Exegesis vs. Eisegesis

Sometimes a way to get myself back into Bible study is to look at a new translation. I’m not going to go into which translation in the best. I have my opinions, just like I have politics, but I also try to avoid vain and foolish arguments. Some bad translations are out there. Some good ones are out there. I leave it up to the individual to investigate the matter for themselves and figure it out.

Bible reading today has become a lot easier than days of yesteryear. One can go to places like biblegateway.com and have multiple translations of a verse available to them in moments. I also like biblehub.com because it gives you the ability to search for terms in their original Greek and Hebrew.

For example, I recently had a gentleman tell me the “sons of god” in Job were unfallen beings from other planets. Using Biblehub.com, I was able to search for all of the times that term was used in the Bible. I did not find any references to them being unfallen beings from other planets. I found references to them being angels.

Hence, I disagreed with said gentleman. I propose the reason he sees unfallen beings on other planets in Job 1 is because his particular sect has a “prophet” who claims there are unfallen beings on other planets. Therefore, he needs to find that claim in the Bible, otherwise he is following a prophet who adds things to the Bible that are not there, which is not good. Reading things into scripture that are not there is called “eisegesis.”

Eisegesis inserts into the text what the reader wishes to find and expresses the readers subjective ideas rather than the true meaning in the text. A person should practice “exegesis” when reading the Bible. They should seek to get out of the text what the original author wished to convey.

The “sons of god” thing invariably leads to Genesis 6 being mentioned, as well. Some people say the sons of god in that verse were fallen angels mating with humans. Others say the sons of god in that verse were human believers marrying unbelievers. I tend to go with the second interpretation. Why? I don’t argue the first way isn’t a possibility according to the language. The problem I run into is there are really no other examples of such things happening in the Bible. Whereas, there are multiple examples of the Israelites intermarrying with heathen nations throughout the Old Testament and the problems that caused. Hence, I believe it is safer to go with the less fantastic interpretation in this case.