Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Thoughts from Ed Sanders

As I have taught hermeneutics now for two online seminaries, I really resonated with this quote from E. P. Sanders as he reflects on teaching the New Testament:
I shall briefly explain two of my efforts to get people actually to learn what is on the pages of the New Testament. Perhaps it should go without saying that this is a difficult task, but I shall nevertheless say something about the problem. The more time students have spent in church the more they think that the text consists of morals that are immediately applicable to themselves and that all the words meant then what they mean now. In fact, the worldviews of the biblical authors are not our worldviews, and it is difficult for people to comprehend things that they cannot fit into their own mental universe. It is in some ways easier for people to learn about an unknown religion than about their own...


You can find the quote at Mark Goodacre's blog here.

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