Ron Miller: A Very Different Christian Story [View all]

[Tobin S.]

This is a long video from a Bible scholar named Ron Miller speaking at the Theosophical Society that I found very interesting. Ron talks a lot about the way to truly understand the Bible- particularly the New Testament and the story of Jesus. He says that to truly understand a text, you also have to understand the time in history in which it was written, and, to have the most understanding, the language it was originally written in. Ron knows the original languages that the New Testament was written in, and his view jibes with the liberal view of Christ.

He also says that later interpretations of the Bible were sometimes corrupted by the political agenda of those commissioning the interpretations. For example, he says that Biblical admonitions against homosexuality weren't originally in the Bible. Those modern day references were originally more likely admonitions against male prostitution. He also explains Jesus's views on divorce from the historical lens stating that in Jesus's time, for women, a divorce was like a death sentence. Such a woman was publicly an outcast.