Biblical Hermeneutics

PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL HERMENETICS ; M. M. NINAN
o Israel spent 70 years in captivity in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:10).
the son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the
smoke of the cloud of incense went up.
666 - The number of the beast.
o
The number or mark of the beast is the sign of the Antichrist (Revelation
13:15-18).
The Symbolic Principle (Symbology)
"All instruction is either about things or about signs; but things are learned by means of
signs,“(On Christian Doctrine, I:2).
A sign, is “something that shows itself to the senses and something other than itself to the
mind”
(Signum est quod se ipsum sensui et praeter se aliquid animo ostendit) (Augustine De dial.
1975, 86) Augustine of Hippas (354-430 A.D.),
Without Signs nothing is conceivable (Sless, 1986)
...'reality' is always encoded, or rather the only way we can perceive and make sense of
reality is by the codes of our culture. There may be an objective, empiricist reality out there,
but there is no universal, objective way of perceiving and making sense of it. What passes
for reality in any culture is the product of the culture's codes, so 'reality' is always already
encoded, it is never 'raw'. Fiske (1987 )
Incarnation was nothing but the encoding of the divine into human realm so that we may be
able to understand what is otherwise not directly knowable. God is in our realm and beyond
and above all our dimensions. We can make some sense out of it only when God can be
understood by us in our world. This is what incarnation did. “The Word became flesh and
tabernacled among us”
Symbol, n. from French. symbole; Latin. symbolum; Greek. symbolon,a token, pledge, a sign
by which one infers a thing, from symballein, to throw together, compare; syn., together,
and ballein, to throw.
"Symbols are only the vehiclesof communication;they must not be mistaken for the final
term, the tenor, of their reference.” (Joseph Campbell)
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