Meaning and Authority in Interpretation

Transformational Hermeneutics

If you open yourself, day by day and week by week, to the message of scripture, its grand sweep and its small details, and allow the faithful preaching of Jesus and his achievement to enter your consciousness and soak down into your imagination and heat, then the admittedly uncomfortable work of God's word will be happening on a regular basis, showing you (as we say) where you really are, what's going on deep inside.

N.T. Wright, Hebrews for Everyone, 41.

Theological/Dogmatic Summary

Meaning: In the system
Authority: Contemporary theological community
Question: Is this interpretation in keeping with sound theology?

Liberationist/Advocacy Summary

Meaning: In praxis
Authority: Praxis
Question: Does this interpretation encourage social change and brotherly love?

Existential Summary

Meaning: In our encounter with the text
Authority: Authenticity/experience
Question: What is the decision called for?

Rationalistic/Positivistic Summary

Meaning: Human reason
Authority: Science/Reason
Question: Does this make sense?

Traditional/Authoritative Summary

Meaning: In the church
Authority: Historical faith community
Question: What has everwhere, by all, been believed?

Allegorical/Spiritualistic Summary

Meaning: Beyond the text
Authority: Spirit
Question: Is there a deeper, spiritual meaning that needs to be uncovered?

Literal/Historical-Grammatical Summary

Meaning: In the text
Authority: The text (Author's Intended Meaning)
Question: What does the text say?

Hermeneutics of Hope

The key to the hermeneutics of the historic witness of the Bible is the “future of scripture.” The question as to the correct exposition of the Old and New Testament scriptures cannot be addressed to the “heart of scripture.” The biblical scripture are not a closed organism with a heart, or a closed circle with a centre. On the contrary, all the biblical scriptures are open towards the future fulfillment of the divine promise whose history they relate. The centre of the New Testament scriptures is the future of the risen Christ, which they announce, point forward to and promise. Thus if we are to understand the biblical scriptures in their proclamation, their understanding of existence and their understanding of the world, then we must look in the same direction as they themselves do. The scriptures, as historic witnesses, are open towards the future, as all promises are open towards the future. In this sense R. Bultmann is right when he declares: “It is not at all ‘in themselves,’ nor yet as links in a causal chain, that events or historical figures are historic phenomena. They are such only in their relationship to the future, for which they have significance and for which the present has responsibility.” “Thus it is true also of scripture that it is what it is only in relation to its history and its future.” Only, this “future of scripture” does not yet lie in the several readers’ own present, but in that which gives the momentary present its orientation towards a universal, eschatological future. Hence present perception of the “future of scripture” takes place in that mission which plays its part in history and in the possibilities of changing history. The biblical witness is witness to a historic forward-moving mission in the past, and hence in the light of the present mission it can be understood for what it really is.

Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1967), 283

Roman Catholic Hermeneutics

Selected quotes from George Montague, Understanding the Bible, see pages 187-193

“But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, ‘handing over’ to them ‘the authority to teach in their own place.’ This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face.”

“Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this Word of God faithfully explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently, it is not from Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence. Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church.”

“The task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit; it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed. It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”

Restoration Movement Hermeneutics

…With respect to the commands and ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ, where the Scriptures are silent as to the express time or manner of performance, if any such there be, no human authority has power to interfere, in order to supply the supposed deficiency by making laws for the Church…

…Although inferences and deductions from Scripture premises, when fairly inferred, may be truly called the doctrine of God’s holy word, yet are they not formally binding upon the consciences of Christians farther than they perceive the connection…No such deductions can be made terms of communion, but do properly belong to the after and progressive edification of the Church…

…Who, then, would not be the first among us to give up human inventions in the worship of God and to cease from imposing his private opinions upon his brethren, that our breaches might thus be healed? Who would not willingly conform to the original pattern laid down in the New Testament, for this happy purpose?...

Excerpts from Thomas Campbell in The Declaration and Address (Sept. 7, 1809)

Restoration Movement Hermeneutics

Cummins’ four guiding principles from The Declaration and Address (Sept. 7, 1809)
1. Every person has the right of private judgment (i.e., the right and responsibility to interpret Scripture apart from human authority)
2. The Scriptures will be the sole authority; no human creeds or inventions.
3. The sectarian spirit is evil; bitter jarrings and janglings of party spirit, clashing human opinions should be at rest; restore unity and peace.
4. The Bible alone for our rule; the Holy Spirit for our teacher of truth; and Christ alone as our salvation.

D. Duane Cummins, The Disciples (Chalice, 2009), 45.

Alexander Campbell

There is a distance which is properly called the speaking distance, or the hearing distance, beyond which the voice reaches not, and the ear hears not. To hear another, we must come within that circle which the voice audibly fills. Now we may with propriety say, that as it respects God, there is an understanding distance. All beyond that distance cannot understand God; all within it can easily understand him in all matters of piety and morality. God himself is the centre of that circle, and humility is its circumference. The wisdom of God is as evident in adapting the light of the Sun of Righteousness to our spiritual vision, as in adjusting the light of day to our eyes. The light reaches us without an effort of our own; but we must open our eyes; and if our eyes be sound, we enjoy the natural light of heaven. There is a sound eye in reference to spiritual, as well as in reference to material light. Now, while the philological principles and rules of interpretation enable many men to be skilful in biblical criticism, and in the interpretation of words and sentences, who neither perceive nor admire the things represented by those words, the sound eye contemplates the things themselves, and is ravished with the spiritual and divine scenes which the Bible unfolds.

Alexander Campbell, “The Bible-Principles of Interpretation,” Millennial Harbinger 3 (January, 1846).

Alexander Campbell

The whole Christian religion, in its facts, its precepts, its promises, its doctrine, its institutions, is presented to the world in a written record. The writings of Prophets and Apostles contain all the divine and supernatural knowledge in the world. Now, unless these sacred writings can be certainly interpreted, the Christian religion never can be certainly understood. Every argument that demonstrates the necessity of such a written document as the Bible, equally demonstrates the necessity of fixed and certain principles or rules of interpretation: for without the latter, the former is of no value whatever to the world. All the differences in religious faith, opinion, and sentiment, amongst those who acknowledge the Bible, are occasioned by false principles of interpretation, or by a misapplication of the true principles. There is no law, nor standard,--literary, moral, or religious, that can coerce human thought or action, by only promulging or acknowledging it. If a law can effect any thing, our actions must be conformed to it. Were all students of the Bible taught to apply the same rules of interpretation to its pages, there would be a greater uniformity in opinion and sentiment than ever resulted from the simple adoption of any written creed.

Alexander Campbell, “The Bible-Principles of Interpretation,” Millennial Harbinger 3 (January, 1846).

Alexander Campbell

God has spoken by men, to men, for men. The language of the Bible is, then, human language. It is, therefore, to be examined by the same rules which are applicable to the language of any other book, and to be understood according to the true and proper meaning of the words, in their current acceptation, at the times and in the places in which they were originally written or translated. If we have a revelation from God in human language, the words of that volume must be intelligible by the common usage of language; they must be precise and determinate in signification, and that signification must be philologically ascertained--that is, as the words and sentences of other books are ascertained, by the use of the dictionary and grammar. Were it otherwise, and did men require a new dictionary and grammar to understand the Book of God,--then, without that divine dictionary and grammar, we could have no revelation from God; or a revelation that needs to be revealed is no revelation at all. Again, if any special rules are to be sought for the interpretation of the sacred writings, unless these rules have been given in the volume, as a part of the revelation, and are of divine authority;--without such rules, the Book is sealed; and I know of no greater abuse of language than to call a sealed book a Revelation. But the fact that God has clothed his communications in human language, and that he has spoken by men, to men, in their own language, is decisive evidence that he is to be understood as one man conversing with another. Righteousness, or what we sometimes call honesty, requires this; for unless he first made a special stipulation when he began to speak, his words were, in all candor, to be taken at the current value; for he that would contract with a man for any thing, stipulating his contract in the currency of the country, without any explanation, and should afterwards intimate that a Dollar with him meant only three Franks, would be regarded as a dishonest and unjust man. And shall we impute to the God of truth and justice what would blast the reputation of a fellow-citizen at the tribunal of political justice and public opinion!

Alexander Campbell, “The Bible-Principles of Interpretation,” Millennial Harbinger 3 (January, 1846).

Inductive Hermeneutics

The following list points out some of the difficulties that have been noted in the methodology of inductive hermeneutics: 1) It tends to dismiss poetic and literary aspects of the Bible. 2) It ignores the fact that culture and background play a role in understanding. 3) It addresses the language of the head but not of the heart. 4) It tends to equate spirituality with a correct intellectual understanding of the text. 5) It makes correct biblical understanding dependent on the latest scientific methodology.

David L. Little, “Inductive Hermeneutics and the Early Restoration Movement” in Stone-Campbell Journal 3 (Spring, 2000): 18.

Rationalistic Hermeneutics

The strongly rationalist ethos of the enlightenment was often reflected in what might be styled as a spiritual embargo on any kind of emotional involvement with Scripture, or any use of the human faculty of imagination…The Enlightenment forced evangelicalism into adopting approaches to spirituality which have resulted in rather cool, detached and rational approaches to Scripture…As Martin Luther constantly insisted, Christianity is concerned with totus homo, the “entire human person,” not just the human mind.

McGrath in David L. Little, “Inductive Hermeneutics and the Early Restoration Movement” in Stone-Campbell Journal 3 (Spring, 2000): 16.

Inductive Hermeneutics

Methodological Common Sense…is connected with the American exaltation of Francis Bacon. It is the assertion that truths about consciousness, the world, or religion must be built by a strict induction from irreducible facts of experience…This aspect of the Common Sense Tradition, which contributed its share to the general scientism of nineteenth-century American intellectual life, played an unusually large role in evangelical thought. Early in the nineteenth century, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Disciples, and Episcopalians, in journals ranging from Bibliotheca Sacra to The New Englander, asserted generally, as Presbyterian James W. Alexander put it specifically, “that the theologian should proceed in his investigation precisely as the chemist or botanist proceeds…[This] is the method which bears the name of Bacon.

Mark Noll in David L. Little, “Inductive Hermeneutics and the Early Restoration Movement” in Stone-Campbell Journal 3 (Spring, 2000): 13-14.

Inductive Hermeneutics

Appeal to the understanding of the common populace found particular resonance in the religious life of America. It addressed several topical issues of the time, including the proclamation of certainty among religious confusion, a confidence in the ordinary mind to understand God’s word, a return to biblical language for clarity, and an equalizing factor between the clergy and the laity. That pious individuals could upon their Bibles for themselves and understand it without the intercessory services of the clergy was a revolutionary idea in tune with the early American ethos. Echoing the rhetoric of the American Constitution, Alexander Campbell, among many others, called for the “inalienable right of all laymen to examine the sacred writings for themselves.”

David L. Little, “Inductive Hermeneutics and the Early Restoration Movement” in Stone-Campbell Journal 3 (Spring, 2000): 10.

Inductive Hermeneutics

During the 1800’s inductive hermeneutics was seen by some as the solution to the religious division of the day. This diversity claimed to have the Bible as its origin but manifested itself in fractured and often opposing claims originating from the one source. This was illustrated by John Winebrenner’s book published in 1848 entitled History of All the Religious Denominations in the United States. John W. Nevin (1803-1886), noted Lutheran theologian and an associate of Philip Schaff (1819-1893), upon reviewing the book noted that most of the groups had one principle in common, that being “no creed but the Bible.” This one statement was a fundamental ideal for a number of different denominations in early America. How could so much religious division arise from this one book? The cure, according to some, was the scientific method of inductive Bible study.

David L. Little, “Inductive Hermeneutics and the Early Restoration Movement” in Stone-Campbell Journal 3 (Spring, 2000): 6-7.

Restoration Movement Hermeneutics

Now to apply to one individual what is said to all individuals and classes of individuals, would, methinks, appear egregious folly. And would it not be as absurd to say, that every man is obliged to practice every duty and religious precept enjoined in the Bible. Might we not as reasonable say, that every man must be at once a Patriarch, a Jew, and a Christian; a magistrate, a subject, a father, a child, a master, a servant, etc. And certainly, it is as inconsistent to say, that Christians should equally regard and obey the Old and New Testament.

Alexander Campbell in the "Sermon on the Law" (Sept. 1, 1816)

Restoration Movement Hermeneutics

The New Testament is as perfect a constitution for the worship, discipline, and government of the New Testament Church, and as perfect a rule for the particular duties of its members, as the Old Testament was for the worship, discipline, and government of the Old Testament Church, and the particular duties of its members.

Thomas Campbell in “Declaration and Address”

Restoration Movement Hermeneutics

The scriptures admit of being studied and expounded upon the principles of the inductive method; and that, when thus interpreted, they speak to us in a voice as certain and unmistakable as the language of nature heard in the experiments and observations of science.

J.S. Lamar, The Organon of Scripture (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1860), 176.

Restoration Movement Hermeneutics

There is a law written on every human heart, which is the foundation of both law and prophets, under which both angels and men exist; whose obligation is universal and eternal. It is inscribed more or less distinctly on every heathen’s heart. It is sometimes called the law of nature, but more correctly called by the apostle, conscience.

Alexander Campbell in the “Sermon on the Law” (Sept. 1, 1816)

Feminist Hermeneutics

Fiorenza makes it clear that the point of departure is not the bible as normative authority. Rather, women’s experience and their struggle for liberation becomes the locus of authority. The canon is not the Bible but the struggle. The Bible becomes a prototype, or what she calls a formative root model, from which examples and insights are taken that explain one’s struggle to find one’s place and to find solidarity with those women that are recounted in the biblical religion. Fiorenza stresses with power and pointedness the fact that all interpretation of the Bible has come from an advocacy point of view, whether that advocacy happens to be patriarchal or feminist or, I might add, black, Asian, Reformed, Wesleyan, liberal or evangelical. Fiorenza wants to argue in reconstructing her feminist hermeneutic that everyone has an advocacy position in the interpretation of the Bible. She wants to make clear what hers is and challenges all others to do the same.

David M. Scholer, “Feminist Hermeneutics and Evangelical Biblical Interpretation,” Evangelical Review of Theology 1 (January 1991): 309.

Homosexual Hermeneutics

The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is simply that the Bible has no sexual ethic. There is no biblical sex ethic. Instead, it exhibits a variety of sexual mores, some of which changed over the thousand year span of biblical history. Mores are unreflective customs accepted by a given community. Many of the practices that the Bible prohibits, we allow, and many that it allows, we prohibit. The Bible knows only a love ethic, which is constantly being brought to bear on whatever sexual mores are dominant in any given country, or culture, or period…Our moral task, then, is to apply Jesus’ love ethic to whatever sexual mores are prevalent in a given culture. This doesn’t mean everything goes. It means that everything is to be critiqued by Jesus’ love commandment…Approached from the point of view of the Spirit rather than the letter, the question ceases to be “What does Scripture command?” and becomes “What is the Word that the Spirit speaks to the churches now, in the light of Scripture, tradition, theology, and, yes, psychology, genetics, anthropology, and biology?” We can’t continue to build ethics on the basis of bad science.

Walter Wink, “Homosexuality and the Bible,” www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-walter-wink, 9-10.

Homosexual Hermeneutics

No doubt Paul was unaware of the distinction between sexual orientation, over which one has apparently very little choice, and sexual behavior, over which one does. He seemed to assume that those whom he condemned were heterosexuals who were acting contrary to nature, “leaving,” “giving up,” or “exchanging” their regular sexual orientation for that which was foreign to them. Paul knew nothing of the modern psychosexual understanding of homosexuals as persons whose orientation is fixed early in life, or perhaps even genetically in some cases. For such persons, having heterosexual relations would be acting contrary to nature, “leaving,” “giving up” or “exchanging” their natural sexual orientation for one that was unnatural to them…And Paul believes that homosexual behavior is contrary to nature, whereas we have learned that it is manifested by a wide variety of species, especially (but not solely) under the pressure of overpopulation. It would appear then to be a quite natural mechanism for preserving species. We cannot, of course, decide human ethical conduct solely on the basis of animal behavior or the human sciences, but Paul here is arguing from nature, as he himself says, and new knowledge of what is “natural” is therefore relevant to the case.

Walter Wink, “Homosexuality and the Bible,” www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-walter-wink, 3.

Homosexual Hermeneutics

When we refer to “homosexual persons” we do not mean situational homosexuality. This refers to homosexual practices under certain conditions, for example when people are isolated for long times in prison or at sea, or to experiment sex, or to practices that derive from a traumatic experience or physical disorder. “True” homosexuality is characterized by an emotional and physico-sexual propensity towards others of the same sex. It refers not only to the sexual act, but also to a way of thinking, feeling and behavior as an expression of love. Therefore, homosexual persons find expression in specific sexual acts. The biblical documents did not know of this homosexuality and its specific problems, but were concerned only with the commission of homosexual acts.

Lilly Nortje-Meyer, “The Homosexual Body without Apology: A Positive Link between the Canaanite Woman in Matthew 15:21-28 and Homosexual Interpretation of Biblical Texts,” Religion and Theology 9/1&2 (2002), 118-119.

Homosexual Hermeneutics

A homosexual reading of biblical texts involves the rereading and reexamining of those passages that condemn homosexuals. It questions traditional interpretations identify the heterosexism and homophobia of biblical scholars. Homosexual are searching for positive links between the Bible and homosexuality. They are looking for a neglected word or fact that would reverse the traditional interpretations that condemned homosexuals and accept them into the Christian community without any preconditions. Homosexual persons are looking for their own identity, purpose and meaning in life and they are looking to the Bible to help them finding meaning in life.

Lilly Nortje-Meyer, “The Homosexual Body without Apology: A Positive Link between the Canaanite Woman in Matthew 15:21-28 and Homosexual Interpretation of Biblical Texts,” Religion and Theology 9/1&2 (2002), 119-120.

Homosexual Hermeneutics

Centre to liberation theology is the understanding that sin is not a metaphysical reality but rather consists in injustices that are perpetuated by people. Therefore, contemplation is at heart of liberation theology, not only by identifying injustice in society, but also by suggesting solutions that enable people to end it. Being homosexual and having a homosexual relationship is not a sin, but the injustice imposed on homosexual persons, that is sin.

Lilly Nortje-Meyer, “The Homosexual Body without Apology: A Positive Link between the Canaanite Woman in Matthew 15:21-28 and Homosexual Interpretation of Biblical Texts,” Religion and Theology 9/1&2 (2002), 124-125.

Homosexual Hermeneutics

Christianity is an incarnational religion. It started off as a religion and theology from below. The Holy Spirit worked in the first place through the body of Jesus. He was bodily conceived by the Holy Spirit and was bodily filled with the Spirit. Therefore, incarnational theology should challenge metaphysic and dualistic thought. The bodies of women and homosexual persons should be taken as sites of revelation in the creation of theology. Those Bible passages that jeopardize homosexual persons and women should either be removed or should be identified as unacceptable to the Christian faith. The homosexual person should be able to celebrate the homosexual body without apology.

Lilly Nortje-Meyer, “The Homosexual Body without Apology: A Positive Link between the Canaanite Woman in Matthew 15:21-28 and Homosexual Interpretation of Biblical Texts,” Religion and Theology 9/1&2 (2002), 119-133.

Emerging Church Hermeneutics

Emergents sometimes exercise a deconstructive critique of the Bible’s view of God. Sometimes I hear it in ways that are no more interesting than Marcion’s old (and heretical) critique of the violent God of the Old Testament. Yet upon close inspection, the rumblings are subtler and more sophisticated, and the struggle is palpable and genuine. For some emergents, the Bible includes portrayals of God that cannot be squared with their understanding of a God of love.

Scot McKnight, “The Ironic Faith of Empergents,” Christianity Today, September 2008, 63.

Emerging Church Hermeneutics

Our interpretations reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves. They reveal what we want to defend, what we want to attack, what we want to ignore, what we’re unwilling to question.

Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian, 50.

The Rules for Talking about Homosexuality

No one should be allowed to talk about the gay issue unless they have enough points. This is how you get your points...

10 if you have considered and studied the relevant biblical passages
10 if you have actually read the six passages about homosexuality in the Bible
20 if you have read other passages that might affect the way you read those six passages
5 if you have read one or more books that reinforce the position you already hold
25 if you have read one or more books arguing the opposite position
10 if you have spent three hours reading websites showing a variety of views
50 for every friend you have who's been through an ex-gay ministry
50 for every friend who's been through an ex-gay ministry that didn't work
50 for every friend who's gay and in a long-term committed relationship
50 for every friend who's gay and not in a committed relationship
50 for every parent you've listened to whose child is gay

When you have 3,000 points, you can speak on the issue.

(An unnamed friend on Facebook)

Allegory of the Fish

The Allegory of 153 Fish, John 21:11 (Compiled by Mark Moore)

The number 153 has had a number of allegorical interpretations attached to it, none of which appear valid:

(1) There were supposedly 153 varieties of fish in the Sea of Galilee. Thus, this is a veiled reference to Mt 13:47-48, showing that all kinds of people will be saved. This estimate comes from Oppian via Jerome. However, Jerome is somewhat "loose" in his counting of Oppian's categories. Besides that, Oppian wrote c. 176-180 and therefore can not adequately account for John's usage of 153.

(2) The total represents the sum of all the numbers from 1-17. 17 = 10 commandments plus the 7 gifts of the Spirit. Or, according to R. Grant, "'One Hundred Fifty-Three Large Fish' (John 21:11)," Harvard Theological Review 42 (1949): 273-75, there are seven Apostles present at the catch and ten who received the Holy Spirit (John 20:24). Thus, 153 functions here as 144,000 does in Revelation 7:4 to represent all God's redeemed.

(3) Peter's name in Hebrew, Simon Iona, numerically is 153.

(4) 153 = 100 (Gentiles) + 50 (Jews) + 3 (Trinity).

(5) The Hebrew word for Mt. Pisgah has a numerical value of 153. This shows how Jn 21 is Jesus farewell adress to the leaders of the New Israel, just like Moses' (cf. Num 11:16-25; 27:17). (O. T. Owens, "One Hundred and Fifty Three Fishes," ExpT 100 (1988): 52-54.)

(6) The Hebrew for "The Children of God" has a numerical value of 153. Hence, Jn 21 is a reference to the new "children of God." (J. A. Romeo, "Gematria and John 21:11--The Children of God," JBL 97/2 (1978): 263-64.)

(7) The 153 fish in the net, plus the one that Jesus had cooked = 154 fish. This matches the numeric value of of the Greek word "day," which was one of the titles for Jesus in the early church. (K. Cardwell, "The Fish on the Fire: Jn 21:9" ExpT 102 (1990): 12-14.)

(8) 153 is gematriacal Atbash. If you reverse the numerical value of the Hebrew Alphabet, then take the numbers 70, 3, and 80, you get the Greek letters "I," "X," and "Th." These are the first three letters of the Greek word "fish" which was, of course, a significant symbol in early Christianity. This word was an accrostic for early Christians which signified: "Jesus Christ, God, Son, Savior." (Cf. N. J. McEleney, "153 Great Fishes [John 21:11]--Gematriacal Atbash," Biblica 58 [1977]: 411-17).

Stop Sign Exegesis

Hermeneutics in Everyday Life (from Playing With Fire, Walt Russell, page 49)

Suppose you’re traveling to work (on an east-west road) and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign:

1. A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (that is, knocks it over with his car) ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.

2. Similarly, a Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class conflict. He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road and obstruct the progress of the workers on the east-west road.

3. A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and their tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn’t take it too seriously, he doesn’t feel obligated to take it too seriously either.

4. An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian or Coptic or whoever) doesn’t bother to read the sign, but he’ll stop if the car in front of him does.

5. A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop sign and waits for it to tell him to go.

6. A preacher might look up “STOP” in his lexicon and discover that it can mean: 1) something which prevents motion, such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing; or, 2) a location where a train or bus lets off passengers. The big idea of his sermon the next Sunday on this text is: “When you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from your car.”

7. An orthodox Jew takes another route to work that doesn’t have a stop sign so that he doesn’t risk disobeying the Law.

A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic

From Slaves, Women, & Homosexuals by William Webb

SLAVERY

Original Culture - Slavery with many abuses
Bible - Slavery with better conditions and fewer abuses
Our Culture - Slavery eliminated and working conditions often improved
Ultimate Ethic - Slavery eliminated, improved working conditions, wages maximized for all, and harmony, respect and unified purpose between all levels in an organizational structure

WOMEN

Original Culture - Strong patriarchy with many abuses
Bible - Moderated patriarchy with fewer abuses
Our Culture - Secular egalitarianism with significantly improved status of women and an emphasis on individual rights, autonomy and self-fulfillment
Ultimate Ethic - Ultra-soft patriarchy or complementary egalitarianism and interdependence, mutuality and servant-like attitude in relationships

HOMOSEXUALS

Original Culture - Mixed acceptance and no restrictions of homosexual activity
Bible - Negative assessment and complete restriction of homosexual activity
Our Culture - Almost complete acceptance and no restrictions of homosexual activity
Ultimate Ethic - Negative assessment and complete restriction of homosexual activity and greater understanding and compassion, utilization of a sliding scale of culpability, and variation in the degree of negative assessment based on the type of same-sex activity.

King James Only Idiocy

Author's Intention

All we know of the author’s intention is what the author did express in the text, not what he planned to say but did not express. Our knowledge of the author’s plan (intention) is limited to the inspired text itself. So to speak of an intention which did not get expressed is to shift the locus of authority from the text to the author’s mind behind the text…Finally, the proper meaning of the intention of the author is the expressed meaning in the text. Just as we do not say that the beauty is behind the painting, so the hermeneutically discoverable meaning is not located behind the text in the author’s intention. Rather, the meaning is expressed in the text the way beauty is expressed in the pigments on the canvas of a painting. The misuse of the word intention, to stand for the purpose (why) of the author, rather than for the meaning (what) of the author, often leads to unorthodox conclusions.

Geisler in Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 144.

Authority of Scripture

Once you can make scripture stand on its hind legs and dance a jig, it becomes a tame pet rather than a roaring lion. It is no longer “authoritative” in any strict sense; that is, it may be cited as though in “proof” of some point or other, but it is not leading the way, energizing the church with the fresh breath of God himself. The question must always be asked, whether scripture is being used to serve an existing theology or vice versa.

N.T. Wright, The Last Word (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005), 70

Bono's Remarks to the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast

. . . I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land… and in this country, seeing God’s second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash… in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical… not about God, but about God’s politics.

Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick—my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the Millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world’s poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord’s call—and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic’s point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

‘Jubilee’—why ‘Jubilee’?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lords favor?

I’d always read the Scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)…
‘If your brother becomes poor,’ the Scriptures say, ‘and cannot maintain himself… you shall maintain him… You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.’

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he’s met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he’s a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn’t done much… yet. He hasn’t spoken in public before…
When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ he says, ‘because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.’ And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favour, the year of Jubilee. (Luke 4:18)

What he was really talking about was an era of grace—and we’re still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate—in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn’t a bless-me club… it wasn’t a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions… making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.

But then my cynicism got another helping hand.

It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called A.I.D.S. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The one’s that didn’t miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children… Even fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.

Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself Judgmentalism is back!

But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.

Love was on the move. Mercy was on the move. God was on the move.

Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet… Conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS… Soccer moms and quarterbacks… hip-hop stars and country stars… This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!
Popes were seen wearing sunglasses! Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster! Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit. It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.

. . . Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

. . . God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them . . . It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

. . . From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There’s is much more to do. There’s a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.
And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice. Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice. And that’s too bad.

Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.
6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality. You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, “Equal?” A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, “Yeah, ‘equal,’ that’s what it says here in this book. We’re all made in the image of God.”

. . . Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market… that’s a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents… That’s a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents… that’s a justice issue. And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.

http://www.ausprayernet.org.au/feature/feature_articles_02.php

Take the Power Back - Rage Against the Machine

In the right light, study becomes insight
But the system that dissed us
Teaches us to read and write
So called facts are fraud. They want us to allege and pledge
And bow down to their God. Lost the culture, the culture lost
Spun our minds and through time. Ignorance has taken over
Yo, we gotta take the power back!

Bam! Here's the plan************* Uncle Sam.
Step back, I know who I am
Raise up your ear, I'll drop the style and clear. It's the beats and the lyrics they fear
The rage is relentless. We need a movement with a quickness
You are the witness of change. And to counteract
We gotta take the power back

The present curriculum. I put my fist in 'em
Eurocentric every last one of 'em. See right through the red, white and blue disguise
With lecture I puncture the structure of lies. Installed in our minds and attempting
To hold us back. We've got to take it back

Holes in our spirit causin' tears and fears. One-sided stories for years and years and years
I'm inferior? Who's inferior? Yeah, we need to check the interior
Of the system that cares about only one culture. And that is why
We gotta take the power back

The teacher stands in front of the class. But the lesson plan he can't recall
The student's eyes don't perceive the lies. Bouncing off every ************** wall
His composure is well kept. I guess he fears playing the fool
The complacent students sit and listen to some of that**************** that he learned in school
Europe ain't my rope to swing on. Can't learn a thing from it
Yet we hang from it. Gotta get it, gotta get it together then
Like the ***************** weathermen. To expose and close the doors on those who try
To strangle and mangle the truth. 'Cause the circle of hatred continues unless we react
We gotta take the power back

Martin Luther King Jr.

Excerpts from Martin Luther King’s Our God is Marching On
March 25, 1965

. . . Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. (Yes, sir) The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The wanton release of their known murderers would not discourage us. We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) Like an idea whose time has come, (Yes, sir) not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. (Yes, sir) We are moving to the land of freedom. (Yes, sir)Let us therefore continue our triumphant march (Uh huh) to the realization of the American dream. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated housing (Yes, sir) until every ghetto or social and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated schools (Let us march, Tell it) until every vestige of segregated and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing context of the classroom.Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until no American parent has to skip a meal so that their children may eat. (Yes, sir) March on poverty (Let us march) until no starved man walks the streets of our cities and towns (Yes, sir) in search of jobs that do not exist. (Yes, sir) Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until wrinkled stomachs in Mississippi are filled, (That's right) and the idle industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized, and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended and remolded.Let us march on ballot boxes, (Let's march) march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena.Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs (Yes, sir) will be transformed into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. (Speak, Doctor)Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march) until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence.Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march) until we send to our city councils (Yes, sir), state legislatures, (Yes, sir) and the United States Congress, (Yes, sir) men who will not fear to do justly, love mercy, andwalk humbly with thy God.Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march. March) until brotherhood becomes more than a meaningless word in an opening prayer, but the order of the day on every legislative agenda.Let us march on ballot boxes (Yes) until all over Alabama God's children will be able to walk the earth in decency and honor.There is nothing wrong with marching in this sense. (Yes, sir) The Bible tells us that the mighty men of Joshua merely walked about the walled city of Jericho (Yes) and the barriers to freedom came tumbling down. (Yes, sir) I like that old Negro spiritual, (Yes, sir) "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho." In its simple, yet colorful, depiction (Yes, sir) of that great moment in biblical history, it tells us that:Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, (Tell it)Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, (Yes, sir)And the walls come tumbling down. (Yes, sir. Tell it)Up to the walls of Jericho they marched, spear in hand. (Yes, sir)"Go blow them ramhorns," Joshua cried,"'Cause the battle am in my hand." (Yes, sir)These words I have given you just as they were given us by the unknown, long-dead, dark-skinned originator. (Yes, sir) Some now long-gone black bard bequeathed to posterity these words in ungrammatical form, (Yes, sir) yet with emphatic pertinence for all of us today. (Uh huh)

Martin Luther King Jr.

Excerpts from Martin Luther King’s I’ve Been to the Mountaintop
Memphis, TN, April 3, 1968

. . . Now that's a strange statement to make because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. (All right, Yes) And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men in some strange way are responding. Something is happening in our world. (Yeah) The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: "We want to be free." [applause]. . . You know, what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. (Amen) It's a marvelous picture. (Yes) Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones (Yes), and whenever injustice is around he must tell it. (Yes) Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, who said, "When God speaks, who can but prophesy?" (Yes) Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." (Yes) Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me (Yes), because he hath anointed me (Yes), and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor." (Go ahead)And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years. He's been to jail for struggling; he's been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggling; but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. [applause] Reverend Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank all of them, and I want you to thank them because so often preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. [applause] And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry. It's all right to talk about long white robes over yonder, in all of its symbolism, but ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. [applause] It's all right to talk about streets flowing with milk and honey, but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here and His children who can't eat three square meals a day. [applause] It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day God's preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. [applause] This is what we have to do.

. . . Well, I don't know what will happen now; we've got some difficult days ahead. (Amen) But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. (Yeah) [applause] And I don't mind. [applause continues] Like anybody, I would like to live a long life-longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. (Yeah) And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. (Go ahead) And I've looked over (Yes sir), and I've seen the Promised Land. (Go ahead) I may not get there with you. (Go ahead) But I want you to know tonight, (Yes) that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. [applause] (Go ahead. Go ahead) And so I'm happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. [applause]

Feminist Hermeneutics

If the Bible may be understood as deeply energized by the spirit of God then it can also be understood as limited by human perception and tainted by human sin (not necessarily but in accordance with the evidence therein)…With this understanding of the Bible, I can dismiss as tragic Paul’s apparent embrace of slavery and the subjugation of women.

Barbara S. Blaisdell

Feminist Hermeneutics

We must be prepared to accept the reality of aspect of the Bible with which we disagree. An example is the masculo-centric language and general male chauvinist attitudes we find in the Bible. The Bible must not be forgiven at this point; it must be defeated…for the present we must be firm in our argument against such evils or limitations as they are found in the Bible, for example, refusing to use any such offending passages in liturgical expressions without rewording them into language that shows full appreciation for women as well as men.

J.L. Hardegree

Emerging Church Hermeneutics

The coordinators of Emergent have often been asked (usually by their critics) to proffer a doctrinal statement that lays out clearly what they believe. I am merely a participant in the conversation who delights in the ongoing reformation that occurs as we bring the Gospel into engagement with culture in ever new ways. But I have been asked to respond to this ongoing demand for clarity and closure. I believe there are several reasons why Emergent should not have a "statement of faith" to which its members are asked (or required) to subscribe. Such a move would be unnecessary, inappropriate and disastrous. Why is such a move unnecessary? Jesus did not have a "statement of faith." He called others into faithful relation to God through life in the Spirit. As with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he was not concerned primarily with whether individuals gave cognitive assent to abstract propositions but with calling persons into trustworthy community through embodied and concrete acts of faithfulness. The writers of the New Testament were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers. Paul, Luke and John all talked much more about the mission to which we should commit ourselves than they did about the propositions to which we should assent. The very idea of a "statement of faith" is mired in modernist assumptions and driven by modernist anxieties.

Continue reading LeRon Shults at http://emergent-us.typepad.com/emergentus/2006/05/doctrinal_state.html

Catholic Hermeneutics

“But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, ‘handing over’ to them ‘the authority to teach in their own place.’ This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face.”

“Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this Word of God faithfully explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently, it is not from Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence. Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church.”

“The task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit; it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed. It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”

Selected quotes from George Montague, Understanding the Bible (Paulist Press, 2007), 187-193.

Feminist Hermeneutics

Excerpts from Anne Carter Shelley: "What are we to think of Jezebel?"
A Paper Submitted for Hermeneutics and Biblical Studies
At the 1997 meeting of the Academy of Homiletics

Hermeneutical Method:

“. . . Although it may seem that texts like I Kings 21:1-16 should stand still, should mean one thing only, they don’t. Multitudinous factors influence and keep in motion the reader, the author, and the text. The result is that none of the elements—text, author, reader—remain stationary. None is fixed in meaning. Consequently, we can never uncover completely a text’s original meaning, because the text is on the move and its meaning is a combination of action, imagination and dialogism.”

“. . . My method is feminist and self-critical. As a feminist I do not pretend nor aim to offer the only possible viable reading of I Kings 21:1-16. I engage in conversation with the text, other readers, critical tools, and feminist ideology. I also acknowledge up front that my interpretation is subjective, self-interested, and only one of many which the text may disclose . . . I see part of my function as a feminist hermeneut to direct my reading towards those readers and church members who are often overlooked by other readings. My goal is to be inclusive and attentive to the marginalized and the oppressed . . . Finally, I do not take an absolutist stance towards the text. The way I read remains open-ended and open to future insight, revelation, and correction.”

In Practice:

“. . . But does Jezebel ever really have a chance to speak for herself? Her marriage is a political act not a romantic one. The religion of her childhood is continually criticized and challenged. Her concept of government and kingship has been formed at her father’s palace, not taught to her by the prophet Elijah. Most importantly, her story is told not by herself or her immediate family and friends, but by her enemies: To the authors of the Deuteronomic history, which includes this portion of I Kings, Jezebel is a harlot, a whore, an independent aggressive, domineering woman. She’s a warning to young girls everywhere not to grow up to be emasculating shrews, she-devils, or worst of all, autonomous women . . . We have here a biblical text in which there are three key players: Ahab, Naboth, and Jezebel. It is, as most biblical hermeneuts agree, a story about human injustice and sinfulness and God’s outrage at both. But ironically this text which is about God’s concern for the little guy, the common man Naboth instead has been used as a rationale for the injustice, abuse, subjugation, and denigration of women by men. That’s why feminist biblical scholars find I and II Kings’ treatment of Jezebel so offensive.”

“. . . Ironic, don’t you think? After all, according to her own cultural, political, social and matrimonial custom, wasn’t Jezebel doing what she has been taught that a good wife, and a good Queen should do? She is the first woman we know of to experience a backlash for being the good wife rather than a good feminist . . . Jezebel accepts her husband, admires him, adapts to him, and appreciates him. A woman can technically fit this traditional image of the good wife who accepts her divinely-assigned role as submissive, helpmate to her husband, yet fail to live and be the ideal human being when her life extends no farther than the walls of her husband’s castle because she always puts the welfare of her husband before all other individuals welfare, including her own.”

“. . . All women are not Jezebel’s anymore than all men are King Ahab’s. All women are not Jezebel’s. In fact, Jezebel herself may have not even been the Jezebel she’s portrayed to be. So the good news for us and the good news for Jezebel is that God cares about justice and righteousness for all people, all the time, and in all of our relationships no matter who we are.”

Preunderstandings

If God has revealed truth in the Bible, then it seems reasonable also that He has made us capable of apprehending that truth, or at least some measure of it. Thus, though we inevitably bring preunderstandings to the texts we seek to interpret, this does not mean that we cannot apprehend the meaning they impart…Since we accept the Bible’s authority, we remain open to correction by its message. There are ways to verify interpretations or, at least, to validate some interpretive options as more likely than others. It is not a matter of simply throwing the dice. There is a wide variety of methods available to help us find what the original texts most likely meant to their initial readers. Every time we alter our preunderstanding as the result of our interaction with the text we demonstrate that the process has objective constraints, otherwise, no change would occur; we would remain forever entombed in our prior commitments.

Klein et al in Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 80-81.

Holy Spirit and Hermeneutics

The task of the Spirit in biblical interpretation is thus to enable us to recognize the true character and purpose of the Bible and then to interpret the text in the light of this fact. The Author Himself comes to our side and helps us to understand what He has written. He gives us the eyes of faith and the mind of Christ so that we receive the message that God intends for us…As we open our minds to the Lord in prayer, so He will illumine them by the Spirit to understand the Word. Obviously this does not take away the need for our wrestling with the text, using all the tools of scholarship at our disposal. Nor does it mean that the Spirit-filled student will necessarily get higher marks in a biblical examination than one who scorns the Spirit’s help. But it does mean that God will speak to us the message that He wants us to receive, and that He will use us to convey this message to other people.

Marshall in Roy Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 73.

Common Sense Hermeneutics

If God has implanted in our rational nature the fundamental principles of the hermeneutical art, then we may reasonably suppose that when He addresses a revelation to us, He intends and expects that we shall interpret it in accordance with the laws of that nature which He has given us.

Stuart in Roy Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 57.

Common Sense Hermeneutics

The principles of interpretation, as to their substantial and essential elements, are no invention of man, no product of his effort and learned skill. No, they can scarcely be said with truth to have been discovered by him. They are coeval with our nature. They were known to the antediluvians. They were practiced upon in the garden of Eden by the progenitors of our race. Ever since man was created and endowed with the powers of speech, and made a communicative, social being, he has had occasion to practice upon the principles of interpretation and has actually done so…Interpretation, then, in its basic or fundamental principles, is a native art, if I may so speak. It is coeval with the power of uttering words. It is of course a universal art; it is common to all nations, barbarous as well as civilized.

Stuart in Roy Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 54.

Author's Intention

Thus we still contend that the principles of interpretation are as natural and universal as is speech itself. To argue the reverse (in human speech which assumes someone is listening with understanding) is either to involve oneself in downright duplicity or ultimately to be reduced to a solipsism where only I speak, and only I know what I am saying. All men and women in all cultures are made in the image of God. And when this fact is joined with a biblical concept of truth as having an objective grounding and reference point in the nature of God and in the doctrine of creation, the possibility for adequate (even if no one known comprehensively except for God) transcultural communication has been fairly provided and secured.

Kaiser in Roy Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 49.

New Hermeneutic

At the heart of Gadamer’s concern was the premise that the meaning of a text was not the same as the author’s meaning. The author’s meaning was, in any case, inaccessible to us. Instead, the meaning of a text was in its subject matter, which was at once independent of both the author and reader, and somehow also shared by both of them. Moreover, no one could ever say this is the meaning of a text, since the number of possible meanings was practically endless and constantly changing. And, argued Gadamer, what a text meant to an author could not be reproduced in the present. The past was alien to the present, for differences in time necessarily involved difference in being.

Kaiser in Roy Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 47.

Subversive Reading

Let’s do a subversive reading on a popular children’s film. The movie Beauty and the Beast seems harmless to us – charming, vintage Disney, a story about the transforming power of love. But under postmodern analysis, the underlying oppositions create an entirely different picture. The heroine in defined by her physical appearance, “Belle.” Therefore, women are important primarily in terms of their looks, and, consequently, how they can please men. The film explains that Belle is responsible for her fumbling father. In other words, like all patriarchy, the father has the authority, but his wards are responsible to make things come out right. In love, the movie pictures a woman as giving herself wholly for the reform of the “Beast,” or man whom she loves. Indeed, his good is accomplished only through her love and sacrifice. Deep inside a man, as beastly as he might appear on the outside, is a gentle, loving prince. The responsibility to manifest this good side falls, not to the man, but to his servile lover. The story is made to appear to be a law of nature; as the theme song proclaims, “tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme . . .” In reality, according to the subversive reading of the script, a postmodern critic might see this film as a prescription for neurosis, abuse, and patriarchy.

Dennis McCallum, The Death of Truth (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1996), 92.

Authority of Scripture

We should not interpret the Scriptures by the Creeds, but the Creeds by the Scriptures.

Spener in Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation Bampton Lectures 1885 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 355.

Luther, Martin

Luther was the “intensified self” of the German nation. This man it is a recent fashion in the Church of England to revile—and would to God that they who revile him would render to mankind but one of the very least of his many services! He gave to the Germans their Bible; he gave them the perfection of their language; he gave them the sense of their unity; he gave them the conviction of their freedom before God; he gave them the prayers which rise night and morning from thousands of hearts; he gave them the burning hymns, rich in essential truth, and set to mighty music, which are still daily poured forth by millions of voices; he gave them the example of a family life, pure, simple, and humbly dependent upon God. “To have lifted the load of sin from many consciences—to have reconciled nature and duty, purity and passion—to have made woman once more the faithful helpmeet of God’s servants as of other men—to have been the founder of countless sweet and peaceful homes—is no small part of Luther’s true glory.” But his highest glory—the glory he valued most—was to have fulfilled the vow of the Doctorate—juro me veritatem evangelicam pro virili defensurum—and to have given to the people whom he loved an open Bible which could be closed no more.

Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation Bampton Lectures 1885 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 323.

Authoritative Hermeneutics

The plague of the Church for above a thousand years has been the enlarging our creed, and making more fundamentals than God ever made.

Baxter in Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation Bampton Lectures 1885 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 243.

Neo-Orthodoxy

Between the two world wars, the work of Barth and Bultmann spawned a new theological movement called neo-orthodoxy (or dialectical theology). Dominated by Barth and another Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner, three basic assumptions guided the approach of neo-orthodox theologians to biblical interpretation. First, God is a subject not an object (a “Thou” not an “It”). Thus, the Bible’s words cannot convey knowledge of God as abstract propositions; one can only know him in a personal encounter. Such encounters are so subjective, mysterious, and miraculous that they elude the objective measurements of science. Second, a great gulf separates the Bible’s transcendent God from fallen humanity. Indeed, he is so transcendent that only myths can bridge this gulf and reveal him to people. Thus, neo-orthodoxy downplayed the historicity of biblical events, preferring to view them as myths that conveyed theological truth in historical dress. Third, neo-orthodox theologians believed that truth was ultimately paradoxical in nature. Hence, they accepted opposite biblical ideas as paradoxes, thereby implicitly denying that any type of underlying rational coherence bound the diverse ideas of Scripture together.

William Klein, Craig Blomberg, and Robert Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993) 48.

Demythologizing

The restatement of mythology is a requirement of faith itself. For faith needs to be emancipated from its association with every worldview expressed in objective terms, whether it be a mythical or a scientific one…it has tried to project God and his acts into the sphere of objective reality.

R. Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth, 210.

Demythologizing

Demythologizing is the radical application of the doctrine of justification by faith to the sphere of knowledge and thought. Like the doctrine of justification, de-mythologizing destroys every longing for security. There is no difference between security based on good works and security built on objectifying knowledge. The man who desires to believe in God must know that he has nothing at his disposal on which to build his faith, that he is, so to speak, in a vacuum.

R. Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribners, 1958), 84.

Existential Hermeneutics

Here is perhaps the heart of existentialism. All effort to seek the meaning of one’s life in this world, whether by money, or relationships, or accomplishments, or tradition, or anything else that one can have, is inauthentic existence, and doomed to death. Only when one looks to one’s future possibility, to what one can be, and continually decides to act on the basis of that future possibility, does one live authentically. This, says Bultmann, is love. Love seeks nothing for itself, but always denies one’s self, not seeking one’s own security, but in faith choosing insecurity, the insecurity of faith in what is not phenomenally experienced.

Dan McCartney and Charles Clayton, Let the Reader Understand (Bridgepoint, 1994), 107.

Rudolph Bultmann

In all such factual knowledge or knowledge of principles the world is presumed to have the character of something objective, passive, accessible to simple observation. That is, the world is conceived in conformity with the Greek understanding of being…In such a conception of the world as an objective entity, man himself is regarded as an object (as a fragment of the cosmos); his self-understanding is achieved along with the understanding of the world (and vice versa)…But the existence of man does not have the character of an objective entity but is historic existence; where it is recognized that man in his history can become a new person and consequently can also newly understand himself; where, therefore, it is recognized that the being of man is potentiality to be. That potentiality to be is always at risk; its possibilities are grasped each time by man in resolve, in decision. An understanding of these possibilities of man’s existence here and now would obviously be a new understanding each time, since a historical situation with its character of possibility is not understood if it is conceived as a “case” illustrating a general law. The historical situation cannot possibly be “seen” in the Greek sense as an objective fact; it can only be heard as a summons.

R. Bultmann, Faith and Understanding, ed. R. Funk and L.P. Smith (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 187.

Rudolph Bultmann

All historical phenomena which are subject to this kind of historical investigation are only relative entities, entities which exist only within an immense inter-related complex. Nothing which stands within this inter-relationship can clam absolute value. Even the historical Jesus is a phenomenon among other phenomena, not an absolute entity.

R. Bultmann, Faith and Understanding, ed. R. Funk and L.P. Smith (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 31.

Check the Context

Apocalypse Now

I discovered this lovely poster on the outside of an Adventist Church in Bartlesville, OK.

Philo

Let us follow him from the beginning in his book “On the Allegories of the sacred Laws.” “It would,” he tells us, “be a sign of great simplicity to think that the world was created in six days or indeed at all in time.” Six, therefore, is only mentioned because it is a perfect number, being the first which is produced by the multiplication of two unequal factors. On the seventh day God did not “rest,” but, having desisted from the creation of mortal creatures, began the formation of more divine beings; and the word should be rendered “He cause to rest.” Nature delights in the number seven. There are seven stars in the Bear, seven parts of the soul, seven viscera, seven limbs, seven secretions, seven vowels, seven tones of the voice, seven strings to the lyre; and by God’s “causing to rest” on the seventh day is meant that when reason “which is holy according to the number has entered into the soul, the number six is then arrested, and all the mortal things which this number appears to make.” By “the green herb of the field” Moses means “that portion of the mind which is perceptible only by intellect.” The verse “God did not rain upon the earth,” means that God did not shed the perceptions of things upon the senses. To take literally the words “God planted a Paradise in Eden” is impiety; “let not such fabulous nonsense even enter our minds.” The meaning is that God implants terrestrial virtue in the human race. The tree of life is that most general virtue which some people call goodness. Its four heads are the cardinal virtues. Pheison is derived from pheidomai “I spare,” and means prudence, and being an illustrious virtue it is said to compass the whole land of Evilat where there is gold. The name Gihon means “chest” or an animal which attacks with its horns, and therefore stands for courage, and it compasses Ethiopia or humiliation; in other words, it makes hostile demonstrations against cowardice. Tigris is temperance; the name is connected with a tiger because it resolutely opposes desire. Euphrates means fertility and stands for justice. Again, Pheison means “change of the mouth,” and Evilat “bringing forth,” which is an appropriate name for folly which always aims at the unattainable, and is destroyed by prudence manifested by speaking, i.e. by the changing of the mouth! The carbuncle and emerald of the land of Evilat stand for Judah and Issachar. The Euphrates does not mean the river, but the correction of manners. The literal statement that God cast Adam into a deep sleep and made Eve of one of his ribs is fabulous; the meaning is that God took the power which dwells in the outwards senses, and led it to the mind. The serpent means pleasure, which leads Philo into a long disquisition about the rod of Moses, and the tribe of Dan. Dan means “temperance” though he is the son of Bilhah, which means imbibing; he is a serpent in the path that is in the soul; he bites the heels of the horse, because “passion has four legs as a horse has,” and is an impetuous beast and full of insolence, and the soul which is the rider of this horse falls backwards, i.e. falls from the passions when they have been wounded.

Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation, Bampton Lectures 1885 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 143-144.

Medieval Hermeneutics

The schoolmen fell into the fundamental error of supposing that an elaboration of phraseology is a science of theology, and that we can add to our knowledge of God by dialectic formulae about Him. Can any other name but nonsense be given to discussions as to whether the Father begets the Divine Essence, or whether the Divine Essence begets the Son? Whether the Essence begets the Essence, or whether the Essence itself neither begets nor is begotten? Such questions, as Erasmus says, it is more learned to ignore than to know. For all these years, he says, we have been frivolously caviling in the schools whether we should say that Christ is composed or that He consists of two nature; and whether the right word to use respecting their union is “conflate,” or “commixed,” or “conglutinate,” or “coagmentate,” or “copulated,” or “ferruminate.” What again, are we to say of the immense and long-continued discussions as to whether the host still continued to be the body of Christ if it was eaten by a mouse, or the wine to be his blood when tasted by an insect which had fallen into the chalice?

Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation, Bampton Lectures 1885 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 292-293.

John Calvin

The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded.

Institutes, 1.7.4

Even if it wins reverence for itself by its own majesty, it seriously affects us only when it is sealed upon our hearts through the Spirit. Therefore, illumined by his power, we believe neither by our own nor by anyone else’s judgment that Scripture is from God; but above human judgment we affirm with utter certainty…that it has flowed to us from the very mouth of God by the ministry of men.

Institutes, 1.7.5

in McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 98.

John Calvin

Before I go any farther, it is worthwhile to say something about the authority of Scripture, not only to prepare our hearts to reverence it, but to banish all doubt. When that which is set forth is acknowledged as the Word of God, there is no one so deplorably insolent – unless devoid also both of common sense and of humanity itself – as to dare impugn the credibility of Him who speaks. Now daily oracles are not sent from heaven, for it pleased the Lord to hallow his truth to everlasting remembrance in the Scriptures alone [cf. John 5:39].

Calvin in Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.7.1 in McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 96.

James Cone

See especially after 12:00

Martin Luther

We should throw the Epistle of James out of this school [Wittenberg], for it doesn’t amount to much. It contains not a syllable about Christ…I maintain that some Jew wrote it who probably heard about Christian people but never encountered any.

From TischReden #5443 in McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 95.

Martin Luther

[Paul is] teaching us that the entire Scripture deals only with Christ everywhere, if it is looked at inwardly, even though on the face of it it may sound differently, by the use of shadows and figures.

In McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 94.

Martin Luther

The Holy Spirit is no skeptic, and the things he has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinion, but assertions—surer and more certain than sense and in life itself.

From Bondage of the Will In McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 94.

Martin Luther

If God does not open and explain Holy Writ, no one can understand it; it will remain a closed book, enveloped in darkness.

In McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 94.

Martin Luther

When I was a monk I allegorized everything. But after lecturing on the epistle to the Romans I came to have some knowledge of Christ. For therein I saw that Christ is not an allegory, and I learned to know what Christ actually was.

In McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 93.

Thomas Aquinas

The multiplicity of these senses does not produce equivocation or any other kind of multiplicity, seeing that these senses are not multiplied because one word signifies several things; but because the things signified by the words can themselves be types of other things. Thus in Holy Writ no confusion results, for all the senses are founded on one – the literal – from which alone can any argument be drawn, and not from those intended in allegory, as Augustine says. Nevertheless, nothing of Holy Scripture perishes on account of this, since nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense.

Summa Theologica 1.1.10 in McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 92.

Thomas Aquinas

The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify his meaning, not by words only (as man also can do) but by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it. For as the apostle says (Heb. 10:1) the Old Law is a figure of the New Law and [Pseudo-] Dionysius says: “The New Law itself is a figure of future glory.” Again, in the New Law, whatever our Head has done is a type of what we ought to do. Therefore, so far as the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law, there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense. Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says (Confessions xii), if, even according to the literal sense, one word in Holy Writ should have several senses.

Summa Theologica 1.1.10 in McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 91.

John Wycliffe

For him the Bible was an all-sufficient guide without contradictions; mirroring the truth of God, it gave access to metaphysical reality. Wycliffe not only insisted on the primacy of Scripture; he also refused to separate theology from the Bible and laid a foudnation for reform by calling for church doctrine and practice to line up with Scripture. Using Augustine's principles, Wycliffe believed that the law of love should guide interpretation, that faith precedes understanding, and that the essential message of Scripture is plain to those who submit humbly to illumination by the Holy Spirit. Although colored by allegory, his preaching and his theological works were always built upon the brammatical-historical sense of Scripture, and he said all allegory should have a Christological focus. Wycliffe stood for the priesthood of the believer: individuals could work out their own salvation with the help of the gospel and without the church being the essential mediator of grace. Since this called for a Bible in the common language, he began translating the Vulgate into English. This work was completed after his death, probably by Nicholas of Hereford and John Purvey.

James T. Spivey Jr. in Bruce Corley et al, Biblical Hermeneutics, 2nd ed (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002), 109.

Augustine

Augustine held a high view of Scripture: divinely inspired, it is without error and of supreme authority in matters of faith. With respect to its purpose, to bring salvation, the message is simple; but beyond that it is sublimely suprarational. Because unaided human reason cannot penetrate its profound truths, one must come to the Bible first in faith. It is faith which informs understanding, not vice versa. He said the goal of Bible study should be to learn how to love God and one’s neighbor. Therefore he guided interpretation by the twofold law of love: glean from it the principles of a pure life, which teach how to love God and one’s neighbor; and learn sound doctrine, which gives true knowledge about God and humankind.

James T. Spivey Jr. in Bruce Corley et al, Biblical Hermeneutics, 2nd ed (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002), 101.

Medieval Hermeneutics

Learn first what you should believe, and then go to the Bible and find it there.

Hugo of St. Victor

Medieval Hermeneutics

The Letter shows us what God and our fathers did; the allegory shows us where our faith is hid; the moral meaning gives us rules of daily life; the anagogy shows us where we end our strife.

in Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 38.

Medieval Hermeneutics

The foundation is in the earth and it does not always have smoothly fitted stones. The superstructure rises above the earth, and it demands a smoothly proportioned construction. . . . Even so the Divine Page, in its literal sense, contains many things which seem both to be opposed to each other and, sometimes, to impart something which smacks of the absurd or the impossible. But the spiritual meaning admits no opposition; in it, many things can be different from one another, but none can be opposed. The fact, also that the first course of stones to be laid upon the foundation is placed flush with a tarut cord, and these are the stones upon which the entire weight of the others rests and to which they are fitted - is not without its meaning. For this is like a sort of second foundation and is the basis of the entire superstructure. This foundation both carries what is placed upon it and is itself carried by the first foundation. All things rest upon the first foundation but are not fitted to it in every way. As to the latter foundation, everything both rests upon it and is fitted to it. The first one carries the superstructure and underlies the superstructure. The second one carries the superstructure and is not only under the superstructure but part of it. The foundation which is under the truth as we have said stands for history, and the superstructure which is built upon it we have said suggests allegory.

Hugo of St. Victor, Didascalion VI.4. The Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor, 2nd edition, trans. Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991): 140-141.

Is Barney the Antichrist?

Proof that Barney, the cute purple dinosaur, is the Antichrist can be ascertained with a little numerical study of his name and description.
Given: Barney, a cute purple dinosaur.
Step 1: Extract the Roman numerals from the given.
(Remember since the Romans had no letter 'U', we must replace each instance of 'U' with a "V")
Initial conversion: BARNEY A CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
Roman Numercial extraction: C V V L D I V
Step 2: Add them: 100 + 5 + 5 + 50 + 500 + 1 + 5 = 666
Irrefutable proof! Christian Parents are advised to get all their kids Barney tapes and burn them!

from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/6528/anti.htm

Jewish Hermeneutics

R. Simeon says, “He who is going along the way and repeating [his Torah tradition] but interrupts his repetition and says, ‘How beautiful is that tree! How beautiful is that ploughed field!’—Scripture reckons it to him as if he has become liable for his life.”

Abot, 3:7, C

Application

He would say, “Anyone whose deeds are more than his wisdom—his wisdom will endure. And anyone whose wisdom is more than his deeds—his wisdom will not endure.

Abot 3:9, II

Jewish Hermeneutics

R. Eleazar Hisma says, “The laws of bird offerings and the beginning of a woman’s menstruation period—they are indeed the essentials of the Torah. Calculations of the equinoxes and reckoning the numerical value of letters are the savories of wisdom.

Abot, 3:18

Jewish Hermeneutics

R. Aqiba says, “Laughter and lightheadedness turn lewdness into a habit. Tradition is a fence for the Torah. Tithes are a fence for wealth. Vows are a fence for abstinence. A fence for wisdom is silence.”

Abot, 3:13

Application

R. Ishmael, his son, says, “He who learns so as to teach—they give him a chance to learn and to teach. He who learns so as to carry out his teachings—they give him a chance to learn, to teach, to keep, and to do.” R. Sadoq says, “Do not make [Torah teachings] a crown with which to glorify yourself or a spade with which to dig. (So did Hillel say [M. 1:13], “He who uses the crown perishes.”) “Thus have you learned: Whoever derives worldly benefit from teachings of Torah takes his life out of this world.”

Abot 4:5

Humility

R. Levitas of Yabneh says, “Be exceedingly humble, for the hope of humanity is the worm.”

Abot 4:4, A.

Application

There are four sorts among those who go to the study house: he who goes but does not carry out [what he learns]—he has at least the reward for the going. He who practices but does not go [to study]—he has at least the reward for the doing. He who both goes and practices—he is truly pious. He who neither goes nor practices—he is truly wicked.

Abot 5:14 V

Attitude of the Reader

There are four traits among those who sit before the sages: a sponge, a funnel, a strainer, and a sifter. A sponge—because he sponges everything up; a funnel—because he takes in on one side and lets out on the other; a strainer—for he lets out the wine and keeps in the lees; and a sifter—for he lets out the flour and keeps in the finest flour.

Abot 5:15

Authority of Scripture

The phrase “authority of scripture” can make Christian sense only if it is a shorthand for “the authority of the triune God, exercised somehow through scripture.”

N.T. Wright, The Last Word (San Francisco: Harper, 2005), 23.

Use of the OT in the NT

“…A very conservative count discloses unquestionably at least 295 separate references to the Old Testament. These occupy some 352 verses of the New Testament, or more than 4.4 percent. Therefore one verse in 22.5 of the New Testament is a quotation.” When you take OT allusions into account “it can therefore be asserted, without exaggeration, that more than 10 percent of the New Testament text is made up of citations or direct allusions to the Old Testament…278 different OT verses are cited in the New Testament: 94 from the Pentateuch, 99 from the Prophets, and 85 from the Writings. Out of the 22 books in the Hebrew reckoning of the canon only six (Judges-Ruth, Song, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles) are not explicitly referred to.”

Roger Nicole in Roy B. Zuck ed., Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 183-184.

Translation

Every translation is a messianic act, which brings redemption nearer.

Franz Rosenzweig in Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 119.

Structuralism

This method is unconcerned with the author’s intended meaning and seeks only to uncover the structure behind the writer’s expressed thought, the “common world” of the underlying codes that address us directly. Since appearances do not lead to reality, the interpreter can enter this common world only by uncovering the structures behind the whole rather than behind the parts, the plot development and pluri-signification (many meanings) of the text rather than the past meaning of the surface statements.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 473.

Trinitarian Hermeneutics

Postmodern thought has developed an “a/theology” built on the premise that the author/Author is dead, leading to a pluralistic hermeneutic. However, speech act theory in a Christian interpretive approach recognizes that “the Father is the locator, the Son is his preeminent illocution…(and) the Holy Spirit—the condition and power of receiving the sender’s message—is God the perlocutor, the reason that his words do not return to him empty.”

Vanhoozer in Osborne, 495.

Speech Act Theory

J.L. Austin proposed in How to Do Things with Words (1962) that there are three levels of language: locutionary, in which meaning is presented (“go home”); illocutionary, in which an action occurs (a command or request); and perlocutionary, in which an effect is caused on the hearer/reader (departure).

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 494.

Source Criticism

An approach to texts that seeks to discover the literary sources of a document. The assumption is that certain biblical texts underwent a lengthy process of growth and com-position, both oral and written. Source critics examine texts in order to discover evidence of sources on the basis of language and style, the use of divine names, doublets of stories and any discrepancies within or between passages. In OT studies, the most prominent field for source criticism has been the Pentateuch. Source critics, for example, observe that Genesis 1–2:4a uses the name Elohim when referring to God, and is an orderly and tightly constructed account of creation, with the humans, male and female, being the climax of creation. In contrast, Genesis 2 uses Yahweh Elohim, is a story (not a day-by-day account) and has Adam being created first, then Eve. Thus source critics conclude that these two different accounts of creation derived from two different sources, the Priestly source (P) and the Yahwist source (J) respectively. In the study of the Gospels, source critics have the four Gospels, and particularly the three Synoptic Gospels, to compare with each other in order to construct the literary sources used. Source criticism addresses the problem of disparity between styles and accounts in a single document, but does not answer the question of how these accounts now fit into a unified composition.

Arthur G. Patzia and Petrotta, Anthony J, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 107

Sociology of Knowledge

Basically, sociology of knowledge states that no act of coming to understanding can escape the formative power of the background and the paradigm community to which an interpreter belongs.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 505.

Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1768-1834)

Schleiermacher’s system has two major factors, the grammatical and the psychological, which correspond to the two spheres of knowledge—the external linguistic codes and the internal consciousness. Grammatical inquiry attempts to develop the linguistic dimension by demarcating the meaning of individual concepts on the basis of the surrounding words. He was ahead of his time in demanding that meaning be seen in the whole, not in isolated parts. Yet he is best known for the psychological aspect. Schleiermacher taught that the interpreter should align himself with the mind of the author and re-create the whole thought of the text as part of the author’s life. The interpreter’s task then is to reconstruct not only the text but the whole process of creating the thought on the part of the author.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 468.

Roman Catholic Hermeneutics

The Holy, Ecumenical and General Synod of Trent…having this aim always before its eyes, that errors may be removed and the purity of the Gospel be preserved in the Church, which was before promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures and which our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God first published by his own mouth and then commanded to be preached through his Apostles to every creature as a source of all saving truth and of discipline of conduct; and perceiving that this truth and this discipline are contained in written books and in unwritten traditions, which were received by the Apostles from the lips of Christ himself, or, by the same apostles, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, and were handed on and have come down to us; following the example of the orthodox Father, this Synod receives and venerates, with equal pious affection and reverence, all the books both of the New and Old Testaments…together with the said Traditions…as having been given either from the lips of Christ or by the dictation of the Holy Spirit and preserved in unbroken succession in the Catholic Church.

Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (London: Oxford, 1963), 261.