How to Read the Bible *with your eyes closed
Mastering the Fine Art of Loophole Hermeneutics
We all have verses in the Bible that we find, well, uncomfortable. Deep down, we wish that God had not written them. Or maybe, that he had written them a little differently.
This is a common struggle. However, few people are aware of the solution. It is called loophole hermeneutics.1
In 10 easy steps, you will be able to read any verse in the Bible without the least bit of discomfort. No longer will you experience unpleasant things, such as a pricked conscience, or questioning your life decisions. Instead, you can enjoy saying things like ‘I believe the Bible!’ guilt free.
1. Pick Verses that You Find Uncomfortable
This is an important step. You must not, under any circumstances, apply loophole hermeneutics to verses in the Bible that you already find comfortable.
For example, if you apply it to John 3:16, you might end up with disastrous results, such as believing that God does not love the world, or that Jesus does not give us eternal life.
2. Pick Verses that Your Friends Find Uncomfortable
In some cases, you might be perfectly comfortable with a verse, but someone you know is not. Or maybe, everyone you know is comfortable with that verse, but someone your friend knows is uncomfortable with it.
It is important to remember that loophole hermeneutics works very well in these situations too. It enables you to say things like ‘This is just something I believe, but you don’t have to.’ Or ‘No one has to believe this in order to be a good Christian.’ Thus, everyone can feel fully respected and honoured as a Christian, even when they are brazenly rejecting the plain meaning of Scripture.
Using our first two rules, let’s now choose some uncomfortable verses:
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.
1 Timothy 2:11-12 (ESV)
While there are plenty of other Bible passages we could have chosen,2 these verses enable us to showcase every one of our loophole hermeneutic tools.
3. Appeal to the Present Culture
Our first port of call is to say something like: ‘In the modern world, we don’t do that.’ This tool works really well on almost any issue because your sense of what is comfortable is determined by what everyone else is already doing.
For example, most women in Western cultures today are not submissive. Specifically, for the past 2.7% of church history3 it has become more common for women to have leadership roles in the workplace.
This means that the word ‘submissive’ in verse 11 is not very important and should not become a distraction.
4. Appeal to Ancient Culture
Sometimes however, today’s culture is not helpful (for example, in the majority of the world today, women are submissive). In this case, we can use our next tool: ‘It was just an ancient cultural standard.’
This tool works well because we can always find some culture in the past that we disagree with on a given issue. For example, in Jewish society at the time of Jesus, only men could become religious teachers. Therefore, verse 12’s prohibition of a woman teaching only reflects the Jewish cultural standards at the time.
However, we need to be careful. This letter was written to Timothy while he was in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus,4 which used to have women in positions of religious authority and power.5 We must make sure we ignore the Greek cultural standard on this issue, in case someone says verse 12 was meant to somehow reform wayward cultures.
Remember, this tool only works when you apply it to an ancient cultural standard that you disagree with.
5. Ignore the Context
Sometimes we cannot simply gloss over a passage due to cultural considerations. In these situations, we have no choice but to engage with the text.
The first tool for engaging the text is to ignore the surrounding context. For example, Paul wrote 1 Timothy to provide clear instructions on how to run the church in Ephesus.6 Paul’s command that a woman should be ‘quiet’ and not ‘teach’ or ‘exert authority’ is written in chapter 2, which describes a church gathering.7
Equally, all 3 verses afterwards say that, from the very first page of the Bible, man was meant to be woman’s teacher. And everything went wrong when these roles were reversed.
If we let this context get in the way, we might have to change how our churches run. However, if we ignore this context, then we can say that the ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in verses 11-12 only refer to a particular man and a particular woman who happened to live in Ephesus at the time.8
6. Appeal to Irrelevant Context
Another approach is to actually use context, but only unclear or generic parts of it. For example verse 15 says that a woman ‘will be saved through childbearing.’ Since these words seem unclear, they let us off the hook from every other clear word in the passage.
On the other hand, if the surrounding context is entirely clear, we can appeal to overly broad and generic statements in distant parts of Scripture.
For example, the second part of Matthew 19:19 says that ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Since this command is generic, we can apply it any way we like. For example, we can say that it is unloving if you do not allow your neighbour to teach you or exert authority over you. Therefore, since women are our neighbours, we can only love them by letting them teach and exert authority over us (including men).
7. Appeal to Silence
If contextual tools do not help, we can appeal to the inverse of context. Instead of paying attention to what is in a passage, we can pay attention to what is not in the passage. This is called appealing to silence.
Most passages of Scripture will not explicitly tell you what to do in every possible situation. For example, 1 Timothy 2:11-12 does not explicitly say that women are not allowed ‘teach’ or ‘exert authority’ on Sundays. In fact, the word ‘Sunday’ does not even appear in the text! This means women can teach and exert authority on Sundays.
Note: Some people refer to this as the ‘You didn’t say “Simon Says”’ tool.
8. Claim that the English Translation is Wrong
At this point, our loophole hermeneutic tools will become more technical.
You might now be wondering: ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to just admit the plain meaning of the passage?’ That is a perfectly natural response. As a small encouragement, remember that, unless you master these tools, you will need to obey any and every passage of Scripture, no matter how uncomfortable it might be.
So now we will learn the tool of disagreeing with established English translations of the Bible. If you have not spent enough time to learn the original languages of the Bible, don’t worry. A quick Google search can easily find a blog written by someone who claims to know these languages and happens to agree with you.
These blogs normally focus on a single word in the passage, and try to prove that its least likely definition is actually the right one. For example, ‘exercise authority’ is a translation of the Greek word authenteō.9 Outside of the Bible, this word was used (at least once) to describe one man physically forcing another man to do something.10 Therefore verse 12 only forbids women from physically forcing men into submission. The common, general and natural meaning of authenteō11 can be safely ignored.
There are, of course, many other words in this passage such as ‘teach,’ ‘quiet,’ ‘submissiveness,’ or ‘permit.’ If someone asks about these, you must find their least likely definitions too.
For example, consider the word translated as ‘teach’ (didaskō). This is one of the few words that have almost the same meaning in English as they do in Greek.12 However, if a woman leads an entire congregation in confession of sin by opening Scripture, explaining it, applying it and calling for repentance, she is not actually ‘teaching’ (didaskō) from Scripture. This is because one of the least likely translations of the word didaskō is to ‘admonish,’ and it is possible that the woman was not admonishing the men in the congregation in her heart.
If someone doubts your methodology, remind them that all of history has been biased against your particular view. Therefore every significant translation of this passage since the early church cannot be trusted.
9. Claim that the Original Language is Wrong
If you are unable to translate a verse into something more comfortable, you can claim that scribes in the past made a mistake when they copied Scripture.
This tool works particularly well when combined with tool #4: ancient scribes were part of a culture that disagrees with you, so they were biased when they meticulously copied each individual letter of the Bible.
10. Claim that the Human Author of Scripture is Wrong
If all of the above tools fail to provide you with an adequate loophole, you can resort to the final and ultimate tool: ‘It was just the human author’s opinion.’
You see, verse 12 begins with the word ‘I’. Paul said ‘I do not permit.’ He did not say ‘God does not permit.’ This means that verse 12 was just Paul’s opinion. So God’s opinion must therfore be the exact opposite of Paul’s opinion on this matter.
You might wonder why this tool has been classified as the most advanced tool. The reason is that you can easily apply it to every single verse of Scripture, without exception. Without proper care, you could accidentally turn every verse you do like into a mere opinion.
So you must use this tool sparingly, otherwise you run the risk of becoming a theological liberal, which is not the point of loophole hermeneutics!
Conclusion
I like to think of loophole hermeneutics like a treasure hunt. It can sometimes be incredibly difficult to find the loophole you are in need of. I have heard that in some cases, it can take years, involving multiple academic degrees and even international study groups. But once you have found your loophole, you get the same feeling that Blackbeard the pirate experienced when he discovered illicit booty in the West Indies.
Extending the analogy, you might end up realising that you quite like hunting for illicit treasure, and don’t want to stop, until you become a lifelong thief and abuser of precious cargo that does not belong to you.
Thoughtful Reformed
DISCLAIMER
While loophole hermeneutics is very effective at convincing you and others that you are being faithful to the Bible, there have been reports that it will not withstand the day of God's judgement. These reports invoke passages of Scripture such as:
'For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.' - Ecclesiastes 12:14 (ESV)
'I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.' - Matthew 12:36 (ESV)
'Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.' - Matthew 5:19 (ESV)
On the other hand, we also received reports that 'It probably doesn't matter' and 'Those verses don't mean what you think they mean'.Hermeneutics is traditionally the subdomain of theology that is dedicated to understanding how to rightly interpret the Bible.
See for example: Leviticus 20:13, Revelation 21:8, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Romans 1:26-27, etc…
Since about the 1970s.
See for example Tatia, a high priestess who was a benefactor to the city: Honors by a Group of Greek and Roman Women for Tatia the Priestess (6/7 CE) ║ Akmoneia - Phrygia.
Notice the specific instructions concerning how men should pray and women should present themselves in a corporate setting throughout all 10 verses that precede verses 11-12.
Presumably, Paul did not write down their names so that they woildn’t feel embarrassed.
αὐθεντέω.
See the quote of Hippolytus, On the End of the World in Authenteo and Mastery by Andrew Wilson.
See the definition of authenteō.
See the definition of didaskō.