At the British Library, in my former hometown of London, you can find two of the three oldest Greek Bibles.

You can also find the remains of some 227 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

Now, of course, you can't just wander in off the Houston Road with your

almond milk latte and have an idle flick through an ancient Bible. No, you need to apply for a

reader pass first, and even then you can't get access to certain documents unless you have a

letter of introduction or special dispensation from someone important. Then you have to abide by certain

guidelines for handling old documents. You have to make sure your hands are clean and dry. You have

to lift and turn unbound items individually. Use special book supports if you're using bound archives, and so on and so on.

We are extremely careful when handling these ancient copies of scripture physically.

How careful are we when handling scripture intellectually?

In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes,

do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed,

rightly handling the word of truth. What does that mean to rightly handle the word of truth?

Well, that is what the study of hermeneutics is all about.

Hermonutics is the art of understanding the Bible as it was intended by the author to be understood.

It's also about communicating that understanding to others.

The word hermeneutic comes from the Greek word Hermaneu, which means translate or interpret.

Hermes, incidentally, was the Greek god who brought messages from the gods and interpreted them for human beings.

That's what a hermeneutic is. It's a particular method of interpretation.

You may have heard people say, you can make the Bible say anything you want. It's all just your interpretation, isn't it?

Well, that's why a proper hermeneutic is so important. Because without a proper hermeneutic, you can interpret any given

text to mean whatever you like. You can interpret beware of the Doberman as please pet the cuddly puppy though of course you may lose a finger in the

...