Re[2]: Cute Fable - good point!

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>>>>> "Kyle" == R Kyle Jones <rkjones@husc.harvard.edu> writes:

    Kyle> Context, schmontext!  What makes you feel that that verse is
    Kyle> out of context?  It is the way that you have been brought up
    Kyle> to understand the Bible.  (You were educated about how to
    Kyle> read the Bible.)  And, if someone had never bothered to
    Kyle> learn how to translate the scriptures from Greek/Hebrew into
    Kyle> English, you wouldn't even have that verse, anyway.

    Kyle> We as Pentecostals like to pretend like we know what the
    Kyle> "context" of scriptures really are.  However, to me, the
    Kyle> "context" of a scripture, whatever that may or may not be,
    Kyle> is somehow tied up in the historical and cultural traditions
    Kyle> in which it was written.  So, if you wanna make sure your
    Kyle> pastor is using verses "in context," then we need to make
    Kyle> sure that they all get an *education*; that they all go to
    Kyle> Bible school to learn the context of the scriptures.

Ten years or so ago, when I was in grad school studying AI and math, I
studied Prolog, and the algorithm underlying its inference engine, on
which I later published an article [DDJ April 1986].  That algorithm
is the Resolution Principle of J. A. Robinson [1965].  It subsumes all
the sylogisms of Aristotle, and also the one Aristotle missed, which
was later discovered by George Boole.  The completeness theorem for
resolution is based upon the concept of a Hebrand Universe.  A Hebrand
universe is a space of possibilities.  Ehud Shapiro wrote in his "The
Art of Prolog" book that the "meaning" of a program is all the valid
ground clauses derivable from that program -- all of the correct
possible results of executing that program.  This really turned on a
light in my mind, because I recognized that Shapiro was echoing:

    2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the 
             scripture is of any private interpretation.

A scripture can, and frequently does, have multiple valid
interpretations.

-- 
--"Hear now my reasoning, and harken to the pleadings of my lips." [Jb 13:6]--
Robert J. Brown  (Bob/Rj)   rj@eli.wariat.org  1 708 705-0370 (vmail/fax/data)
Elijah Laboratories Inc;  759 Independence Drive;  Suite 5;  Palatine IL 60074
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