This examination is meant to be comprehensive, and will come in many posts. I encourage discussion along the way, please do. I think discussion is the most important part of this process, so please offer up whatever discussion you have.
To start with, we need a broad historical overview of biblical literature. It sounds vast and expansive (and it is) but I am not teaching systematic theology, only biblical interpretation in historical context. I will focus on three main types of biblical literature.
The earliest written books in the bible are the Pentateuch (Torah, Genesis thru Deuteronomy.) They are a type of literature called Historical Narrative.
Historical narrative in it's most basic form, tells a history. It can contain narration, poetry, song, genealogy, and law. There are a specific set of tools (all wrought out of common sense) you should use to interpret historical narrative. Historical Narrative is by far the easiest type of biblical literature to interpret, because generally the writers did not attempt to be poetic. If you have historical and cultural context in mind, you can simply use common sense and a few very handy text analysis tools and tackle many of the big questions presented.
The second type of literature is Prophetic literature.
Prophetic literature is highly figurative. It makes extensive use of hebrew style poetry and many figures of speech and hyperbole. It is often presented as a covenantal lawsuit: "This is what you have done. You are guilty, and now this will happen."
Only 27% of the Bible is prophecy
Only 2% is about the Messiah
Less than 1% is unfulfilled.
There are specific phrases prophets generally use when they speak.
There is forth telling: "Repent"
and Foretelling: "if you don't repent"
It's full of repeated phrases that are clues to what the writer is writing about.
"in those days"- ususally speaking of the church age
"the day of the Lord" can be either a day when Yahweh brings specific judgement or the final judgement.
"a remnant will return" could be talking about any number of remnants Israel experienced. (the remnant of the northern kingdom, the remnant from babylon, or the remnant that came out of sin)
It can become impossible to interpret if you don't have historical and literary context, because prophets will often jump around in their verb tenses. One minute they are talking about what already happened as if it's in the future, the next minute they are talking about the future as if it's already happened. This is easily visible in most prophetic literature
Not only that, but Telescoping happens frequently. telescoping is like looking down a mountain range. It often appears like the mountains are right next to each other, but they may be hundreds of miles apart. We lack depth perception. In the same sense the prophets lacked time perception. They can in one place be in the present , and then a verse about the future, and then a reference to the past.
So: how do you interpret something like that?
Well, we have the advantage of history. We can look and see how prophecy has already been fulfilled, and then see how the prophet wrote about it, and get learn a lot about how that type of literature works.
Time has shown their is method to their madness. They have cycles and systems, and wrote with interesting poetic conventions. If you read prophetic literature, make sure you get the context or you may walk away with some very interesting ideas the writer never intended. Look for the writes intention. "Oh, the book is about the Assyrian invasion? Okay, now I can make sense of some of these cryptic references from historical knowledge about the Assyrians."
likewise, we can tell when the prophets switch in and out of past an future tense with repeated phrase conventions that they used in their writings. There were two schools of prophets, and Prophecy was an established literary style with expectations and a common understanding by the writers and hearers about how to interpret certain things. It very rarely is meant to be mysterious.
Also understanding their poetry/story style is helpful. In Hebrew literature, the climax is in the center of the block text, with matching "steps" of text on each side. Heres an example from ecclesiasties:
| Eccl. 11:3 | A | Clouds and Rain | |||||
| Eccl. 11:7 | B | Light and Sun | |||||
| Eccl. 11:8a | C | Consider the days of darkness | |||||
| Eccl. 11:8b | D | All that comes is breath | |||||
| Eccl. 11:9a | E | Enjoy your Youth | |||||
| Eccl. 11:9b | F | But know ... God will bring you to judgment | |||||
| Eccl. 11:10a | E' | Enjoy your Youth | |||||
| Eccl. 11:10b | D' | All of youth is breath | |||||
| Eccl. 12:1 | C' | Consider God before the days of darkness | |||||
| Eccl. 12:2a | B' | Sun and Light | |||||
| Eccl. 12:2b | A' | Clouds and Rain | |||||
This is called Chiasm.
Also a convention in Prophetic literature is hyperbole. Does this sound familiar:
"
Behold, the day of the LORD comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the land a desolation
and to destroy its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
and the moon will not shed its light.
11 I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,
and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.
12 I will make people more rare than fine gold,
and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will be shaken out of its place,
at the wrath of the LORD of hosts
in the day of his fierce anger.
"
Most people would think it's about revelation, because of the specific events mentioned.
However, history and context show it is about the conquest of Babylon by Media in 539BC.
This is just one of many uses of this imagery. Obviously those things didn't happen. There is an orderly way of interpreting these exggerations with lots of historical context and evidence. This would be shaky evidence of a non literal approach to prophecy if this only appeared here. But this exaggerative style appears in every known prophetic hebrew literature.
Modern Christians tend to glamorize prophetic literature as not interpretable or magical. In fact, the vast majority of prophetic literature is more like a court transcript: Yahweh was judging, and he wanted them to understand the severity of their sin. So he threatened with a mighty roar. It turns out God is very practical in his actual application of judgement, as history has shown.
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