You ask why I suppose the verse I choose to look at more deeply were MEANT to be interpreted more deeply. I do not consider selected inconvenient or problem texts for special consideration. All of the Holy Scriptures have inner spiritual meaning.
Next question: How do I know that the texts actually have an inner meaning? For precisely the reason you reject them: many parts are blatantly contradictory, technically inaccurate, redundant, silly and/or otherwise unintelligible. That is what happens when Divine Truth is adapted to accommodate Man’s limited ability to receive something so perfect. Anyone can see that God did not really talk to a snake. The ratio between the diameter and the circumference of Molten Sea could not be 1 to 3. This prompts me to wonder what the snake represents and for what the numbers, like 1 and 3, stand.
Fine you say, but how do you know that you are not tailoring your symbols and allegories to fit the text? That’s possible. But suppose I did actually have a super doper decoder that could be used consistently across the entire canon and support a single doctrine. The reliability of the decoder would justify both its validity and the validity of the code on which it worked. As a matter of fact, I do have a super doper decoder, starting with the 22 volumes of Swedenborg’s “Arcana Coelestia”. These texts present an internally consistent interpretive framework for understanding the inner meaning of the Holy Scriptures.
Admittedly, my New Church theology puts me at odds with the other Christians here, who are not Swedenborgians. We agree on the essentials, so I still consider them believers as per C. S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity”.
Next question: How do I know that the texts actually have an inner meaning? For precisely the reason you reject them: many parts are blatantly contradictory, technically inaccurate, redundant, silly and/or otherwise unintelligible. That is what happens when Divine Truth is adapted to accommodate Man’s limited ability to receive something so perfect. Anyone can see that God did not really talk to a snake. The ratio between the diameter and the circumference of Molten Sea could not be 1 to 3. This prompts me to wonder what the snake represents and for what the numbers, like 1 and 3, stand.
Fine you say, but how do you know that you are not tailoring your symbols and allegories to fit the text? That’s possible. But suppose I did actually have a super doper decoder that could be used consistently across the entire canon and support a single doctrine. The reliability of the decoder would justify both its validity and the validity of the code on which it worked. As a matter of fact, I do have a super doper decoder, starting with the 22 volumes of Swedenborg’s “Arcana Coelestia”. These texts present an internally consistent interpretive framework for understanding the inner meaning of the Holy Scriptures.
Admittedly, my New Church theology puts me at odds with the other Christians here, who are not Swedenborgians. We agree on the essentials, so I still consider them believers as per C. S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity”.