The Anxiety of Scriptural Interpretation

Related to yesterday's post on doubt and certainty, one of the biggest areas I see the certainty as a coping mechanism for religious anxiety is in the interpretation of Scripture. This has literally led to wars and murder. This reminds me again of Brink's quote that closed yesterday's post with that the best defense of faith is displaying love...

This is a humorous video that emphasizes how biblical interpretation and theological nuances can become rather extreme and the basis for conflict. This is another humor post that has a very short summary of each book of the Bible.

On a more serious note, BioLogos often addresses biblical interpretation, particularly regarding Genesis 1 and 2, which I personally think get way too much emphasis put on them in this regard. In any case, this is a nice post exploring literary versus literal interpretations of these chapters. I appreciate how BioLogos emphasizes that even literary interpretations do not reduce people's faith and worship of the Lord...

I also like this post, part of a series on interpretation after inerrancy. The author does a nice job summarizing how non-inerrant views were actually held by some of the most respected Church leaders over time.

And then there's the age-old (or 2000-year-old) fights about the God of the Old Testament and New Testament and the various ways of interpreting the texts to reconcile the two. Keith Giles wrote a very interesting post on this topic.