Welcome to Day 1549 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study – The Details and Context of Bible Interpretation – Meditation MondayWelcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! Wisdom is the final frontier in gaining true knowledge. Our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, seek out discernment and insights, and boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; this is Gramps; thanks for coming along on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy Today is Day 1549 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.
We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our current insights are focusing on accurately interpreting the Bible. Today let us meditate on:
Bible Study – The Details and Context of Bible Interpretation· Insight Forty-Nine: “Level of Detail” Is Not a Key to Bible Interpretation
I’ll have to explain this one. It’s a pet peeve of mine.
The ‘level of detail approach to interpretation is something that careless Bible teachers and even scholars use to justify certain “literal” interpretations of prophecy, whatever “literal” means. The more detailed an Old Testament prophecy (so we are told), the more it demands a literal fulfillment in the “end times.”
Really? Let’s think about that logic.
More detail in a prophecy = literal interpretation. If so, what does that mean for prophecies that have less detail? Should we presume their fulfillment is nonliteral? The truth is that the amount of words or the length of a prophecy is no indication of how it should be interpreted.
For example, the prophet Ezekiel uses nine chapters (40-48) to envision a future, idealized temple that would replace the recently destroyed Jerusalem temple. The densely detailed description is often used to justify the interpretation that the vision requires a literal fulfillment— that Ezekiel’s vision is the blueprint for a structure that will someday be built in Jerusalem. Other interpreters point out that the level of detail omits items that are crucial to a functioning temple. The prophecy is almost entirely devoid of height dimensions, an odd omission if these were building plans. Essential furnishings found in the earlier temple and the tabernacle, such as the ark of the covenant and the golden lampstand, are missing from Ezekiel’s description. There are no lavers for priests to wash themselves. There is no wall around the inner court and no roof to any part of the envisioned temple, which are both essential to preserve the sanctity of the sacred space. While nine chapters offer a significant amount of detail, these omissions would produce an incomplete, nonfunctional building. Detail alone cannot justify literal interpretation.

Alternatively, prophecies of little more than one line were certainly envisioning a literal event. But that often didn’t matter. They were still difficult. Even after the resurrection, the disciples had trouble processing what had just happened and what it meant (Luke 24:36-49). The risen Jesus had to ‘‘open their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). The Gospels were written in hindsight, and only in hindsight could the disciples discern the importance of prophecies like Zechariah 9:9 (“your...