I remember going through a crisis of faith so I went to a born again Bible study group. Try as I might, nothing really made sense. I would ask questions like "Ghandi is in hell because, despite being good, he didn't believe in Jesus, right?" They really couldn't say yes or no, which came off as dumb because that's supposed to be the main prerequisite for going to heaven according to them!
@@iamfiefo I empathize with that "teacher", most would say the best person ever was going to hell if they didn't really, really say and mean the Jesus prayer. Maybe the teacher was waking up but rightfully so was afraid of being ostracized.
I agree. But Dan is not your everyday critical Bible scholar. He is in a unique position to give this perspective because his primary academic focus is in understanding human cognition.
I understand your concern, but I would respectfully disagree. The Bible itself claims to be the inspired word of God, and as such, it is the ultimate authority for Christians. As 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) states, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." In fact, Jesus Himself appealed to Scripture as the ultimate authority in His debates with the Pharisees and Sadducees. For example, in Matthew 22:29-32 (ESV), Jesus responds to the Sadducees' question about the resurrection by saying, "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God... He is not God of the dead, but of the living." Here, Jesus is emphasizing that Scripture is the ultimate authority, and that it is our understanding of Scripture that must be corrected, not the other way around. Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God's word is eternal and unchanging, as stated in Isaiah 40:8 (ESV), "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." This means that God's word is not subject to human interpretation or revision, but rather it is the standard by which all human thought and action must be measured. So, while it is true that human beings have interpreted and applied Scripture throughout history, the Bible itself remains the ultimate authority, and our understanding of it must be subject to its teachings. As the apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 1:11-12 (ESV), "For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ."
Man creates God in his own image, so it makes sense that people would believe the bible supports their own viewpoints. The allure of appeal to authority is strong among them.
I love how your introductory comments, your "cold open" or "headline" statements, seem to so clearly encapsulate ideas & notions which let me feel seen and understood. Thanks again, Dr. McClellan. You rock.
Praying = waiting around for nothing and feeling good while not advancing towards your wants. An excuse to not do something and wait for it to be done for you…
@@lysanamcmillan7972The description provided of expectation of prayer is typical. You pray the pain away, your life struggles, etc. It may not be everyone but, it is most because prayer is merely a centering of focus, a meditation. There is no supernatural gain to be achieved because the supernatural does not exist. Prayers are not so much answered as they help the living deal with troubles in a healthy way.
❤ This is a very clear explanation about why we have so many sects within Christianity. It wasn't the subject of the video, but the reality is evident. I also appreciate the mention of identity near the end. Many Christians decry "identity politics" while they use their own Christian identities to attack others. I just subscribed to this channel! This video made strong points in an understandable & methodical manner. 👍
@@infiniti28160 Jesus is not the Messiah of the Jewish people. Nothing says he is which has any validity. Your analyses of Genesis and Psalms are complete nonsense, also. You're not seeing reality and it's so striking a distortion between yours and the average persons, I half-wonder what's in your medicine cabinet that you don't like taking because it quiets the voices down.
Slavery still exists in the modern world. For example, in Mauritania, although illegal, chattel slavery is still widely practiced. Then there are dominionist Christians in the US who believe that there should be no problem with slavery in the US as long as it is practiced according to biblical principles.
@@infiniti28160 Incorrect, paul who Christians really follow and Jesus both were okay for slavery in this 3d world but it's okay before the people with Jesus died he would be back and they would live in eternal paradise so a few years of torture was no big deal.
@@MarcillaSmith The important thing is to do what Jesus asks us to do. Reading the Bible with honest intent can provide a good approximation of what Jesus wants us to do, but no text whose authors are long dead can speak for itself. You need personal revelation from God or an authoritative interpreter to go from what the biblical authors said to what Jesus says.
@@adamkotter6174 The problem is that many people believe God has “revealed the truth of the text” to them. But many of these revelations are diametrically opposed. As such, asking God to reveal the truth is clearly not working. Otherwise, most people praying sincerely would come to the same conclusion cousin. But that is simply not happening ing. Instead, that “revelation” usually just reinforces their own cognitive prove bias in regards to the text.
The Bible is a human book written by humans who did not think that slavery would be condemned in the future. So, they included commandments about slaves.
Fun fact. Did you know the Mosaic law prohibited (on pain of death) kidnapping people for slavery and also returning runaways; effectively making the Hebrew system of "slavery" voluntary? A lot of people miss that.
@@user-pm3mw8xw8d not true. The verse refers to kidnapping Hebrews. Alot of people ignore the direct context to make them feel better. Gentiles can be bought, its allowed.
And it is product of a time and place where, as Dan mentioned, slavery was a fact of life that was so deeply ingrained into society that no one thought to question it. Kinda like their cosmology. No one with any sense can think that the literature of pre-scientific people was intended to be science. People WITH sense let the text be what it is instead of denying reason.... Trying to force our present knowledge and morals onto the people of the past is called presentism.
@@user-pm3mw8xw8d the Lxx used by Xtian Nt authors is very clear: Lxx ex 21 17 Whosoever shall steal *one of the children of Israel,* and prevail over him and sell him, and he be found with him, let him certainly ...
This is not accurate. The first law is to free Hebrew slaves after 6 years, this is the central economic doctrine of the Mosaic law--- slavery becomes temporary (for Hebrews), with exceptions involving marriage to a fellow enslaved person, or for those who are not able to function as free and ask to become permanently indentured. In practice, this means all slaves convert and are eventually freed. This is not the literal text of the Bible, it requires understanding the context to see this, but it is a central theme of the Biblical text, and it's not all that subtle either. The laws are designed to convert ancient slave societies to medieval feudal societies. Now we are in a post-feudal society, so the seeds marking the point of transition aren't as clear.
Thank you so much for mentioning the interpretative lenses scholars use! Many people who only see a few of your videos get the idea that you're only interested in "attacking" various Christian worldviews. It's good to see more confirmation that you're consistent with your application of critical thinking to all viewpoints.
Yes, for example, the Bible offers contradictory teachings on forgiveness. What you choose determines what you teach. And what you teach creates consequences for real people.
@@langreeves6419 It's not that simple. A lot of people don't have widespread access to different denominations. We're not all living in a city. This also erases the problem of the people who prefer to be taught the harmful things.
This is why I like modern scholarship of the Bible. As Dan mentioned in here, I want to know what the texts originally meant, not what religious groups later interpreted them as.
Hey, I do not meant to insult or attack, but it's just that I see a number of individuals ending sentences with prepositions and adverbs - kind of awkward. Im referring to the end of your second sentence. I know we speak that way (colloquial English), but we should not write like that. Examples: I want to know what the texts originally meant, not the later intrepretations of religious groups. or I want to know what the texts originally meant, not how later religious groups interpretated them.
@@2023betterresearchthere’s an especially humorous irony in seeing a linguistic prescriptivist in the comments of a video that takes an explicitly postmodern stance
@@BobbyHill26 I know McClellan since 2011. I know his literature. I dont you see your bifurcation being valid. I took time to type I did not mean to attack.
@@2023betterresearch you don’t see the humor in watching a video about how words have no inherent meaning, and then going in the comments and taking a prescriptivist approach as to how a person aught to use words?
@@2023betterresearch You're on the internet to chastise someone else for ending a sentence with a preposition? This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.
I think an important thing to point out in the discussion of what the bible "means" is that the bible isn't special in its lack of inherent meaning. *No text* has inherent meaning. There is the author's intended meaning and the reader's understood meaning, but that's it. The text itself is nothing more than an attempt to bridge that gap. And the gap gets wider and wider the longer the author has been dead.
True, though this is a caveat Dan has made multiple times, and _every time_ there is pushback from evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. He tends to sharpen this overall principle into a finer point for Christians about the bible for some pretty good reasons: he is an expert biblical scholar, so it's his field of study; the texts themselves are most relevant to, and most cited by, Christians; and Christians are the people we most often hear say things like "well the _BIBLE_ *_says_* ..." as if it's an authority with specific commands we all must obey. If Dan seems to "pick on" Christians, it's only because he is trying specifically to combat misinformation about the biblical texts, which is a pretty Christian-heavy area of interest (though Dr. McClellan has certainly done the same for atheist, Jewish, unaffiliated, and other theism-related groups).
One thing that seems to have happened regarding slavery in Christianity is that over time, the understanding of the "us" that shouldn't be enslaved broadened. In the original Hebrew Bible understanding it was Israelites/Judahites - Jews. That making little sense in a Christian world, it eventually came to be treated as Christians. Which, since Christianity was an evangelical religion, led to even non-Christian slaves converting and thus essentially ending chattel slavery in at least western Christendom. For a time. Christians still worked the slave trade and sold captives into foreign markets of course, but slavery really wasn't a big thing throughout the later Middle Ages. Though both serfdom and indentured servitude played a similar role. Until exploration opened up colonialism and the New World profits were too tempting, the Bible was renegotiated and Africans and native populations were othered such that chattel slavery became acceptable again for a time.
Thanks for not oversimplifying the history of the practice and abolishment of chattel slavery. I find the undermining by some apologists to be very concerning but I’m also frustrated by how some skeptics gloss over it as if its abolition was “painfully obvious”. Don’t forget that the native populations were also practicing slavery and sometimes willing sold their own people to the colonists.
I was just purusing family posts and one went on a rant on following Gods word and not the word of man. The only reason I know of Gods word is because a man told me so, or because a man interputed some really old texts and told me it is acurate translation.
"Ultimately, we are the ones in charge." Probably the most important statement here. This is heresy to any fundamental Christian, who needs God to be in charge so that their doctrines can have authority. The reason for this is something I don't quite understand - is it that they're afraid to stand behind a belief and need an invisible deity as a scapegoat? I don't know. But this concept, to me, is an evidence that all religion has a lot more to do with human activity than it does with any divine activity. Perhaps all to do with human activity.
With that in mind, what are our thoughts on the concept of "present truth?" It feels like some churches use that phrase to justify their own renegotiation of what is written in the Bible.
This makes me curious about any relationship between deconstructive ideas from literature and how they would relate to Bible studies. An echo from my distant academic past
If we play the "because the Bible says so " game a lot of people would literally lose a limb or an eye "because Jesus said so." Sadly, many DID lose eyes and limbs because of the ignorance of western literalism. People who spoke Greek, Latin, Old English and so forth did not understand simple Aramaic idioms and metaphors Jesus used in his time and region. The lens I look through is from the Near Eastern culture and language for clarification. Eshua simply wanted people to stop envying and doing corrupt things like stealing or being physically violent. To take a closer look at Aramaic idioms and metaphors check out Idioms of the Bible Explained by Dr. George M Lamsa. His native language was Aramaic and he came from a small village called Mar Bisho that kept many of the customs and traditions from ancient times. I located the village 19 miles north east of Galilee in the mountains. It's like a bubble in time. Amazing.
I’m glad Dan explicitly admits scholars have to negotiate meaning as well as anyone, as that’s been a criticism leveled at him for a while. We are all in a box of someone’s construction. I take issue with Christians who say “The Bible says…” but frankly, I’ve been guilty of equally sloppy language on my critical end.
Of course scholars negotiate meaning, however, there is an entire structure of peer review in place that ensures they can't pass off their personal views as authoritative and instead must seek a consensus by demonstrating their position with evidence. Such a structure doesn't exist within devotional negotiations and in many places would be entirely unwelcome.
@@20quidone current example of this is the criticism that Robin Walsh, Dennis McDonald, Richard Miller, David Litwa, & Co., have made that the academic consensus in biblical scholarship is outdated, and isn’t accepting of the fact that they have siloed themselves off from integration with classical studies; that the consensus refuses to take seriously evidence they feel is damning to the dating of the gospels, to the interpretation of certain gospel stories, and the list goes on. They certainly don’t agree with your assertion about what the consensus and certain biblical societies are doing, gatekeeping certain views from being considered or published in certain journals. There are several other scholars who are relinquishing their memberships to certain societies, or merely holding onto them nominally for specific reasons. Your view is extremely naive; it’s how things should be-not how the world actually works in every or even many instances.
@@hardwork8395 I am no expert, but I think I recognize some of the names you mention as scholars who are outside, sometimes well outside, academic consensus. Although their claims deserve consideration, fringe scholars complaining against the consensus is neither new nor an automatic indictiment of said consensus.
@@meej33 my comment isn’t about people complaining-you’ve changed the focus of my actual words: My comment is citing specific people who are claiming their arguments and evidence isn’t being considered or in some cases peer-reviewed-if you don’t like the names I mentioned, it’s irrelevant to the argument anyway; we could list plenty others in any field: science, literature, math, etc. Women and people of color were excluded for some time, and still report issues with their work in academia. Let’s not pretend there aren’t institutional or cultural issues at play in this area as much as any other human endeavor. If you read both of my posts, my critique is about the naive assumption made by the previous commenter that peer-review is somehow a panacea against personal opinions or bad ideas or bad research being propounded; I mention human corruption, laziness, etc as potential things that can taint the process, itself. That’s why I mentioned it’s only as good as the people policing the process. It also addresses the false claim that there isn’t a similar structure within religious domains .
@@hardwork8395 Some people being ignored in the past has no relevance to current claims from other, different people who claim to be ignored in the present. Off the top of my head, I recognize people like Miller or McDonald who have not been ignored, rather they have been widely criticized. Scholars have engaged with their claims, they just did not like the result. The thing is, peer review makes it way harder to "police the process" because it requires virtually a conspiracy of silence. Not every fringe scholar is a Galileo.
These "meta vids" are so important to pepper into the stream of particular "So let's see it" topics. Methodology as a subject needs periodic refreshs. As Brother Roy likes to say (Woody Harrelson's character from the 1996 comedy "Kingpin"): "It's against it."
Hi Dan! Thank you for the video. I had a quick question: Could you not say however that some interpretations are MORE correct than others? That if we follow through the different rhetorical goals of the biblical authors, some readers' conclusions could be further from the authors' intentions overall than others', and therefore that their interpretive frameworks could be "better" than others. For example: If I, as a reader, believe that the fundamental message of the NT is to condemn Jesus and his followers, while my neighbor's interpretation is that it is celebrating Jesus and his followers, could we not reasonably say that The Bible "says" something closer to my neighbor's interpretation than mine? Again, thank you for the fantastic videos.
I think in an earlier video he said that scholars try to reconstruct the meaning the original authors meant that convey AND how their readers understood it. I think the difference is that Christians extract the meaning that is more useful to them, scholars don’t care about their personal preferences: they want to find out the meaning the authors and early readers adopted. (Hoping I got what Dan said right) I’d say that your neighbor’s interpretation is closer to the original. I think Dan would agree that colloquially and for short we can say that one interpretation is more correct than another, as long as we agree on what we are talking about. For instance I don’t think a theologian who is interested in the Bible as a religious text would often agree with a scholar about what the correct interpretation of a passage/story is. Just think of the Adam and Eve story. But definitely scholars would have firm ideas on which interpretation is more correct from their pov. Sorry if it came out confusing: it sounded better in my mind. 🥴😁
As I understand it, the whole issue would center around what "supports" each of your competing interpretations have. I mean, which quotes from which books read with what meaning led you to the interpretation. Then it could be investigated if the text actually supports that interpretation. You would never have a 100% proof, but you could say that one interpretation has stronger support than another.
If your interpretation is "more correct" from the perspective of the original intent then maybe you're ok with slavery then? There's always a compromise between what may have been their original message and modern morality. Which interpretation should have authority?
@ryanletourneau9166 I think “I want my interpretation of a text to line up with the original authors’ intention” is an interpretable framework just like “the Bible is inerrant and authoritative.” Now, we can argue philosophically about which of THOSE is a “better” framework, but that’s still built on US deciding and making meaning. So than a given interpretation is only “more correct” by aligning with the authors’ intent if we decide, dogmatically, that it should align. Hope this helps.
Hello Dan question for you. Based on your explanation I was watching a youtube video. The pastor was saying that the bible has 3 applications.. I douctrine 2 historical and 3 is spirital. On the spiritial one God can speak to one group with one thing in mind and have a different meaning to a different group in the future. He gave an example from the old testement. He said spirital should be number 1 because of being spiritual. Is this correct? I can send you the video if you like. Thanks
Appreciate the video. I have a question. I’m struggling with the sentence “the Bible has no inherent meaning” Wouldn’t it be correct to say that the inherent meaning of the Bible is the message the original authors were attempting to communicate? I recognize that the intentions of the original authors is something we can’t know with certainty. I’m just thinking, if I’m a poet with a message to communicate, I would consider that message as the inherent meaning of my poetry. Like, there may be other interpretations of my poetry that do not give rise to any contradictions, but if these interpretations are not what I meant as the author, than these interpretations are not aligned with the true meaning of my poetry. I’d appreciate any feedback!
Those are excellent questions. I, of course, am not Dan but I have a background in semiotics which is the kind of underlying critical theory that deals with meaning. In a nutshell, this approach considers meaning to be a dynamic process that occurs when a text - e.g. a book, a movie, an advertisement, a song, etc. - and a 'reader' interact. The meaning is not in the text; it is in the interaction between the text and its audience. The creator of the text has their intentions but those do determine the meaning that others may find when they engage with it. Two simple examples: 1) The Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" was written as an indictment of the country. It is however widely thought of as a patriotic rallying cry by many others who find that meaning in belting out its chorus. They "find" - i.e. create - a meaning that is at odds with the creator's intention but it is still just as valid. 2) When Shakespeare wrote "Honesty is the best policy" he didn't mean 'it's always best to be honest' but 'honesty is an effective strategy'. The word 'policy' meant 'scheme' not 'rule'. Over the years this line has been re-undertstood to mean something very different than originally intended but that's just how texts work.
@@WDRhine thank you so much for your response! The Bruce Springsteen song is a hilarious and telling example. I still am struggling with one part that hopefully I can articulate better. The people singing “Born in three USA” don’t care about the intention of Bruce Springsteen. However, to me at least, it seems the people reading the Bible do care about the intention of the authors. I believe this bc many people who read the Bible are, to me at least, trying to extract some moral/philosophical guidelines. So for these people, the inherent meaning of the text is what the author is trying to communicate, or at least that’s what I currently believe. Now I recognize that this struggles to apply in some situations. For the sake of discussion, I’ll assume the story of David having an affair is historical. And let’s further assume that the Author wrote this story for strictly historical purposes. In other words, the author did not intend to argue/promote any ethics. Now say someone reads the text and reflects “see, look at how David watched the woman for a while. If you don’t remove yourself from temptation, you’ll eventually fall into sin!” Under my framework, this reflection would not be a valid interpretation of “meaning” because it’s not aligned with what the original author intended. This feels wrong to me lol - which is why I’m not 100% confident in my framework. I suppose this could be harmonized if God is the original author who inspired the text and intended for the text to have multiple meanings. But I know that is dogmatic and not something scholars can just assume. Not to say it’s either true or false. I’m not even sure if I’ve made a concrete point so far lol. I know I wrote a lot, sorry if it reads a little scatter brained. I’ll appreciate any and all feedback.
@@lucasvega9277 I appreciate your interest and will try to explain how critical theorists look at texts as simply as I can. It's definitely a discipline that can have lots of jargon and counter-intuitive terminology. Any cultural artifact can be considered a text: a painting, a uniform, product labels, air raid sirens, cutlery, etc., etc. They all were produced with a particular purpose that is called the 'intention'. It can be interesting to know what the intention was but it is not necessary to appreciate the text or to find meaning through interacting with it. A central aspect of this type of analysis is that every text is an object that contains nothing beyond its physical components. A book is words organized in a specific order, a painting is specific substances applied to a surface, a movie is specific images and sounds in a particular order, etc. Key to this is the "absence of the author", i.e. what you have is limited to the object itself. Authorial intent is not part of the object and any consideration of it would be considered extra-textural. It's not that intention isn't interesting, it's just that it isn't part of the object. This absence extends to the question of meaning. As I wrote before, in this type of critical analysis meaning happens when a 'sign' - the text - is encountered by a 'signifier' - the reader or viewer. It does not inhere - i.e. it is not inherent - to the text. Understanding the circumstances under which a particular text was created, including the creator's intent, may be useful to certain readers in their desire to make any given text more meaningful but any meaning they find is actually not present in the text but in their unique interaction with it. How one may want to apply this type of critical framework to sacred texts is entirely contingent on the intention of the reader. For many, it will be to jettisoned as soon as it fails to conform to their pre-existing expectations, i.e. their dogmas. For others. it may create the opportunity to approach these texts on their own terms. Either way, there's not a right or wrong method.
So when the Bible says that Andrew was the brother of Peter, does that sentence have no inherent meaning? Is it merely one’s arbitrary interpretation to say that Peter had a brother named Andrew?
Yes. For example, you have to choose to interpret the text as a story or history, then choose if "brother" means having the same parents or just close friends or from some kind of brotherhood social structure, even more so if we're not using the original text but a translation/copy.
The unfortunate reality is that religious beliefs are supported more by emotions than intellect. Emotional thinking blinds us to what is true because, sometimes, truth is hurtful.
We want God to be good and be good all the time like people through around. A good god wouldn't allow slavery so of course God didn't, even though he did.
You have free will to say so. But there's only one truth. If you wake up in hell do you think Satan Is just gonna go oh you don't believe in slavery? Ok you free to go.
The majority of the Western world would say slavery is wrong. Yet there's still tens of millions of slaves today in the world. There's no outcry, there's no protests, barely any news coverage. Nobody cares, nobody says anything. I think that evil and terrible and incredibly tragic. As long as there's one man, woman, or child still in chains, none of us are truly free. I know this is only tangentially related to the video but I feel strongly about this, as I hope you do, too. I take any opportunity to bring it up and say something about it
@@JopJio that seems like a generalization that says more about your perspective, I think. I say the West because that is my personal experience. I can't speak to countries or cultures that accept or turn a blind eye to the practice. In America most people are ostensibly opposed to chattel slavery but seem to be okay if it's punishment for conviction of a crime or if it takes place in some other country. Out of sight, out of mind. Next time I'll make up what I guess other people I don't know think. Imagination!
Wasn't the Bible always a proof text? Was there a time when it wasn't? When was it not used "structure power" and "maintain boundaries"? All I'm saying is every person in that chain from the oral tradition to the editors, redactors, and margin writers and on to a modern fundamentalist, are all guilty of the same thing. I feel like I should hear the same condemnation of "utter and complete nonsense" leveled at the authors just as must as I see it stitched with some lame apologist tiktoker.
The issue there is that often you can find other texts in the same bible with different interpretations. Sometimes a little different, sometimes very different indeed.
Would it make more sense to say "the bible doesn't say anything directly to anyone but the original audience?" The works in the bible certainly said some things to some people, but none of those people are still alive on Earth. Just a pedantic point to clarify the generalization.
I think it’s just a fact people interpret things differently. A novel written today to a modern audience might still be interpreted dozens of different ways.
@@Mikeypem I take your point, but some statements are more definite than others, right? Simply because modern Judaism doesn't look directly to the texts, but instead to rabbinic interpretations, doesn't mean that's how the ancient, more direct audiences understood it. Sometimes, it just means what it says.
I agree, it probably depends on the passage to a point. But even the most direct audience still has life experiences or biases that might lead them to interpret a passage in a particular way. Now some interpretations could be “more right” in terms of being closer to what the author intended, but the only person who would know definitively is the author. “Meaning” is then an individual pursuit which the author has little control over.
Sorry, I don't "negotiate" with the bible's text on slavery any more than I "negotiate" with the text of Mein Kampf. Slavery has always been wrong, is wrong now, and always will be wrong. Feeding your slaves ice cream does not give you a "pass". There are no "lessor people" that "warrant" enslavement, or "final solutions". The two texts are remarkably similar in how they treat "outsiders", be they people in debt, or those beyond borders, or any other arbitrary criteria. Imprisonment is NOT slavery, if due process has been followed. It is for community safety against crimes, particularly violent crimes, and an opportunity for rehabilitation. We give up part of our personal sovereignty/autonomy for the benefit of community. That is the social contract. We lose, but also we gain. Because cooperation and harmony is beneficial to all. In practice it does not always work. Slavery, by definition, is not "good government". It is dominance and exploitation. [And most often, misery and death for the enslaved]. It cannot be justified, ergo, no "negotiation".
@@infiniti28160 The premise of your argument is flawed. Parents can impart good and bad information on you. Good information can comprise of items like warnings about a hot fire or stove, or not to touch a snake. Survival stuff, OK? Then there is the cultural stuff. This can also have value. Elders teach you how and when to plant crops, etc. Along with this might be "explanations" about origins, which in primitive cultures, were just fairy tales. Often combined with this was the idea of "moralizing gods". Animism gave way to polytheism, and eventually, monotheism. As gods got more powerful, they got more moralizing. To be clear, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with morals. Social living is enhanced by systems of rules that encourage cooperation, and discourage cheating. In fact these rules are the product of biological and social evolution, and are present in many social animals, not just humans. Religion therefore, not only appropriate notions about origins, but also moral structures. And where the fuck do you get off assuming I have had no education in scripture, and even worse, that I "don't understand it'? And as for "information embedded in scripture"? You are implying, no assuming, such information has epistemic warrant and value. A lot of it is utter garbage. This is why so many religious people are bigots, because they do not pay attention to data that does have epistemic warrant. Rather than be informative by biology, which could tell them, if they had bothered to pay attention in class, that sexual/gender variations [eg LBGTQI] are just a normal and natural, like eye colour, hair colour, blood type, etc. But oh, no, they have to go to a set of texts written by ignorant stone-age goat-herders and "negotiate" with it to "justify" that slavery is either "cool" or horrid. "Oh, oh, you don't understand the text, no one has explained it to you"? The ONLY thing about religious texts being informational, is how to conduct exegesis [in this case biblical] to tease out belief systems. What people believed at the time, which was not univocal anyway. And what people believed has absolutely squat to do with how things actually are or were. There irony is that religious ideation is based on the survival heuristics that served us well in the past. Short version, the Type One error [assume that there IS a predator in the bushes] has survival value, and a type Two error [assume that there is NOT a predator in the bush] leads to death if you are wrong. This is one of the reasons why we naturally suck at probability and statistics. This in turn, leads to giving inanimate /non-living objects and forces [lightning or falling rocks] an INTENTIONAL STANCE. So we worship stuff that seems to benefit us, and fear stuff [lions, avalanches]. And give them all intent [ie cognitive agency whether they have it or not]. Add ancestor worship, and the picture is complete. [Because yes, grandpa or grandma taught you to be cautious about lions, or how to forage for edible plants]. Religion is about the personification of good and evil. And unless a living thing actually has agency: like a lion that wants to eat you, or a human wants to put an axe in your skull, there is no 'agency". Lighting or floods are not "out to get you", they just ARE. What science does, is to look at the living and non-living world, and tries to describe how things really are. If something changes from condition A to condition B, you try to figure out a testable mechanism that accounts for the change. To do this, survival heuristics and its Type One Errors does not help. Because it is kinda nice to find out if that bush rustled from a predator, or the wind, or whatever. Doing that process helps you find out how the world actually works, than rather your intuition or instincts on how you imagine it works. Texts or people are not authoritative. So I don't really care who wrote what and when. It is simply not germane to ethical questions of whether slavery is wonderful or a heinous crime. Hope that helps.
@@avishevin3353 Except it is not slavery in the "normal" context of the word. As far as I know, all nations use incarceration for crimes committed as one option for sentencing. In other words, for those nations that use legal due process, there is a specific cause for the loss of freedom for people found guilty of SPECIFIC crimes. The practice of slavery was an ECONOMIC of people deemed not "worthy" of their freedom, be they locals or foreigners. In slavery a person has NO rights. Whereas any prisoner has legal rights of appeal, defenses against cruel and unusual punishment, etc. The 13th amendment SPECIFICALLY prohibits slavery. Civilian prisoners, and POWs, do get paid for work assignments, although it isn't much. In the case of civilian prisoners, these work assignments mostly consist of maintenance and cleaning of grounds, etc. POWs of some nations during war may well experience harsh conditions which effectively look more like slavery than anything else. Of the 21,467 Australian soldiers captured by the Japanese Army in WW2, only 14,000 survived. I don't know why you are equivocating about this. Yes, slavery and incarceration for cause DO have some common features, but the differences are vast. Unless you are a fan of slavery. Mind Experiment: Come around to my place, and I will teach you there difference between the two. Would you rather be my slave, or my prisoner?
If it were true that there's no intrinsic meaning, then any interpretation becomes valid and nobody (including you) has any grounds on which to dismiss any interpretation, culturally proximous or not. There IS an intrinsic meaning, and it's what the original author(s) meant to convey when writing these texts. Just like this comment's meaning can't be changed because someone else says so (that would be a misunderstanding, not a valid interpretation), there's an intent behind each text that's meant to be discovered. It just seems really off base to say there's no intrinsic meaning and it's all interpretation based when you yourself constantly talk about the most likely meaning of these texts.
What he means, and he's said this over and over again, is that there is no univocal intrinsic meaning to the texts. For example, if one says, "The Bible says drinking alcohol is wrong." That is an assumption that the univocal message of the Bible in regards to drinking alcohol is that it's wrong. The Bible doesn't say that. The person interpreting certain texts from the Bible came to the conclusion that it condemns drinking alcohol. Dan is not saying that there aren't texts in the Bible that condemn drinking alcohol, only that the Bible doesn't inherently mean that drinking alcohol is wrong. Does that make sense to you?
@@dmnemaine When did he use the "univocal" qualifier there, though? In another video he said that no text has an intrinsic meaning (the one where he was in his car with the sunglasses on). That doesn't sound like he just means the bible as a whole not being univocal. It sounds like he means texts in general don't have intrinsic meaning. "Dan is not saying that there aren't texts in the Bible that condemn drinking alcohol, only that the Bible doesn't inherently mean that drinking alcohol is wrong." Well, if there are texts that say something, that's what the intrinsic meaning (and likely authorial intent) of that text is. A text can't say anything objective without having an inherent meaning.
@@meej33 Most of the time you can tell what somebody meant (or likely meant) when you read what they wrote, just like with our comments here. That's what the objective meaning of the text is.
Seeing as how you're Mormon, I'd love to see you do a critique and/or defense of the book of Mormon and your other holy books, and answer the critics of Mormonism. Is that in your plans?
Eh. Why would he need to? It'd just get him in trouble with his church for no benefit or audience, since there's no scholarly field of BoM studies. Yet all Dan says is common knowledge in scholarly circles about the Bible. You think he's being controversial, but the academic field backs him up entirely. Paper after paper after paper.... Whereas your preferred pastor would never say such things, because then he'd be out of a job. Luckily you have Dan to cure you. And boy are you ill.
@@schen7913 Dan is a scholar of religion; but you feel no scholars study the book of Mormon or the religion? Not even Mormons like Dan? Why not? And it's a pretty big religion. Seems like there would be an audience.
@@schen7913 It would be interesting to hear Dan talk about his church's doctrines and history regarding slavery and race - if he could find the time to study it.
Perhaps we should say “the original meaning of the text no longer exists” rather than saying “it does not exist”? The original author certainly meant something, but the fact remains that we cannot know for sure what that was. We have more or less educated guesses. I suspect this is what you mean, but dissenters have a point when someone claims ‘the meaning does not exist” because that implies it never did.
@@lysanamcmillan7972. It’s about what a text meant to the author (or authors). Every author meant something when they wrote it, so of course there was an original meaning, but unless you have direct access to that author to explain what they meant, then you can’t help but negotiate your own meaning. The original meaning no longer exists because it is now lost to antiquity. I’m not disputing the fact of too many authors underlying single author attribution of biblical books. That is beside the point with respect to whether an original meaning existed. It is impossible for us to know what that original meaning was, so in that sense alone “it no longer exists” rather than “it never existed”.
I don't believe we are the authority. We want to think that or want it that way but we know there is a higher authority otherwise we can justify the way we treat others.
The two things I hear most often cited as justification of stances, policies, or actions which harm, oppress, or silence others would be 1) the Christian Bible, and 2) the Qur'an. These are not "higher authorities" but crappy old books full of filth and horror, used to _justify_ some of the most horrific atrocities in human history: Hitler exterminated Jews under the guise of Christian nationalism; the Christian Crusades slaughtered millions as decreed by biblical texts; the Islamic holy wars have, and continue to, instantiate the wholesale slaughter of those with differing beliefs to those with the bombs, guns, and blades; persecution of the LGBTQIA+ communities across the globe from both Bible-thumpers and Qur'an-kissers; etc. If there's anyone who is attempting to "justify the way we treat others," that list must perforce include the Abrahamic sects. Authority is the derived power of a person or people ceding their will to another; you are the authority of what you give authority to.
You're focusing in on a micro-particle of the entire text and claiming you've refuted a commentary on the whole. This is like saying someone can't have gray hair unless all of their hair is gray. One dark strand does not refute their entire head.
The Bible will explain itself if you let it. Why bring up slavery at all? Because we are all slaves either to the flesh or spirit. If you're using the bible as a rule book, you are wrong and missing the message.
@@cedward5718 Slavery was brought up because it was a great historical example of how the interpretation (meaning) of the Bible changes over time, and that changing interpretation is very well documented. Therefore it’s good evidence of exactly how people bring meaning to the Bible rather than taking meaning from it, which is the topic of the video. Generally people on the internet use “woosh” as a way to indicate someone missed a joke, but I’m not seeing a joke in your original comment? Even trying to read your comment as sarcasm I’m not seeing a joke? So either you wrote a joke that at least two people were unable to interpret from your comment, or you used “woosh” in a very different way then is the norm in these spaces. Either way, this comment thread is exactly an example of how language doesn’t have inherent meaning, which is exactly what this video is about, and is exactly why the video talks about slavery as an example of the Bible not having inherent meaning.
@chadkent327 I used "whoosh" at a particular comment because what I said went right over the commenter's head. But you are correct that interpretations change; however, the Bible doesn't change. From my original comment, I stated that the Bible as a rule book was improper. Too many people mistakenly see God only as a cosmic policeman. The truth is that we are totally dependent on God in the philosophical sense. Hence, we are his slaves. Free will allows us to reject God- ironically, that makes us a slave to the flesh and we die.
@@cedward5718 You said "whoosh" because you did not have a convincing retort. Which is not surprising when the argument is "stuff I made up" (ie people who do not reject god still die, there is no indication that we are dependent on god in any sense, etc). Like I say, make stuff up, everybody can.
Short(er) version: More post-modern sleight of hand from Dan. If one desires to live in the realm of Biblical content analysis, I’d expect that “authorial meaning” would be central. But with Dan, not only is it not central-he rarely mentions it. And when he does, it is in such an arm’s-length, attenuated manner that it remains in the background; hopefully diminished and eventually forgotten. (And if it is ever contemplated, it must only be analyzed as being motivated by the lust for power with which to abuse outgroups.) This frees Dan, and those of similar bent, from the shackles of discerning authorial meaning to instead invest their efforts in concocting elaborate conspiracy theories regarding “negotiations” with the text by readers-both contemporaneous and modern-with evil intentions to gain and protect power with which to abuse outgroups. This is his “Theory of Everything” and it is used as his lens through which he negotiates with the text-it doesn’t even pretend or try to be an as-neutral-as-possible hermeneutic. Yet he wishes to be free from his own invention. He is able to embed meaning in his words (one might say “inherently”), where Biblical authors are not. His inherent authorial meaning ought to be sought by his listeners, while the inherent authorial meaning of Biblical authors, not that it exists at all, ought to be ignored by its readers in order to negotiate with the text to create new, serviceable, independent meaning. He is able to negotiate with the text free from the intention of gaining power with which to abuse outgroups while others are not. This is all quite convenient for Dan. One could be forgiven for seeing this situation as one created by Dan (and similar post-modernists) to accumulate and wield power against theologically conservative Christians who are his “outgroup”.
Dan recently did a talk; "Our concept of hell isn't in the Bible". He says there is no eternal torment in a hell, depicted anywhere in the Bible, and the Bible only depicts the wicked as being destroyed & just ceasing to exist. I agree, he is 100% right. The really interesting thing is, how did he come to his conclusion? Did he negotiate with a text that has no inherent meaning and impose his own political identity values upon the text, as he claims others do? No he didn't. He treated the text as being univocal with inherent meaning and put together all the scattered passages, relevant to this subject, and came to a logical conclusion as to what "the Bible says". Something he is always saying is not valid to do.
I disagree. You would be correct if some parts of the bible supported our concept of hell and others did not, but if our concept of hell is not found ANYWHERE in the bible, then univocality is moot. One vocality or many vocalities, the concept is not there.
that's not what's happened - I saw that video myself. it's as if he grabbed our concept of hell and performed a scan across the Bible as we would know it today to see if there is a match with what the original authors and recipients of the text had in mind, and was found wanting. There's not negotiating with the text in the manner you're referring to, or having to use the univocality principle. It just isn't there
@@meej33 To say, our concept of hell is not found "anywhere" in the Bible, is not to say there are no verses that appear to support the popular concept of hell. There are verses that do appear to support the popular concept of hell. It's only by putting together all verses, relevant to the subject of hell & the punishment of the wicked, and logically working through what each is saying that the correct picture emerges. To do this, you are treating the text, for all practical purposes, as if it were univocal, even if you don't believe in the univocal concept. Also, to do this you are also treating the text, as having inherent meaning, because you are accepting what the text says at face value. If you don't think this is what Dan did, what then did he do? Just as an aside. The exact same situation applies to the popular concept of the immortality of the soul. The Bible "nowhere" says the soul is immortal but there are verses that appear to support this belief. By showing "the Bible says" the wicked are destroyed & cease to exist, Dan has correctly proved the Bible does not say the soul is immortal. When you approach the Bible and study it the way Isaiah says you must do, in order to underdstand it, your chances of getting it right vastly improve, even for scholars of the Bible, such as Dan.
@@nadio_28 Funny thing is, when you scan across the Bible as we know it today, and apply the univocality principal you get exactly the same result. Could it be, that the Bible as we know it today, is exactly what the original authors and recipients of the text had in mind? I and others, long before Dan was born, across the past 2,000 years in fact, have always known & pointed out, that the Bible does not, & never has, support the widespread popular concept of hell. Dan is very late to the party.
I understand your concern, but I would respectfully disagree. The Bible itself claims to be the inspired word of God, and as such, it is the ultimate authority for Christians. As 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) states, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." In fact, Jesus Himself appealed to Scripture as the ultimate authority in His debates with the Pharisees and Sadducees. For example, in Matthew 22:29-32 (ESV), Jesus responds to the Sadducees' question about the resurrection by saying, "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God... He is not God of the dead, but of the living." Here, Jesus is emphasizing that Scripture is the ultimate authority, and that it is our understanding of Scripture that must be corrected, not the other way around. Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God's word is eternal and unchanging, as stated in Isaiah 40:8 (ESV), "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." This means that God's word is not subject to human interpretation or revision, but rather it is the standard by which all human thought and action must be measured. So, while it is true that human beings have interpreted and applied Scripture throughout history, the Bible itself remains the ultimate authority, and our understanding of it must be subject to its teachings. As the apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 1:11-12 (ESV), "For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ."
I just wrote a one page word document that claims my one page word document is the inspired word of God. As such my one page word document is the ultimate authority for Christians. My one page word document says that this entire scripture of one page is breathed out by God. In my last paragraph, I appeal to my document as the ultimate authority. No one can question my interpretation of my document, or my motives for writing it, or the doctrines that are based on it because it clearly states it is the inspired word of God. When someone finds a print out of it in 100 years, they clearly shouldn’t try to parse out the semantics of the archaic English I used in the 2020’s to write that document, nor should they try to understand how I meant people to understand it because I clearly told people it was the inspired word of God. Since I said my document was the inspired word of God, nothing in it can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, ever. Even the part where I said the earth is flat and the sky is pink. My document is the inspired word of God because it says it’s the inspired word of God. How dare you question my document, it says it was breathed out by God and is above reproach! Who are you to question my document?
@@chadkent327 I understand your point, but I must respectfully disagree. While your document may claim to be the inspired word of God, it lacks the authority and authenticity of the Bible, which has been recognized and revered by the Christian community for centuries. The Bible is not just a book written by humans, but it is a collection of writings inspired by God Himself (2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21). The authors of the Bible were not just ordinary men, but they were chosen by God to write His message to humanity. The Bible has been tested and proven to be reliable, trustworthy, and consistent in its teachings. In contrast, your document, no matter how sincere your intentions may be, lacks the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible. It is a human document, written by a single individual, and subject to human error and bias. Furthermore, the Bible is not just a book of words, but it is a living, breathing document that has been authenticated by the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth (John 16:13). The Bible has been recognized and revered by the Christian community for centuries, and its teachings have been tested and proven to be reliable and trustworthy. While I appreciate your enthusiasm and sincerity, I must respectfully disagree with your claim that your document is the inspired word of God. The Bible is the ultimate authority for Christians, and it is the only book that has been recognized and revered by the Christian community for centuries. References: * 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." * 2 Peter 1:20-21: "Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." * John 16:13: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" by Various: * "God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself." * "Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises." Go bac k to your Quran my friend. LOL/
But that doesn't matter to Dan's argument. Even if we concede that the Bible is the inspired word of God, we as humans have to decide what it means. That's where Dan's "negotiation with the text" comes in. And we can see that throughout the history of Christianity. People finding different meanings in the text. Interpreting it to match their purposes or just their preconceptions.
@@Bible-Christian Wow, just wow man. First: The Bible was written by men, and just citing versus where those men said their writings were inspired by God is as silly as me quoting my one page document to say my one page document is inspired by God. How did you not understand that? Or if you understood it why did you keep doing it? It doesn’t matter how many times the authors of the Bible claimed their writings were inspired, it doesn’t change a thing. 2nd: It doesn’t matter what the Chicago Statement on inerrancy says until they provide some actual evidence to back up their claims. 3rd: The insinuation that because I don’t hold the Bible to be inspired that I must believe in the Quran is wildy off base. Wow.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 While it is true that humans have different interpretations of the Bible, it is important to remember that the Bible is not just a mere human book. It is the living and active Word of God (Hebrews 4:12) and it is the Holy Spirit who guides and teaches us in understanding it (John 14:26). As Christians, we must seek to align our interpretations with the truth of the Bible and not our own desires or preconceptions. We must also remember that Jesus came to fulfill the law and bring grace (Matthew 5:17), so we are no longer bound by strict interpretations of the law but are called to live by the Spirit (Galatians 5:18).
@@JohnD808 Are you serious? The intended meaning of the text is its inherent meaning. Typos can ruin that intention and change the text sometimes but how does that disprove my original point?
Nah. Because we can't reconstruct that _exactly,_ so there's no point in trying to nail it down. A new manuscript or cultural practice could always be found, or hypothesized.
@@GamingDrummer89I never said there isn’t intention, so I’m not sure what your point is. We’re not talking about things that exist in someone’s mind, we’re talking about texts.
If Jesus wad resurrected and his brain also he is in time and space and thinking new thoughts about emergent reality that unfolds.If not he is not a real human and the theology about him fails.Bad Jesus by Hector Avalos shows how human he really was.If alive now would he still believe in man made doctrines like hell,,,?
This view is nonsensical. Written material clearly has meaning, the meaning intended by its author. This would be like me saying your video on this subject has no inherent meaning, until I interpret what you're saying. Clearly, any form of communication includes with it an intended meaning, or nothing has meaning.
This is just nonsensical. At most, an intellectualy honest person could say that our interpretation is heavily influenced by out culture, eve that is conaidered sinful. But stretching it to say that the Bible has no meaning at all it's absurd. And you can't know what someone is thinking even if they use the same words, like mormons and Christians, we use the same words in different meaning.
If we decide that how everyone in their own way interprets the Bible is truth then there is no truth in the Bible. God inspired His truth through the written word and He reveals it to whom He will. If left up to man to decide the real truth of the Bible then it makes a mockery of it and that’s what this video does.
@@Mikeypem I never said that and nobody can. When we labor in the scriptures God reveals more of His truth to whom He will. The multitudes have been blinded to the truth because they think something they do is the way to heaven (Matthew 13:10-17) but the little flock (Luke 12:32) is who God reveals more and more throughout the scriptures. Nobody can ever understand the whole Bible without fail because we aren’t supposed to.
@@Mikeypem What is revealed by God can perfectly be interpreted. Just not the whole thing because we are sinners and we don’t deserve God’s truth that gives us hope, but through His grace and mercy reveals it to us. Just because we won’t be able to perfectly interpret the Bible in its entirety doesn’t mean it doesn’t have meaning. God’s still has His truth and it is very rich and blessed.
I see Dr. McClellan's work as strenuous, tedious effort to strip away the imposed "meaning" and "intention" which so many people try to apply to the texts, so that the sources themselves can be better seen for what they actually are, and with our best ideas about what the authors were really trying to say. He dispels false notions about the texts' intentions, which tends to offend those who want to assert those notions, and he does this with scholastic integrity and by means of exceptionally high levels of knowledge and understanding about the source texts, their authorial cultures and contexts, the languages of the sources themselves, and a comprehensive knowledge of the current understanding about the cognition of religion. This isn't "mockery," but honoring the texts with sincere, devout effort to let them be what they are, how they were intended, with as little distortion as possible. If anyone is making "a mockery of" the texts, it is the fundamentalists and evangelicals abusing their deeply ignorant grasp of the texts to assert their own modern values and perspectives onto the sources.
Once again, Dan’s click-bait titles are simply trolling theologically-conservative Christians. His point is correct-receivers of communication must interpret what they receive using a variety of methods. Strictly speaking, a text (and even aural language) does not “say” anything-the receiver must come to understand meaning. Dan is trolling, though, by only speaking of the Bible here instead of ALL communication. If he were to be upfront about this, (1) his real point about intepreting communication would be more readily understood by more people, and (2) people wouldn’t get upset because they think he is saying this a problem specific to the Bible. Can’t have any of that! He also dances around the idea of the original author of the text having an intending meaning he wished to convey-and that the receiver’s goal is to use various interpretive tools (hermeneutics) to come as close as possible to understanding the author’s intended meaning. (And no, this is not perfectly possible even with the writer and reader being of the same culture, same language, same time period.) Dan focuses on our modern “negotiations” with the text to come up with an interpretation that achieves what we want to ahcieve with it. And Dan seems to think the only thing we ever want to achieve with our negotiations with text is the accumulation and maintenance of power-well, except for critics. They seem to be exempt from this motivation with their negotiations. Besides our modern re-negaotiations with the text, he will also talk about the contemporaneous readers’ negotiations of the text. But he rarely, if ever, directly brings up the intended meaning of the author. Consider his words starting at 1:26: the work of the critical scholar is to understand “the circumstances surrounding the composition and the disemmination and the reception of these texts so that we can try to reconstruct the interpretative lenses the rhetorical goals the social circumstances that produced and initially interpreted these texts to try to create meaning that has a better chance of being close to what the authors and earliest audiences understood the texts to mean.” He speaks of the rhetorical goals of the author and not the intended meaning that the author embedded in his words. He speaks of what the author understood the text to mean as if the author was merely a passive receiver of the text instead of the active agent of the text. Further, if text has no “inherent” meaning but only meaning understood by its audience and we need to understand their intepretative lenses and the power-plays they intended to yield that interpretation to weaponize, how do we ever come to understand the latter? That happened in the past and so I suppoose we must read things about the past audience to understand what ill intents motivated their negotiations. But whatever we read to understand their power plays will have no inherent meaning and so we must again ask how the readers of the text we are relying on to understand the power plays of the original audience intended to negotiate with THAT text to accumulate power and to undertsand THAT we need to read texts about THOSE people and……….. This is part-and-parcel of post-modern literary criticism and is subject to all of those logical leaps and failures. It is mis-directing click-bait trolling to say that text (Biblical or any other) has “no inherent meaning”. If a competent author intends to communicate something in writing, it is correct to say that that meaning is “inherent” in the text. It is likely that an attentive reader can correctly identify at least some aspect or portion of the author’s intended meaning. Now, it is quite another thing to say that an author’s meaning in all of it’s subjectivity and nuance can always be perfectly understood by ANY reader. I’d say it probably can not be. That does not mean there is no meaning whatsoever inherent in the text. To say otherwise is just to purposefully stir-up controversy (or views). Did Dan have a meaning he wished to convey to others when he recorded this video? Could one say that meaning was inherent in the video? I would say yes. Otherwise, if his meaning was not inherent in his words in the video, why would he post this video for others to view for them to understand him? If there was no meaning inherent in his words in the video he could just as rationally post a video of a carrot and hoping that his viewers would miraculously or randomly understand his meaning There is something in the videos he posts that allows people to understand what meaning Dan wants to communicate! This is true even if no one’s understanding of Dan’s words in the video perfectly matches his intended nuanced meaning. It’s a bit arrogant to act in a way (producing a video to communicate meaning) that indicates you believe that you can embed meaning in words, but others cannot and did not. But, if he were to regularly directly admit that (1) the author had an intended meaning, (2) that meaning is embedded in the text, (3) we have good methods for getting really close to grasping that embedded meaning, and (4) that people (even conservatives) often have motives for pulling meaning out of texts other than accumulating power in order to abuse others, then he wouldn’t (1) ruffle as many feathers, (2) garner as many clicks, and (3) gain as much power to wield against the theogically conservative. [And no, I am not a fundamentalist, simpleton Christian, or pre-suppositionalist. I never say “the Bible says so”. I do not start with the Bible. The Bible must hold up to my analysis before I accept it as authoritative. I am a foundationalist who starts my epistemological inquiry with only self-awareness and the basic laws of logic-not the Bible.]
I've never heard of such an eloquent deceptive way to say words have no definitios, , and it's not until humans give words definitions, that we can understand them. This is the same as saying money has no inherent value and its only when society came together and decided that this item is valuable, that it became valuable. This guy is laughable at trying to use big words to sound authoritative which makes others think what he says must be right.
Eh. He's really saying group consensus creates meaning and value, and that consensus has always changed over time, and the new consensus tries to pretend it was "always" right. Which is pretty much just true.
@@schen7913 Consensus doesn't change what the original author meant, though. If someone said that my comment here meant "the sky is blue", that wouldn't change what I meant by it; it would just be a new twist someone put on it that's completely foreign to what it actually means.
@tsherbs1309 Well let's break it down. A guy posts a video, I responded to the video of the guy that posted it. I wonder which guy I could possibly be referring to
This is stupid. There are many times I've said "the Bible says so" and, quite literally, the Bible says so. What Dan means is that he likes to pretend that everything in the Bible must be interpreted by academic pontiffs such as himself. It would do him some good to nab some humility. "Knowledge puffs up."
No, not "everything," and not *only* scholars. And we should remember, that we are all reading translations and transcriptions. Well, unless we are scholars with knowledge of all the original documents and languages. Otherwise, we are all engaged in negotiations of negotiations.
The Bible does “say” things, but only the words that are actually there. When most people say “the Bible says” they are actually providing an interpretation and even then, the translation is also an act of interpretation, so unless they are quoting the Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic, it’s an interpretation of an interpretation. There is the meaning that the author wanted to convey and there is also the meaning that readers/listeners understand, but the words themselves have no inherent meaning
@BobbyHill26 read again what you wrote and determine if what you said makes any sense. By your standard, anything ever written can't really be understood because words "have no inherent meaning".
@@kylestephens4133 My linguistics professor often stated that you start studying languange focusing on errors in interpretation. Soon you start asking yourself how it is possible that we understand anything at all. What I mean is, that is a whole discipline there. It is way way more complicated than you claim.
Well, thorough scholarship generally looks like pedantry to those who are not specialized in any particular area. Pedantry usually implies a certain amount of pretension, which I do not see in Dan‘s presentations.
Well, oddly enough something that looks like a troll bot posting nonsensical opinions while amusing in a failed amateur Edgelord effort sort of way is hardly worth spending any amount of time on. After all, as Hitchen's Razor states, "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence".
All these videos from this guy makes me think that he has a strong disdain for the Bible despite the fact that he studies it so fervently. Then again, he is Mormon, so the fairy tales he believes in are definitely worse than the ones in the Bible
Why would he do the work if he hates the text? I realize you hate sounding like a reasonable person, but your habit of commenting on videos so you can spew anti-Mormon rhetoric doesn't even pay.
