In-Depth Bible Study

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Adam
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In-Depth Bible Study

Post by Adam »

Does anyone have any recommended resources or methods for in-depth Bible Study...I mean the kind of Bible study where you can spend weeks on one short book or even a few chapters.
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Bootstrap
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by Bootstrap »

A few thoughts on method.

Because context is so important, I really prefer to read an entire book several times - perhaps five - before doing anything else. I'm an ear person, so I like to listen to the text while reading it with my eyes. I don't worry about knowing what the commentaries say at this point, I am just trying to listen to the text and understand it as a whole.

After that, I like to print a manuscript and get out the colored pencils, Intervarsity-style. Who, what, when, where, why, how. For instance, on the "who" front, I might use one color pencil for people, and write a P every place where Peter occurs, a J every place that Jesus occurs, note the interactions between them (P->J or J->P), etc. Make up whatever symbols you like, draw boxes and circles and arrows ... for "when", I might draw little timelines along the side, or use colors or symbols to indicate tense and aspect. Your background affects what you will do here - Steven Runge has a set of symbols he uses for discourse analysis, for instance.

Or I might outline the structure of sentences, showing the subject, object, and adjuncts of each verb using a word processor and indentation and simple symbols.

Once I'm sure I have understood the basic text in some detail, I go over the text and write down questions I have. This is one of the most useful things for me, I'm usually surprised by the number of questions that occur to me if I let myself ask. How long did it take to go from this place to the other place? I wonder what time of day it was? What was it like to ... Then I look to see if these questions are answered in the text - they often are, but I don't see that until I ask the question. During the course of the study, I often answer most of these questions, but many remain unanswered. That's fine, just asking the questions seems helpful for processing a text in depth. Incidentally, if you are doing a less in-depth study, starting with these questions is often good, and you can do that as a first step before doing these other steps too.

All of this is what I would call rich observation. It is not yet interpretation or application. But I find that doing a lot of careful observation is useful to avoid look-say application, and to avoid simply imposing my established theology on a text.

Then comes interpretation - why did the author write this text, what was most important to him, what were his values and concerns, and how would the original audience of understood it? I try to stay focused on the original audience at this point, and not immediately read it as a letter to me as a modern reader.

And this is the point at which I start to bring in other resources. I might look at various translations to make sure I'm not misinterpreting the Greek, or read commentaries to understand the cultural background or fine points of the language, use a lexicon to understand the meaning of a word, etc. The older commentaries like Meyer are great for the details of language, the IVP Bible Background Commentary is a useful but somewhat shallow overview of the cultural issues.

Finally we get to application - if that's what the text meant to them back then, what does that mean to me today? Or to the church today? Often, the specific concern they were dealing with, such as circumcision or meat offered to idols, is not a big issue in my local church, but if you let the Holy Spirit speak to you, the same concerns they had then are just as relevant today. Application is not really something that scholars are better at than anyone else, this is a time to bring in others and brainstorm and pray and seek God's will.
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Bootstrap
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by Bootstrap »

This is a good overview of many useful methods of scripture engagement, which is relevant here.
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MaxPC
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by MaxPC »

Adam wrote:Does anyone have any recommended resources or methods for in-depth Bible Study...I mean the kind of Bible study where you can spend weeks on one short book or even a few chapters.
Adam, do you want a Bible study that discusses practical and personal life applications of the Scripture? Or a study that gets into the linguistics and semantics of translations? Are you interested in one that uses the critical-historical method?

I'm operating under the assumption that you would like a Bible study that is offered from an Anabaptist resource. If that's the case, here are a few I turned up:
The Aletheian Landmarks Home
Anabaptists.org has some free Bible studies and other resources.
The Anabaptist Faith Formation website lists several different methods
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Max (Plain Catholic)
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Bootstrap
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by Bootstrap »

Lester, I'm curious about the approach you did when working on Ecclesiastes. I get the impression you did some very in-depth work on that.
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Adam
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by Adam »

MaxPC wrote:Adam, do you want a Bible study that discusses practical and personal life applications of the Scripture? Or a study that gets into the linguistics and semantics of translations? Are you interested in one that uses the critical-historical method?
All of the above. I am not limited to those writing from an Anabaptist perspective. I am just curious to see how others dig down deep into the Scripture and what methods they use.
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by Bootstrap »

Adam wrote:All of the above. I am not limited to those writing from an Anabaptist perspective. I am just curious to see how others dig down deep into the Scripture and what methods they use.
So how do you currently approach this? You obviously have done a fair bit of in-depth Bible study yourself ...
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MaxPC
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by MaxPC »

Adam wrote:
MaxPC wrote:Adam, do you want a Bible study that discusses practical and personal life applications of the Scripture? Or a study that gets into the linguistics and semantics of translations? Are you interested in one that uses the critical-historical method?
All of the above. I am not limited to those writing from an Anabaptist perspective. I am just curious to see how others dig down deep into the Scripture and what methods they use.
Perhaps the inductive method of Bible study would meet most of your checklist? I've been going through my journals I've kept of people I've met through the years. The Bible studies most often suggested by the pastors and Christian leaders I've met were those produced by a Christian group called the Navigators. They have some in-depth studies that focus upon one Bible book over a period of weeks which you expressed you would like to do. Perhaps you can find something there? Here are some links from the Navigators' website.

https://www.navigators.org/topic/bible-study/

https://www.navigators.org/resource/the ... -handbook/

https://www.navigators.org/resource/life-change-series/

Navpress is their publishing arm
https://www.navpress.com/bible-studies/topical
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Max (Plain Catholic)
Mt 24:35
Proverbs 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding but only in revealing his own mind.
1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God
lesterb
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by lesterb »

Bootstrap wrote:Lester, I'm curious about the approach you did when working on Ecclesiastes. I get the impression you did some very in-depth work on that.
My approach was similar to yours. I printed out the book with lots of white space for comments. I read it around a dozen times, while listening to it, like you said. Some of this would vary with the focus of the book. But since the focus of Ecclesiastes is vanity and the meaningless of life, I went through the book and highlighted all the negative statements in yellow. Then I went through again and highlighted the positive statements in blue. That alone was very interesting, because you get a visual representation of the changing tone of the book. As Solomon put the vanity behind him and started to look to God, the pages turned bluer and bluer.

I also went through and highlighted all the questions that Solomon raised. Then I classified those questions which gave me an idea of what he was really after. Over a third of the questions were about the future, what will happen to my things when I die, etc. This led me to believe that the book is the struggle of an old man facing death and not liking what it looked like.

I also added comments and questions. I'll circle words that I think need defining or that seem to jump out at me. I'll underline phrases or passages that seem out of place or puzzling.

I'm not a Greek or Hebrew scholar. My approach to deal with that is to work with about six translations from various perspectives. I use the KJV some. I mostly use the ESV. Then I use the NET because I like its textual notes. Then I use the HCSB, the NIV, the NLT (in that order of importance). And to get the feel or "flavor" of a passage I'll use the Message. I maybe should start a thread on why I do that. But there is an amazing amount of scholarship went into that version, and while I won't base doctrine on it, it does help with a book like Ecc especially, to catch the tone of the author.

I have found a lot of help from these ideas. I seldom use my Greek and Hebrew tools much anymore. At one point my approach was very similar to George's, but after reading everything the Knight and Boot have said in the past about the subjectivity of a non scholar trying to re-translate the Bible, I have shifted from doing a lot of word studies. I find that using a number of good translations and comparing scripture with scripture is very helpful. It really broadens your horizon.

Along with this, I try to follow good exegetical rules like reading in context and comparing difficult passages with simpler ones on the same subject. I also find outlining to be very helpful. For parables I focus on main ideas rather than details. In a book like ECC or REV I look for pictures. I also bug all my friends by discussing the things that puzzle me or impress me. Discussion is tremendously helpful.

All of this takes time and effort. But in the end I have been amazed at how the Bible will open up in front of you.

Boot got me started on a lot of this, but each person needs to find their own slot that works for them. And I think in a way each study is unique. I'd like to do a book on the Revelation, using the same ideas that I used for ECC. I've also thought of a companion book for ECC on Job. And maybe the Song of Solomon?
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Adam
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Re: In-Depth Bible Study

Post by Adam »

Bootstrap wrote:
Adam wrote:All of the above. I am not limited to those writing from an Anabaptist perspective. I am just curious to see how others dig down deep into the Scripture and what methods they use.
So how do you currently approach this? You obviously have done a fair bit of in-depth Bible study yourself ...
As strange as it may sound, translation work is different from in-depth Bible study. In fact, one of the temptations that translators face it trying to get their translation to also be an interpreter and Bible teacher. I think there is a lot of danger in that because it becomes very easy to slip your own thoughts and interpretations into the text. I wrote a blog post on this topic that you can read at the following link (http://pngboyd.blogspot.com/2017/09/tra ... style.html). I believe that our go-to translations should be in the ESV, NASB, NKJV camp. For languages like Enga, an ESV-style translation is virtually impossible. The best we can hope for is more of an NIV or NLT. (I find that to be quite frustrating by the way.) Translations like NLT, CEV, MESSAGE, etc. can be helpful to bring out some of the flavor of the source text, but they are only useful because we already have very good literal English translations that we can turn to to find out "what the text actual says". Of course, no translation can tell us exactly what the source text actually says, but translations like ESV, NASB, NKJV come pretty close.

When I come upon difficult verses, I am more of a mental processor and I spend time thinking deeply about the text. (I know that sounds a bit loosey-goosey, but it is honestly what I do and it is helpful.) I will also consult commentaries, cross-references, lexicons, various translations, etc. I am a bit leery of commentaries and don't find them particularly helpful with difficult translation decisions. Reading the Greek is usually quite helpful. But I would like to pursue some more concrete methods to help me interact with the text. That is why I am asking what others do because I think I will benefit from more hands-on interaction.

I have also started reading a book called Deep Exegesis by Peter Leithart. It looks quite interesting, and I really like the Christocentric approach to exegesis.
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