Interpretive Exercise: Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42).
The Sermon on the Mount is a passage in the Bible that is well known and has been analyzed for numerous centuries. While the Sermon on the Mount has contained the same content throughout time, many people have interpreted this part of Matthew differently. Although there is no right or wrong way in doing so, it is very interesting to compare and contrast these different interpretations to see the commonalities and differences in their analysis. In reading many scholars" interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount and in interviewing someone whose religious knowledge I respect, I have begun to think about how I interpret the Sermon on the Mount and have broadened my knowledge regarding this topic. But before I did these things, consulted a scholar's interpretation and conducted an interview concerning the passage of Matthew 5:38-42, I did some initial preparation using the Trouble Shooting Protocol Sheet so I could understand the content of the text better. .
To begin this assignment, I re-read Chapter 5 in the Gospel of Matthew and went through the questions on the Trouble Shooting Protocol Sheet. In trying to answer the questions on this sheet, I analyzed the text thoroughly becoming very familiar with the language and sourced verses to see what parts of the Bible they came from. I found this to be very beneficial and found out a lot of information. There does not seem to be any problems with the text in the edition of the Bible that I read this passage in. Also, Matthew 5:38-42 definitely fits into chapter 5 context wise in regards to what comes before it and after it. There are no unexpected jumps in this section, and it is fluent with the rest of the text in Chapter 5. There are not a lot of grammatical errors in these five verses, and the material seems logical to a person who is interpreting this section in a modern day sense as well as a person who is interpreting the text as people back in the ancient world did.
