If the meaning of the Bible is so clear?

Question

so easily interpreted—and if the Holy Spirit leads every Christian to interpret it for themselves, then why are there so many different Protestant denominations, and millions of individual Protestants, all interpreting the Bible differently?


I guess by the answers its not quite so clear and their are many interpretations how do you know which is right.

Answer 1

If the meaning of the Bible is so clear, why did Jesus give Peter and the other Apostles authority to "bind and loose" interpretations regarding his teaching (see Matt 16:18, 18:18)?

Answer: Without an interpretive authority, a written text can mean anything anyone wants it to mean, which opens the way to puritanical fanatics to use the teaching as a weapon.

Look at Islam, where no unified body has any authority to explain what the Quran says. As a result, armed bands find authority to do whatever they want in the Quran, including homicide bombing of their fellow Muslims.

If the US had the Constitution but neglected to provide for a Supreme Court to determine how to interpret the Constitution, we would have never made it to the 21st century.

Wisely, Jesus gave us the leadership of the Church, the Supreme Court of Christianity.

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 2

They are all right. The Bible isn't being interpreted differently. Some choose to focus more on certain parts than others. Some, unfortunately, choose to leave parts out. The overall, basic beliefs of Christianity are the same. The key is accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior who lived on this Earth as a sinless man, healed all who believed, crucified on the cross by Roman Soldiers, who did crucifixions every day (yes, he died and yes, it was him) for the forgiveness of sins, rose from the dead after three days as he said he would, was seen alive by over 500 people, and is the only way to heaven. He is who He said He was, God. All denominations believe that. Read the Bible for yourself. Don't assume you know it from what other people tell you about it. It's difficult at first but over time, you will begin to understand. It has everything in it you need for life.

Answer 3

The translators of the Old Testament were Jewish scholars well acquainted with both the Hebrew and the Greek languages It is known as the Septuagint Version. It was known as the Alexandrian Version to distinguish it from the Hebrew or Palestinian Version. The Septuagint contains more books than the Palestinian version and is about three hundred years older. The Palestinian Version originated approximately around 106 A.D. and is different from the Hebrew texts that were the basis for the Septuagint translation. Many translations into Latin were made during the early Catholic centuries. The best known Latin translation was either the "Old African" or the "Old Italian" (Vetus Itala). Pope Damasus (Pope from 366 to 384) commissioned St. Jerome to make a new and accurate translation. It is known as the Vulgate Version. Vulgate means common or vulgar in Latin and it was called so because Latin was the common tongue of the Western Roman Empire. The Douay-Rheims Version was translated from the Latin Vulgate into English. During the Protestant "Deformation" in England many false translations had been made, hence there was great necessity of placing in the hands of Catholics a reliable and accurate translation. The English Protestant translations is the version called the "King James," named after the King who commissioned it in 1604. It was finished in 1611. It is still the most popular of the Protestant Bibles in the English speaking world. Like all the Protestant Bibles, it is incomplete and poorly translated. It is a "Pick and choose" version. Such is the real lack of respect of the "Reformers" for the word of God! Many important arbitrary changes are found in the texts of the Protestant Bible. According to some scholars, the most popular Protestant Bibles have literally hundreds of mistranslations, additions and omissions. They lead to an entirely different interpretation from the one intended by the Sacred Writer. The reformers were anxious to change texts to give force to the particular doctrine of their choice. Either they did not believe it was the Word of God, and therefore felt free to change it any which way; or if they did believe it was the Word of God, it took a lot of pride and presumption to correct God's word. In either case, they should be called "Deformers" rather than Reformers.

Answer 4

I am not so sure that it is the clarity or lack of clarity in the Bible that is the problem.

Parts of the Bible seem to be relatively straight forward--strange and foreign, but not too difficult to understand.

Other parts are hard to put into historical context, and are therefore a little more obscure.

A few parts, are so symbolic, and the symbolism so time-bound and so few keys to what the symbolism meant, that it is doubtful to me that there will ever be agreement as to what is meant--Latter parts of Daniel come to mind.

St. Paul, to my mind, is trying to put into words an existential experience and find a solution to that experience in the death of Christ and vis a vis his background in Judaism. I do not find his writings terribly difficult, just impossible to systematize.

The problem is to make all this add up to a coherent system of belief and an adequate guide to morals. Making the Bible so add up is, in my opinion, an impossible project. And therein lies the feeling that the Bible is hard to understand.

Different groups of people use differing strategies to make the disparate parts add up.

Spiffs: The problem I have with the authority of the magisterium is that I cannot tell that it/they have done that much better job making it all add up.

Answer 5

I think that you have to find a version of the Bible (translation I should say) that is the most easily understood by you. If you personally can find some truth in it and interpret the verses to make sense to you, that is all God wants.

As far as being many different denominations - just like you said, the Bible and God can lead you to interpret things differently from others.

Answer 6

This is a really good question. Yes the holy spirits helps us to better understand the Bible. But what I think happens is that people tend to interpretate what they read in their own way. This is a really deep subject that I will definitely look into.

Answer 7

There are so many diverse opinions because none of us are perfect yet. The Holy Spirit does reveal the Bible to us.

I try and listen to all ideas, and if the Bible states that the opinion is wrong, then I say, I agree to disagree and let it go.

Follow what the Holy Spirit tells you. St. Paul says in Phil. 2:12 - Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

WE are responsible for how we listen and what we do.

Answer 8

Do you really believe that all protestants interpret differently? Do you believe that the Bible is understood without guidance of the Holy Spirit?

Maybe you should stick to a subject you know something about.

Answer 9

a lot of people don't know how to interpret the Bible. one thing to tell if you are interpreting it right is to make sure that your interpretation lines up with the hole bible not just part of it.

Answer 10

the bible gives answers but people interepret it differently and war occure and also people only see and understend part of the bible. only real smart people understands the bible because it gives the true answer in storys and stuff for example if you reed mathue (i might of misspellled it) there is a part that goes: blessed are the... blessed are teh ... blessed are the... and so on the meaning behind those words is that to be cristan you have to be all of the descreption of the lines also i waswnt smart enough to figure that one out but some one did and they told it to the wrold.