One of the biggest challenges in leaving legalism is the  issue of Hermeneutics--how to interpret the Bible. Much of the Bible has been explained for us--in no uncertain terms. We were taught that its teachings are clear, right there in front of us in black and white. Yet, why do so many people who take their teaching from "the Bible alone" disagree on many different doctrines and practices? After being told that all the other religions and denominations in the world are deceived and we alone have the full truth, one begins to wonder if we are not the ones deceived. After all, if we are deceived, we won't know it.

Here at ill-legalism, we have a different approach to hermeneutics. One that we hope our readers will find helpful in the struggle to understand the Bible.

        What about a "Bible only" hermeneutic?

        What about figurative language in the Bible?

         Are You Stupid Too? (A closer look at analysis and exegesis)       

 Visit again for more topics on hermeneutics, including:

• What about the different genres in the Bible?
• Isn't hermeneutics a scientific approach to Bible study, and therefore accurate?
• How can we know if an instruction in the Bible is specific to a culture or is a universal command?

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth

by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart

Slaves, Women & Homosexuals

by William J. Webb

"I have often wondered about the Bible...If God were trying to give us a holy book, a self-revelation, couldn't God have made it clearer, less controversial, more universal, less vulnerable to cultural irrelevancy? Couldn't there have been, instead of a collection of varied genres and wildly different writers living and writing in vastly different times and cultures, a single individual or committee inspired to give a coherent, chronological spiritual primer?

"Instead of historically rooted books like 'First and Second Thessalonians,' 'Psalms,' or 'Nehemiah,' with mixtures of poetry, history, legislation, personal letters, and fiction, couldn't there have been clear, expository, timeless prose, with titles like, 'First, Second, and Third Books of Theology,' 'The Truth About the Trinity,' 'How to Have a Good Marriage,' 'A Clear Guide to the End of the World,' or 'Seven Easy Steps to Cure Greed and Lust'? Couldn't God have anticipated every heresy, schism, problem, and controversy and made clear, unarguable, foolproof, preemptive strikes through some inspired chapter of a divine textbook?"

"After my mind follows this train of thought for a while, I begin to ask a different question: How else could it be? If God is indeed having a real story unfold through history, then of course, the story has to 'happen' with freedom, and the reports of it have to come to us in their raw, unedited forms, warts and wrinkles, bizarre twists and unpredictable turns. And even if God were to edit the stories into a more 'acceptable'
form, for which audience would God edit them? For scientific, college-educated rationalists? For the wild-eyed artists and poets? For rice farmers in the East, fishermen in the North, hunter-gatherers in the South, or philosophers in the West? For gender-egalitarians from the West (guaranteeing it wouldn't be read by more patriarchal folk from some other places), or vice versa? Would it really be better for us to have the story rehashed and 'sanitized' so we like it more readily and accept it more easily? Or is there some benefit to getting it gritty, breathless, and warm from the lips of those who were there, told in their idioms, through the lenses of their cultures--leaving the job of interpretation and application for our myriad and dynamic settings up to us?"--Excerpt from Finding Faith by Brian McLaren