I think we've had this discussion several times here, Kate, about just how easy it is to interpret scripture. There are, as you know, multiple interpretations out there, making it quite clear that all interpretations carry the present with them when they try to read the past.
More progressive or liberal churches, in my experience, either totally ignore certain things and/or have lists that are rather mushy with lots of qualifiers.
And liberal or progressive interpreters consider literalistic approaches to scripture almost hopelessly naive. Take the "Jesus said" interpretations, just for starters. Since there are no contemporaneous narratives, the actual source for the "Jesus said" quotes come, not from Jesus, but from the early church, all of which are second and third and fourth hand. So, even then, it's the present creating/recreating the past and reading it's own needs into it. |
