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.
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