Hermeneutics quiz
Will at Rambling Red Rose flagged up a hermeneutics quiz featured in Christianity today. I did the quiz over my morning tea today.
My PhD research fell more or less into the category of theology known as hermeneutics - which, for the uninitiated, simply means the art/science of interpreting texts, especially though not exclusively the Bible. Despite (or perhaps because of) being over-qualified in the subject, I didn't get quite a bit of what the quiz was aiming at. And intriguingly several of the multiple choice answers were very ambiguous - perhaps this was a deliberate hermeneutic trick? My score of 98 indicated an almost off-the-chart progressive. Although it must be said that the three categories (conservative, moderate and progressive) might have been better termed conservative, moderate and "other", since the progressive category would have included critical realists, traditional liberals, postmodernists, non-realists...
It's still worth a tea-break, though, just as a bit of fun and a quick thought-provoker on your own assumptions about how you/we read and interpret the Bible.
Looking at lunchtime I'm a 73-scoring progressive, apparently
Posted by: Helen | 03/03/2008 at 13:55
Ugh. On nearly every question, I found myself wanting a 'None of the above' option - not because there were problems of detail in the options closest to my opinion, but because *all* of their options seemed to sit on a line that ran nowhere near my position. Very odd. Thanks for the link, though.
Posted by: Mike Higton | 03/03/2008 at 16:44
89. I too which there were 'none of the above' options. I also found its referring to ancient Israel as 'primative' quite annoying. The whole quiz is too Christian-centric.
Posted by: ash | 03/03/2008 at 22:44
I came in at 77 but agree that a "non of the above" would have helped.
Posted by: Hugh A | 04/03/2008 at 09:38
80, whisper that quietly amongst my evangelly baby friends... the silly thing is that I would still consider myself evangelical and yet, I suspect, my answers would be used by some that I've backslidden into liberalism...
only goes to show how silly labels are I guess!
Posted by: Caroline Too | 04/03/2008 at 14:51
I liked the fact that after scoring a rather progressive 86, it gave me two references that would explore "how we can know whether our Bible is truly the Word of God" and "why God's Word provides what we need, no matter our situation or struggles." I wonder if there was an agenda there..?
Posted by: Becky | 04/03/2008 at 16:50