Updated American Standard Version
Giving Bible readers what God said not what translators think God meant
Learn proven principles for understanding Scripture correctly so you can confidently interpret the Bible the way God intended.
Anybody who wants to study the Bible, either at a personal level or at a more scholarly level, needs to understand that there are certain principles that guide and govern the process. The technical word used to refer to the principles of biblical interpretation is hermeneutics.
There are dozens upon dozens of books on how to interpret the Word of God. The intention of this appendix is to give the Christian the basics of the correct way to interpret the Bible. Almost all the books on biblical interpretation are liberal to moderate, that is, follow what is known as the historical-critical method (subjective) instead of the conservative historical-grammatical method of interpretation (objective).
The numerous parallels between the Book of Ezekiel and the Revelation of John have arrested the attention of all readers. But the number and extent of Ezekiel’s prophecies carry him over a broader field than that of any other apocalyptic prophet so that he combines vision, symbolical-typical action, parable, allegory, and formal prophesying.
In Josiah’s day, the book of the law was found in the temple, and Josiah’s humble response to its demands changed his generation. Jesus later confronted religious teachers of His day who, for all their attention to the law, had often buried it beneath their religious traditions.
All interpreters agree that the empires or world powers denoted by the various parts of the great image in Dan. 2:31–45 and by the four beasts from the sea (Dan. 7) are the same.
We first direct attention to the apocalyptic form and method of the Book of Joel. His prophecy is arranged in two leading divisions. The first part consists of a twofold revelation of judgment. Each revelation is accompanied by words of divine counsel and promise (chapters 1:1–2:27). The second part goes over a portion of the same field again, but delineates more clearly the blessings and triumphs which shall accompany the day of Jehovah (chapters 2:28–3:21; Hebrew text, chapters 3 and 4).
Ancient biographies often opened with the noble background of their subject, background that would shed light on the identity or character of the person about whom they wrote.
Have you ever been quoted out of context? Sometimes people quote something you said, but by ignoring the context of what you said they can claim that you said something different—sometimes exactly the opposite of what you actually meant! We often make this same mistake with the Bible.
