Bible Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Bible Studies - Essay Example a historical one or a literal one, it is clear that many of the themes of the individual stories are themes or problems that communities still deal with today. The Old Testament story of Ruth is one such Bible story that relates a serious community problem that is prevalent today, and a story that has several important themes that serve as the lesson learned for the community. It serves some purpose here to discuss interpretation. The Bible is replete with metaphors which serve to enlarge the stories and intrigue the reader and to demonstrate the pros and cons of faith, the moral of the story, and the â€Å"I told you so† concepts. â€Å"For example, when the Bible speaks of the arm of God, it is not suggesting that God has limbs in the sense that you or I have them.1 It is, rather, suggesting rather the arms of God are conceptually large, that they can extend from the heights of heaven and, metaphorically, embrace or release a person of faith, or of little faith respectively. The interpretation of the Bible has been debated since the time of the Bible. â€Å"The highly subjective school of Alexandria insisted that the Biblical writers were literalists; the more objective school of Antioch held, and showed, that these expressions are figures of speech.†2 For example, many of the individual Bible stories reflect on Jesus feeding the multitudes with a loaf of bread and a single fish. What this might suggest, from the perspective of the school of Antioch, is that Jesus satisfied the hunger of the multitudes, which were spiritually starved. That he did so with a single loaf of bread and a single fish, is metaphorically referring to the sustenance of faith. The school of Alexandria, however, would have us believe that Jesus indeed served the multitudes with but a loaf of bread and a single fish, and sustained their physical hunger. This serves the notion of the miraculous abilities of Jesus, who was the embodiment of God among mankind. Modern scholars and