I'm concerning some some things that you said today are related to that what does it mean when it said that Orthodox do not theologizing orthodoxy and what would that look like practically I have I didn't say that no I know you I'm what in what context that was said maybe what they met I don't know maybe what they meant is that we don't engage in speculative theology that we don't imagine possible scenarios in which thus and such thing might happen or possible heresies that might arise maybe that's what they meant they don't theologizing it I think it was in the context of something maybe like who you're talking about these ideas of predestination particularly these arguments within Western Christianity it just don't arise in Orthodoxy they don't and then somebody asks us well what do you think about that question within that context within the call I see what you say so would we address well I don't think we can we can't really I I don't ever get involved in theological arguments within that a different kind of a context if that's what you mean so people say well what about this argument they tend to be very philosophical I don't do that like all I can say and it's the right thing to say maybe that's what you mean by this is that we don't how do we say that we don't have a dog in that fight you know we're not we're not involved in that we have nothing to say about that this is it's foreign to orthodoxy so we can just say what the church has never taught that and this is why and so I just you know if we just let it be if that's what they meant they're exactly right about it that's why I'm thinking right I'm always kind of curious when I heared that so I I haven't heard that expressed that way before but I understand what you mean if that's what they mean they're exactly right we don't get involved in theological discussions also of other churches I would never dream I can talk about orthodoxy and Catholicism and I work with Catholics I've had a lot of experience with Catholics and I can talk about our differences but I would never dream of saying whether or not their doctrine is right for them or their particular practices are right for them because they have their own Ronnie Mott and I'm not part of that I don't I can't think like a cat's like I can only think like an orthodox ruler thank you thank you hi so so I was just curious I know you were saying it's organ the Bible says were you saying the Bible with something organic I think it is an organ and I would just was thinking about a lot I mean I mean that it is natural in the Orthodox Church it's something which comes out of the early church that's what I meant by it being organic to us the way of thought in the Bible is the the manner of thought the ideas expressed in the New Testament in particular maybe not as much the Old Testament but also the New Testament are found within the Orthodox Church even in terms of the actual language particularly for those of us in the Greek tradition so that's what I meant that it's natural because it's the product of the church it belongs in the church you understand what I'm saying okay so with that when you were saying how we can have later fathers the Church Fathers right just like that Connor yeah you know a st. John of Kronstadt or something like that yes would that be due to I mean obviously acquiring the mind of the church getting to the early church his mindset but would that also be possibly God revealing himself more and then I mean okay well we're talking although these two these later Church Fathers yes revealing himself in other ways I don't we would never say that he would reveal himself in other ways yeah here's here's why but that's a very good question about revelation because I I didn't think to address that it's a very good question the question about what is revelation in the Orthodox Church versus other churches we don't believe that we receive private revelations of a theological nature we may have insights that the Holy Spirit grants us but and the Catholic Church teaches that revelation is ongoing not the Orthodox Church and that's because in the Gospel of John when the Lord says that he will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you to the truth we call that the future this form of Greek Greek word he will lead you the future of one moment okay that's the grammar is not he will be leading you to the truth he will lead you to the truth one time and that's on Pentecost the fullness of revelation was received by the church at the moment of Pentecost we don't keep getting something new that's why we preserve it and that's why we don't change gently I'm saying now obviously orthodoxy changes culturally orthodoxy and Russia looks a little different than it does in Greek Greece but it it's it's in terms of the theology exactly the same so we wouldn't say that a later father got a new revelation if he said that he did we'd be very suspicious of him probably would be a bother we would look at this person with great suspicion you see what I mean that's how heresy begins so you're it's a good question thank you for asking that I guess the the curiosity behind it is due to the infinite nature of God right is that I guess it would be a continuation of his glory then as opposed to Revelation in terms of the infinite nature of God what you should read for that if you want some insight into how the fathers perceive that read the life of Moses by saying gregory of nyssa okay who talks about this God will always recede because God is infinite holiness and we are finite even though for the mother of God even for the Theotokos as holy as she was she is continuing to progress in her own relationship to God and her own understanding of God and we're all on the same Road but we're different stages right so he talks about seeing gregory of nyssa talks about this idea that Moses seeking God like the soul seeking God God is always a little bit beyond us because we can never completely understand him see what I mean okay but we can grow it is actually one things he says if we talk about God is light he says after the light there is darkness very interesting doesn't mean that an evil but he means if there's something so profound that we can't really even go farther than that okay thank you so much in the 70s the notion of inerrancy became a very big deal in the Protestant world and I went to a seminary that was attacked with because people felt that fuller had thrown the Bible out the window and I would like to know for it for if you were talking to people who are really concerned about inerrancy what the Orthodox way of looking at the issue the issue and the inspiration of Scripture and and so on and fallibilities thank you that's one of the most difficult subjects for discussion because we're talking about of course what inerrancy and infallibility are very you know closely related because the Bible is inspired by God we say it's infallible right but what does that mean and and to what extent is it in errant what I would say to that is that first of all though we do have some fathers and some places in the fathers are consistent on this we have people like Origen who basically believe that God dictated every word of the Bible and you have some fathers who sometimes seem to say this and then sometimes in the same sermon they'll say you see he illumined the right the mind of the writer to write it like this because that we recognize that there are different manners of expression in the Bible we have four Gospels they don't tell the same stories in the same way so did God dictate what they should write because we believe in synergies it's so up there it's not up there because we recognize synergy we see the Bible as a product of the cooperation between God and the human author and it is a wonderful thing the human author keeps his own personality his own he lives he comes from a certain culture he expresses and he would have to he's expressing these things in a way that that audience would understand so we call that synergy so the mind has been illumined by God but not necessarily a dictation at work and yet at the same time sometimes we can get down to nitty-gritty and see choices of very specific words and we say you see how this show the inspiration of the text so at what level where that is it's very difficult to say I don't think that we can ever define it but as Orthodox Christians the Orthodox Church of course we affirm the infallibility of the scriptures if we see something that doesn't seem to be quite right we should examine ourselves and see what we're missing when we interpret it that's one of the things that we do and other things however also it doesn't mean that we are required to accept the Bible literally like for example Genesis that God made the world in six days and the earth is five thousand years old that's not what the fathers of the church meant when they said literal see if a lot of people don't realize this because the fathers say Genesis must be understood literally they didn't mean the way fundamentalist interpret the Bible they meant that we have to accept it as true that it really happened and that's different than saying that it had to be in six days that God was literally walking through the garden because there's so many expressions in the Bible we really can't take literally well it's not always intended to be taken literally so we have to exercise some discernment about that I'm not sure if I answered your question was about the interplay between infallibility and inerrancy so we believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and the infallibility of the Bible but how we understand that and is a very difficult thing because we cannot reduce it - well it's exactly what it says because frankly that's disingenuous the people who are fundamentalist who say it's the Bible is exactly what it means it means exactly what it says and that's all there is about it they're not even consistent about that for example when Jesus says this is my body this is my blood do they take that literally we do so they're not consistent they say Genesis got to be taken literally man God made the world is exactly how we did it you see what I'm saying so we can't it's the Bible is just too much of a mystery for us to know exactly how God communicated with that human author and what was there until we recognize the divine element we recognize the human element and we just have to leave the rest up to to God I wish I could I wish I could have the magic answer but I don't it's good for my humility not to be able to know how to explain that yes sir hi so two questions that are completely unrelated to each other I can ask sure okay first question is on reading of the scripture in church and revelation not being read as far as I know again can you shed some light on why that is okay you want to do you want to start me to start with that one why don't we read the book of Revelation in church yeah okay well because the book of Revelation is one of the most interesting the stories of how it and it was in the Canon then out of the cabinet back into Canada is it's it's very interesting in the West and the enemy of the East so here's what happened the book of Revelation was universally regarded as being by the Apostle John in the second century so we don't exactly know when it was written probably in the 90s sometime in the early second century we have early Christian writers one of them is papayas who mentions John is the author then later Justin Martyr later ironies all of these people came from Asia or they had the catechized in Asia which is where John wrote revelation so there's a very strong attestation that John wrote the book and today that's like nobody hardly anybody accepts that anymore not the biblical scholars they they but I just came I could became convinced of it I didn't intend to investigate that but as I had saw revelation in the early church there's not one hint that somebody else other than the Apostle wrote it okay so because it was written by the Apostle the early church accepted it now what happened was over time the meaning and the you have to accept something else that the audience who received the book understood it okay they understood it because John doesn't write something to people that they can't understand right so they understood it but over time what we call in fancy zit sim leaving the situation in life that's a germ a lot of terminology and Bill diseases German does it them leave and change the situation in life of the church change such that people no longer understood the meaning of the symbols so what happened was it begins it begins not even immediately to follow a favor there was a church historian called Eusebius who didn't like it and he was writing around the Year three thirty so for now at that time for more than you know a hundred like two hundred forty years the book was routinely and universally acknowledged and accepted in the East but he starts to undermine it in a very deliberate way calling into question whether or not John was the author if he's in and everybody read Eusebius he was very well-read he's not a signature everybody all right so by the end of the fourth century that's when he was writing most of the eastern Fathers rejected it because you see this brings out some things about the two books that the style is in the Gospel John is different from revelation and things like this so now most of the east rejects it by the Year 400 most of the East rejected in the West they didn't so they always had it so when the church it's a it's in the four hundreds in the fifth century that the church starts to create the lectionary those are the readings we hear in church by that time it's not accepted so it doesn't get into the lectionary but let me just say something let's say it had been accepted what would they do with it what would happen if you came to church and this is what you heard you know about the dragon and the Beast and the woman goes under it's it's difficult it's not something which is easily interpreted you know what I mean so it wouldn't it wouldn't be something that would be necessarily spiritually profitable for people to hear they leave more confused that's not why we come to church and listen to scriptures right but that's the reason because it was and had fallen out of favor with the east and most of the east did not accept it until almost the modern era believe it or not was that your second you have a second question yeah okay there's nobody else asked for more so we see a shift around the Reformation where the Protestant some are looking towards the Hebrew text yes and just curious if you know historically why that was especially with the nature of a lot of the fathers of the Reformation being slightly okay oh that's interesting yeah okay so why did the Protestants the Hebrew text believe it or not this idea of the Hebrew Veritas has its roots in Jerome who was one of the fathers of the church who translated the the Bible he wanted to translate the the Bible from the Hebrew and with that the Vulgate was Jerome's translation so there was a kind of there is a kind of Western bias that it has its origins in Jerome believe it or not he had big arguments with Agustin over this or they would argue it through the mail okay we have their correspondence okay so then what happened was the Bible when Jerome makes his translation is in Latin so in the West they just used Latin and the early English translations were all done from the Latin texts then as they get more toward you know the Renaissance and the Reformation they begin to use they realize that they need to return to the original Greek or then they say the original Hebrew I think it's they don't why do they do that if some of them were anti-semites because they think that they don't see it as being a kind of a Jewish product is I think they thought is belonging to the church and you know there's nothing wrong with the Bible the Old Testament Hebrew so because we talk about the Septuagint and we feel they need to defend the Septuagint as Orthodox Christians it's not like it's a different vital okay and they're places most places it's exactly the same so there's nothing wrong with the Bible and in the original Hebrew but the reason why the Septuagint is important is going to this exactly how we started that was the Bible of the early and we know it because and this is another answer to have perhaps Bablu is asking that question report how do we know that because the writings of the early church fathers they are quoting from the greek version of the hebrew bible they're quoting the Septuagint so that is the language that all of those jews grew up with and then they become Christians and they continue to use that language that's the language that ends up in the New Testament that's the language and ends up in the prayers and the Liturgy of the church you don't recognize that because you're reading a translation but I hear things sometimes in church and I know that this is a biblical word and that's that was so it resonated they the Psalms my quickness they were chanting the song we still chant the Psalms in the Septuagint Greek so you understand what I'm trying to say you're welcome [Music] and you take me [Music]

Channel: St Barnabas Orthodox Church of Costa Mesa. California

Views: 115,445

Keywords: Orthodox Christianity (Religion), hermeneutics, scripture, biblical scholar, interpret, Bible, The Bible (Religious Text)

Id: 2GHE6oqCc_U

Length: 93min 32sec (5612 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 06 2014