Is apparently the neverending attempt to make the Bible "accessible," since everyone's got to read & interpret it for him or herself. That's not to say that everyone should not read/interpret it for him or herself, but that the accessibility issue--not to mention the making Jesus hip and fun issue--can be problematic, like when meanings are represented are unambiguous, but are essentially someone else's unambiguous interpretations (read mediation) masquerading as the real thing. Personally, I don't think a footnote is out of line, especially one that explains the translator's rationale. And having an orthodox interpretation is comforting--it eliminates the "anything goes" of Bible reading/study. On the whole, though I like this site. It's a tongue-in-cheek guide to quirky Protestantisms--written by a quirky Protestant. It's nice to see these guys laughing at themselves. It makes me laugh rather than criticize (well, mostly), and that might just help promote mutual understanding.
P.S.--I found Stuff Christians Like through a link from great Catholic blogging endeavor--Stuff Catholics Like. Check it out! It's a group effort by some of your favorite Catholic bloggers!
2 comments:
...Is apparently the neverending attempt to make the Bible "accessible," since everyone's got to read & interpret it for him or herself.
That always perplexed me about Christianity (I didn't understand that all Christianity didn't believe in Sola Scripture when I was younger since I grew up in the Bible Belt). I always thought: so you have to have good reading comprehension skills to know God? I saw lots of my classmates who struggled with our See Spot Run books. It seemed inherently unfair that God would set it up so that those people wouldn't ever be able to know him as well. Also, widespread literacy is a relatively recent phenomenon, and requires the printing press. It also seemed strange that most people for like 1,500 years would not have an opportunity to know Jesus.
Anyway, great links. :)
Woo hoo! A real post about literacy!!! ;) On Literacy-chic's blog!! And I didn't even plan it that way! (Thanks, Jen!) I've got this great book called A History of Reading in the West and I've read others that address this and its really very interesting to see the different theories of reading that come about post-Luther...
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