So....what does it mean when it says the stars fall to earth?
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David Chilton's Hermeneutics
- Thread starter John of Japan
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yes, in that he got to pretierism by using them...
Can you give an example of him using a bad hermeneutic....or are pulling that out of your ear like usual?
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Learn to spell!!!!!
He seems to see the second coming as happening AD 70, yet the Orthodox church always sees it as still a future event!
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I will, but do remember something about having charity?
That is not what I asked....i asked.....can you give an example?
Haven't read the whole thread, but Augustine is right.
The history between Isaac and Ishmael, and Sarah and Hagar were real events that happened on the face of the earth. They're still an allegory of the children of faith and the children of the flesh, and of Judaism and the Church.
The law about not muzzling the ox that treads the corn was a real law, but it's true application is about paying those who labor in the Gospel. Paul seemed to imply it was silly to think that God was concerned primarily with oxen.
There are more examples, but this will suffice to establish the fact that practically every verse of the OT has it's true interpretation and application in Christ and His Church.
I think it's silly to think that Christ is going to return on a flesh and blood white horse.
The history between Isaac and Ishmael, and Sarah and Hagar were real events that happened on the face of the earth. They're still an allegory of the children of faith and the children of the flesh, and of Judaism and the Church.
The law about not muzzling the ox that treads the corn was a real law, but it's true application is about paying those who labor in the Gospel. Paul seemed to imply it was silly to think that God was concerned primarily with oxen.
There are more examples, but this will suffice to establish the fact that practically every verse of the OT has it's true interpretation and application in Christ and His Church.
I think it's silly to think that Christ is going to return on a flesh and blood white horse.
This is exactly right. The Lord Jesus Himself did not use a literal hermeneutic in John 3:3 and totally bamboozled poor Nicodemus.
As Aaron says, Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:7-9 and Timothy 5:17-18 gives the true 'spiritual' meaning of Deuteronomy 25:4. 'Is it about oxen that God is concerned?' Of course not.
So when we come to a verse like Proverbs 22:28, 'Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set,' are we going to limit the application to ancient landmarks and thereby invalidate the verse for almost all of us, since we have no ancient landmarks to move? Or are we going to allow the verse to warn us against moves to change church constitutions or confessions of faith?
Finally, I'd like to show the inconsistency of many Dispensationalists in their interpretation of Revelation 4:1. ".......Come up here and I will show you things which must take place after this." Some at least interpret this 'Come up here' as being the 'Rapture' and shove the whole of the rest of the book way into the future thereby making it virtually useless in application for those who read the book for the first 2,000 years. A true interpretation of Revelation must have relevance both to its earliest readers and for Christians all through the ages. That is one reason why I can be neither a Preterist nor a Dispensationalist.
Got to run along now. I'm meeting up with Squire Robertsson in an hour at his church.
A horse?... I thought it was a cloud... or was it a bolt of lightning...?
It's downright deceitful what you do. He denied neither.
You too.
Likewise it is often a characteristic of those who hold to a literal (grammatical-historical) method to dismiss those who hold to a SPIRITUAL method guided by Jesus (John 8:52-59 2 Corinthians 3:1-6 ) to dismiss our teaching as allegorical - without Biblical understanding.
Everyone, saved or unsaved, can basically read & understand the Scriptures by the literal (grammatical-historical) method. Read it like a history book, or even a novel. The Scribes & Pharisees excelled at that, & never heard its message.
We need the guidance of the New Covenant Scriptures to lead us into a right understanding of the Old Covenant Scriptures, and particularly Old Covenant prophecy as it is fulfilled in & by our Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ.
The OC prophets were very clear on the Messianic hope of a glorious future for Israel, which those who insist on the literal (grammatical-historical) method postpone to a yet future millennium.
However the New Covenant writers, guided by Jesus himself in his last week teaching & parables, hold out no such hope for for the carnal nation, instead teach a glorious hope for all who repent & believe in Jesus regardless of ethnicity.
The literal (grammatical-historical) method which focuses on the promises to national Israel, rather than Christ & his redeemed church of all nationalities, is WRONG.
Not again!! Why do you keep bringing up this one point?
How many times do you have to be told that the Greek word has a wider range than the English word? The Greek word ἀστὴρ (aster) doesn't just mean those huge, fiery objects that are 1000s of times larger than earth. It can mean anything bright in the sky: star, planet, asteroid, meteor. Here is the definition from the Anlex of Friberg: "literally (single) star, luminous (heavenly) body like a star."
The more times you bring this point about stars up, the less impressive you are in the area of simply understanding words in the Bible. Not to mention, it is frustrating to bring up the same points again and again to you, and have you either ignore them or claim they were never answered.
You still didn't answer Icon's question.
To get back to the actual OP, Chilton used numerology horribly. For the uninformed, numerology is the study of what numbers in the Bible have special meaning: 6 is the number of man, 7 is the number of perfection, 40 is the number of testing or tempting, etc. However, for proper hermeneutics, there must actually be something in the text of the Bible that indicates such a special meaning. Otherwise, numerology becomes the wresting of Scripture out of context.
This is why very few modern hermeneutics textbooks even mention numerology: it has been misused far more often than not. Consider the words of Russian immigrant Ivan Panin. He wrote whole books on the subject, and even came out with a Numeric English New Testament. No serious, informed interpreter of the Bible takes Panin seriously.
Now, to the point. The classic on interpretation by Bernard Ramm says, "The parent of all excessive manipulation of Bible numbers is to be found in the Jewish Rabbinical method known as Gematria. Examples of such are as follows. The numerical value of the word Branch in Zechariah 3:8 is 138. This has the same value as Consoler in Lam. 1:16 so that it is one of the names of the Messiah. In Genesis 49:10, the Hebrew numerical value of 'Shiloh come' is 358, which is in turn equivalent to Meshiach, and so Shiloh is identified with the Messiah. There are never less than 36 righteous in the world because the numerical value of 'upon him' of Isaiah 30:18 is 36. Gen. 11:1 says that all the inhabitants of the world were of one language. Both 'one' and 'holy' equal 409 so Hebrew was the primeval tongue of humanity" (Protestant Biblical Interpretation, p. 216). And on and on it goes. I hope you see how ridiculous this method of interpretation is, dear BB people.
Back to Chilton. He is all about Gematria. He wrote, “A brief digression here will serve to place this point in its larger symbolic framework, for-in contrast to the multiplied sixes of Nebuchadnezzar's image-the names of Daniel and his three friends who refused to worship the idol add up to 888 in Hebrew. This is also the number of Jesus in Greek" (DOV, 346).
So Jesus is reduced to a number, 888? And the 3 in the fiery furnace are the same number so they are like Jesus? Really? That's ridiculous.
This is why very few modern hermeneutics textbooks even mention numerology: it has been misused far more often than not. Consider the words of Russian immigrant Ivan Panin. He wrote whole books on the subject, and even came out with a Numeric English New Testament. No serious, informed interpreter of the Bible takes Panin seriously.
Now, to the point. The classic on interpretation by Bernard Ramm says, "The parent of all excessive manipulation of Bible numbers is to be found in the Jewish Rabbinical method known as Gematria. Examples of such are as follows. The numerical value of the word Branch in Zechariah 3:8 is 138. This has the same value as Consoler in Lam. 1:16 so that it is one of the names of the Messiah. In Genesis 49:10, the Hebrew numerical value of 'Shiloh come' is 358, which is in turn equivalent to Meshiach, and so Shiloh is identified with the Messiah. There are never less than 36 righteous in the world because the numerical value of 'upon him' of Isaiah 30:18 is 36. Gen. 11:1 says that all the inhabitants of the world were of one language. Both 'one' and 'holy' equal 409 so Hebrew was the primeval tongue of humanity" (Protestant Biblical Interpretation, p. 216). And on and on it goes. I hope you see how ridiculous this method of interpretation is, dear BB people.
Back to Chilton. He is all about Gematria. He wrote, “A brief digression here will serve to place this point in its larger symbolic framework, for-in contrast to the multiplied sixes of Nebuchadnezzar's image-the names of Daniel and his three friends who refused to worship the idol add up to 888 in Hebrew. This is also the number of Jesus in Greek" (DOV, 346).
So Jesus is reduced to a number, 888? And the 3 in the fiery furnace are the same number so they are like Jesus? Really? That's ridiculous.
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There is still a lot of futurist events yet to happen in Revelation though!This is exactly right. The Lord Jesus Himself did not use a literal hermeneutic in John 3:3 and totally bamboozled poor Nicodemus.
As Aaron says, Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:7-9 and Timothy 5:17-18 gives the true 'spiritual' meaning of Deuteronomy 25:4. 'Is it about oxen that God is concerned?' Of course not.
So when we come to a verse like Proverbs 22:28, 'Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set,' are we going to limit the application to ancient landmarks and thereby invalidate the verse for almost all of us, since we have no ancient landmarks to move? Or are we going to allow the verse to warn us against moves to change church constitutions or confessions of faith?
Finally, I'd like to show the inconsistency of many Dispensationalists in their interpretation of Revelation 4:1. ".......Come up here and I will show you things which must take place after this." Some at least interpret this 'Come up here' as being the 'Rapture' and shove the whole of the rest of the book way into the future thereby making it virtually useless in application for those who read the book for the first 2,000 years. A true interpretation of Revelation must have relevance both to its earliest readers and for Christians all through the ages. That is one reason why I can be neither a Preterist nor a Dispensationalist.
Got to run along now. I'm meeting up with Squire Robertsson in an hour at his church.
He did not know the original languages it would seem, and ended up denying essentials of the faith, so why even bother with him as an authority as some do?
Why do you guys continually bring up metaphors in the Scripture, and then crow as if that proved the rightness of allegorical interpretation, even though grammatical historical interpretation treats metaphors as they are--metaphors? This point proves nothing whatsoever about the right method of interpretation. All methods should treat metaphors as metaphors.
Really? What about prophecy simply glorifying God when it is fulfilled? Considering the events of Rev. 4-22 to be prophecy, when that prophecy is fulfilled literally, God will be glorified. And again, something for which I never get an answer from you guys. If all prophecies about the first coming were fulfilled, why should not the prophecies about the 2nd coming, including Rev., not be fulfilled literally?
But (sigh), the OP is actually about Chilton's hermeneutics. Do you agree with his IM and his numerology?
Have fun.Got to run along now. I'm meeting up with Squire Robertsson in an hour at his church.
And thus, the purpose of this thread enunciated precisely by Yeshua1.
It's a futile fantasy that figures can foil or fool a faithful futurist from figuring out the final phase of future fulfilled prophecy.
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