Interpretation and "Filters"

One recent read, That's a Great Question by Glenn Pearson, has much to reveal about a recent post in Stand to Reason blog.  In the article concerning five erroneous ideas about the celebration of Easter, one blogger rejects the nativity narrations of Matthew and Luke due to the lack of inclusion of such stories in Mark, credited as the first drafted gospel. 

Pearson notes in his book that readings of the Bible is unduly charged with presumptions that color the interpretation of Scriptures.  He calls these foundational approaches to literature filters, and cites five key ones:

• The Filter of New Revelation
• The Filter of Outlandish Speculation
• The Filter of Atheism
• The Filter of Anti-Supernaturalism
• The Filter of Selective Christian Theology

He notes that the first two filters tend to add content to Scriptures, while the rest delete ideas.  Pearson's approach of reading the text as is, accepting the presentation of Jesus as is, and then accepting or rejecting the material as truthful is fast being forgotten, as if there were a freedom to mold material into an acceptable context first.

This approach to interpretation is pattently dishonest.  The Bible attests the content of its own material as difficult to follow, difficult to accept.  This content is not to be deemed therefore being illogical.  The concepts of God need to be shaped by logic (the doctrine of the Trinity comes to mind).  Thus those people who must follow all things logical may have a difficulty with a full understanding of Biblical concepts.

But to deduce that a portion of the Scriptures must be removed due to a perceived lack of logic is a huge assumption to accept.  Scriptures say that the ways of God transcend the thinking patterns of men.  It also has been a historical fact that alterations to the concept of the Godhood come frequently, all in a quest that is on-going, never accepting for a fact that many truth have been expressed about God from material insisting on its divinely guided origins.

Man is foundational idolatrous, seeking a deity that resembles himself.  Noting this, acceptance of ideas that pursue this quest for understanding God results in understanding a god made in our own image.