What worldview are you reading your Bible with? If you haven’t thought about it too hard, then by default you’re likely taking in the text with a modernist western perspective.
Even Bible memorization may not help without an understanding of the Hebraic philosophy that contextualizes the entire story of humanity’s fall into and redemption from sin.
To help Christians understand both the Old and New Testaments better, Dr. Dru Johnson of The King’s College in New York wrote “Biblical Philosophy: A Hebraic Approach to the Old and New Testament.”
To discuss the book, Johnson sat down with Philos Project founder Robert Nicholson, Philos Hispanic Affairs Director Jesse Rojo and African American Affairs Director David Jackson. Philos is an organization committed “to promoting positive Christian engagement in the Near East.”
In discussing why he chose to write this book, Johnson began with the Jewish context of the Bible, which he believes is tragically misunderstood, if it’s known at all.
“The biblical authors had thoughts about the world, they had coherent thoughts, they had thoughts about the way politics works and thoughts about the way oppressive cycles spin and they have thoughts about the nature of truth,” Johnson explained.
If Bible readers aren’t taking into account the thought processes of the broader Jewish world, from which the authors of scripture were informed, then they are not seeing the full picture. Even worse, though, we get a distorted view of scripture that is more informed by our own presuppositions rather than the Bible.
The most common way people misread the Bible, though, is through a lens of Greco-Roman philosophy, as Johnson made clear with many examples. He was sharply critical of the limitations of the philosophical style we might attribute to Plato or Aristotle, which he viewed as overly reliant on syllogisms and clean logic to arrive at conclusions.
“Let me give you premise one premise two, the necessary conclusion and put it in a box put it on the shelf. No more thinking is necessary, it has been solved,” Johnson described of this philosophical style as “spoon feeding” people to arrive at a conclusion.
In contrast, the Hebraic thought of the Bible is more circuitous and non-linear, yet it’s ultimately deeper and richer for critical engagement with reality.
“By entering this series of stories and these ideas and how they worked out, like ‘well okay this happened’ and ‘that was a really horrible thing,’ you have to go what was it actually we need to think ‘Was that a bad thing? Or was it a good thing?’ If you’re trying to develop wisdom and discernment this is the way we do it, we do it in medical school, we do it in scientific training, we do it in mathematics, we do it in law school, we do it in every field,” Johnson portrayed.
Johnson went so far as to castigate Classical and Medieval philosophy for holding back calculus and algebra. Because the notion of zero as a placeholder didn’t exist in the Greco-Roman or Medieval world mathematics was “stunted” and Galileo and Kepler “were crippled” by Aristotelian theories of motion that lasted into the Renaissance.
Rojo highlighted some of the problems facing the Latino community as examples of where a better understanding of Hebraic philosophy could help Christians. Liberation theology largely originated in Latin America and redefines Jesus as a political revolutionary, which can seem more familiar due to its Hispanic origin. But, when Hispanic pastors are able to engage with Hebraic philosophy they can see a more holistic view of scripture and have the theological foundation to better understand their faith.
Jackson highlighted similar problems facing the African-American Christian community. While many Christians have a good scriptural foundation in some areas, on other topics they seem to have a “hodgepodge of beliefs” with some ideas “coming from a completely different worldview that’s contradictory to a biblical worldview.”
“This kind of random cherry-picking… is problematic so that when you approach sensitive topics like diversity and everyday inclusion, you’re not approaching it from a consistent, congealed worldview,” Johnson added. Instead, Black theology or Critical Race Theory can become part of our Biblical interpretation if we aren’t careful.
As Jackson went on to say: “We need Christians to be committed to the Bible more than ever. It is the word of God that’s going to sustain us. It’s the word of god that’s going to protect us and in the midst of so many diverging and subtly deceptive voices the voices are not as obviously deceptive as we may think… a commitment to a Hebraic approach to the word of God that’s going to help us in end times.”
Comment by Wayne on June 11, 2021 at 5:21 pm
I also HIGHLY recommend ” Unlocking the Bible” by David Pawson. He explains why each book of the Bible was written.
Comment by George Brown on June 11, 2021 at 7:39 pm
Few Christians seem to realize Jesus is a Jew. He lived as an observant Jew and never ceased being Jewish. The New Testament tells us there’s a “man” seated at the right hand of God the Father (1Tim 2:5). That man is not only a Jew of the tribe of Judah but He’s returning as the “lion” of the tribe of Judah (Rev 5:5). What could be MORE Jewish!? He fulfilled but never abrogated the Mosaic law by His own testimony (Mat 5:17). We can miss or deny that, but we won’t understand Him very well. The early church struggled over what to do with believing Gentiles. Make them Jews? They determined, no! Today many Christians seem to struggle with whether Jewish believers, just the reverse! Among Jews and Gentiles there believers and non-believers and neither ceases being what God made them by birth. For 2,000 The Church has persecuted, robbed and slaughtered Jews in persecutions, pograms, inquisitions…even the holocaust (many Nazis were Lutheran or Catholic). Apart from the Jews we would have no patriarchs, no prophets, no apostles, no bible and no Messiah. We’ve shown our appreciation very oddly. Jesus is best understood as Jew. Otherwise He’s often MISunderstood.