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.

Rhetorical Criticism

An approach to the biblical text that concerns itself with the way language is used in a text to persuade its audience. Style, structure and figures of speech have an affect on the audience or reader of a text, and the rhetorical critic focuses on how this “rhetoric” works rather than focusing on the historical setting of a story or poem. In the OT, this approach is successful in stories where a Leitwort or Leitmotiv (“lead-word, “lead-theme”) recurs throughout the story and is used in various ways (e.g., the term “brother” occurs seven times in the short passage concerning Cain and Abel to highlight the disturbing enmity of these two). It is also particularly helpful in poetry, where the conscious and unconscious selection of words and images—and the rejection of alternate words and images—creates an impression on the reader. For example, Micah 2:6–11 uses various forms of the word drip to entrap those who scoff at the prophet and accuse him of dripping/ prophesying: these scoffers who prophesy of wine will “drip” (words) for the people (Mic 2:11). In NT studies, a number of scholars have attempted to interpret the NT letters according to ancient rhetorical categories. These usually include: (1) introduction (exordium); (2) narration (narratio); (3) proposition (propositio); (4) confirmation (probatio); (5) refutation (refutatio); and (6) conclusion (peroratio). The rhetorical critic focuses on the effect the words in a passage have on an audience, how the passage was intended to persuade its audience to a particular point of view.

Arthur G. Patzia and Petrotta, Anthony J, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 101

Redaction Criticism

An approach to a text that seeks to show how authors or editors have selected, shaped and framed sources in composing their work. This approach generally focuses on larger literary units rather than individual verses and often sees the editors of the biblical books as compilers rather than authors in their own rights. In the case of the Gospels, redaction criticism can be very helpful in showing, for example, how Matthew used Mark and what purpose he had in mind, since we can place the two texts side by side and use Luke as a further point of comparison. Redaction criticism also seeks to show the intentions and viewpoints of books or even a series of books (e.g., Luke-Acts; Deuteronomistic History).

Arthur G. Patzia and Petrotta, Anthony J, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 100

Preaching and Hermeneutics

An effective expositor is first an effective exegete. Exegesis precedes exposition, just as baking a cake comes before serving it. The exegetical process takes place in the workshop, the warehouse. It is a process in private, a perspiring task in which the Bible student examines the backgrounds, meanings, and forms of words; studies the structure and parts of sentences; seeks to ascertain the original textual reading (textual criticism); etc. But not all those details are shared when he preaches or teaches the Bible. An artist, in the process of creating his work, agonizes over the minutia of his painting, but in the end he wants others to see not the fine details but the whole and how the parts are related.

Roy B. Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 24-25.

Postmodern Hermeneutics

Think of the text as a playground. On such a field a person can play whatever game they wish—kickball, hide and seek, volleyball, softball. The field has only the possibility of play; the group decides which game they wish to play and what rules they want to govern the game. So it is with a text according to this view. A text has only a possibility of understanding. The actual process and result of interpretation is decided by the reader not the book.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 478.

Postmodern Hermeneutics

As an institution, the author is dead: his civil states, his biographical person have disappeared; disposed, they no longer exercise over his work the formidable paternity whose account literary history, teaching, and public opinion had the responsibility of establishing and renewing.

Barthes in Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 476.

Postmodern Hermeneutics

"When did Christian narratives become meta-narrative? In whose eyes and for whom? Are we exaggerating the place of Christian narratives in a world where Christianity is not the dominant religion? Even though governments with strong military powers and rigorous warfare tactics are from Christian countries, Christianity is not the grand religion. Why do we imagine that Christian narratives are the only narratives that post modernity challenges? Given that we are Christians, we see our narratives as grand. They are grand for us, and we are many; but they are not grand for everyone, and they are more.

Havea, Jione, "Is There a Home for the Bible in a Postmodern World?" Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Fall 2007, Vol. 42 Issue 4.

Philo

And God says, he “who slays Cain shall suffer sevenfold” (Gen. 4:15). But I do not know what analogy this real meaning of this expression bears to the literal interpretation of it, “He shall suffer sevenfold.” For he has not said what is to be sevenfold, nor has he described the sort of penalty, nor by what means such penalty is excused or paid. Therefore, one must suppose all these things are said figuratively and allegorically; and perhaps what God means to set before us here is something of this sort. The irrational part of the soul is divided into seven parts, the senses of seeing, of smelling, of hearing, of tasting, and of touch, the organs of speech, and the organs of generation. If, therefore, any one were to slay the eighth, that is to say, Cain, the ruler of them all, he would also paralyze all the seven. (Det. 166b-168b).

Philo in Bruce Corley, Biblical Hermeneutics (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002), 62.

Philo's Rules of Interpretation

(From Gary Hall, Lincoln Christian Seminary)
1. The literal sense is excluded if: the statement is unworthy of God, There is a contradiction, or the allegory is obvious.
2. The literal and allegorical sense can be used side by side when: an expression is repeated, a word is superfluous, there is an apparent tautology, there is a change of expression.
3. Words may be explained apart from their punctuation, especially if there is a contradiction.
4. Use of synonyms implies allegory.
5. Plays on words are permissible to get the deeper sense.
6. Particles, adverbs, and prepositions may be given all their meanings in one context; words may be altered; an unusual expression means something mystical.
7. All numbers and names of places that have etymologies are symbols for moral and spiritual things.

Philo

Consider how he handled Gen. 2:14 (A river flowed through Eden and watered the garden. From there the river branched out to become four rivers). He determined that the Edenic River represented goodness, while the other four represented the four great virtues of Greek philosophy – prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. In other words, the number four in the biblical text suggested to him four items from Greek philosophy.

William Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 26.

Pesher

And God told Habakkuk to write down that which would happen to the final generation, but He did not make known to him when time would come to an end. And as for that which he said, That he who reads may read it speedily (Hab. 2:2b). Interpreted [pesher] this concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of his servants the Prophets. For there shall be yet another vision concerning the appointed time. It shall tell of the end and it shall not lie (Hab. 2:3a). Interpreted [pesher], this means that the final age shall be prolonged, and shall exceed all that the prophets have said; for the mysteries of God are astounding. If it tarries, wait, for it shall surely come and shall not be late (Hab. 2:3b). Interpreted [pesher], this concerns the men of truth who keep the Law, whose hands shall not slacken in the service of truth when the final age is prolonged. For all the ages of God read the appointed end as he determines for them in the mysteries of His wisdom (1 QpHab vi 12b-vii 14).

In Bruce Corley, Biblical Hermeneutics (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002), 64-65.

Pentecostal Hermeneutics

If the church had a more dynamic sense of God’s inspiration in the twentieth century, it would be more effective in its witness and outreach. It is well and good to protect the distinctiveness of the Bible, but to think only in terms of its inspiration as absolutely different in kind from inspiration in our time is too high a price to pay. Christians today need to have the same sense of being God-motivated and God-sent as did the biblical writers and interpreters. In a genuine sense, the difficulty of interpreting God’s record of revelation to this complex age requires as much of God’s inbreathing and wisdom as did the process of interpretation in the biblical periods.

Dewey Beegle, Scripture, Tradition, and Infallibility (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 309.

Pentecostal Hermeneutics

It may confidently be anticipated, as the present apostasy increases, that Christ will manifest His deity and lordship in increasing measure through miracle-signs, including healings. We are not to say, therefore, that the word is sufficient.

Henry Frost, Miraculous Healing (New York: Revell, 1939), 109-110.

Pentecostal Hermeneutics

Pentecostals, in spite of some of their excesses, are frequently praised for recapturing for the church her joyful radiance, missionary enthusiasm, and life in the Spirit. But they are at the same time noted for bad hermeneutics…First, their attitude toward Scripture regularly has included a general disregard for scientific exegesis and carefully thought-out hermeneutics. In fact, hermeneutics has simply not been a Pentecostal thing. Scripture is the Word of God and is to be obeyed. In place of scientific hermeneutics there developed a kind of pragmatic hermeneutics—obey what should be taken literally; spiritualize, allegorize, or devotionalize the rest…Secondly, it is probably fair—and important—to note that in general the Pentecostals’ experience has preceded their hermeneutics. In a sense, the Pentecostal tends to exegete his experience.

Gordon Fee, “Hermeneutics and Historical Precedent—A Major Problem in Pentecostal Hermeneutics” in Russell P. Spittler, ed., Perspectives on the New Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), 119-122.

Authoritative Hermeneutics

Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That is truly and properly 'Catholic,' as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally. We shall hold to this rule if we follow universality [i.e. ecumenicity], antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike.

St. Vincent of Lerins, from Chapter 4 of The Commonitory (aka The Commitorium), AD 434 in http://www.ancient-future.net/vcanon.html

Allegory

Now the (number) 18 (is represented) by two letters, J=10 and E=8—thus you have “JE,” (the abbreviation for) “JEsus.” And because the cross, represented by the letter T (=300), was destined to convey special significance, it also says 300. he makes clear, then, that JEsus is symbolized by the two letters (JE = 18), while in the one letter (T = 300) is symbolized the cross.

Barnabas 9:8-9 interpretation of Genesis 17:14 in William Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 33.

Irenaeus

For every prophecy, before it comes about, is an enigma and a contradiction to men; but when the time comes, and what was prophesied takes place, it receives a most certain exegesis. And therefore when the Law is read by Jews at the present time, it is like a myth; for they do not have the explanation of everything which is the coming the Son of God as man. But when it is read by Christians, it is a treasure, hidden in the field but revealed by the cross of Christ. The true exegesis was taught by the Lord himself after his resurrection.”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.26.1 in Dan McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 86.

Principles of Interpretation

1. A close reading of the text cannot be done without a perspective provided by one’s preunderstanding as identified by a “sociology of knowledge” perspective.
2. I must distinguish presupposition from prejudice.
3. We must seek controls that enable us to work with presuppositions (the positive) rather than to be dominated by prejudices (the negative).
a. We must be open to new possibilities.
b. We must understand the dangers of merely assuming our presuppositions.
c. The interpreter must not only address the text but must allow the text to address him or her (the hermeneutical circle).
d. Polyvalent interpretations per se are unnecessary, but a pluralistic or polyvalent attitude is critical.
4. We must all good hermeneutical principles to shape our exegesis and to control our tendency to read our prejudices into the text.
a. Consider the genre or type of literature and interpret each according to the proper rules of their particular language game.
b. The structural development of the passage provides a control against artificial atomistic exegesis.
c. Semantic research further helps the reader to discover the sense and reference of the passage.
d. A judicious use of background information helps us avoid the opposite error, namely, ignoring the historical aspect in favor of the poetic.
e. The implied author and implied reader in the text provide an indispensable perspective for the intended meaning of a text.
f. The question of verification of competing interpretive possibilities is essential for any system. This is a threefold process: inductively, deductively, sociologically.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 516-519.

Origen

The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord’s body, the [inn], which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church…The manager of the [inn] is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior’s second coming.

His interpretation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Origen, Homily 34.3, Joseph T. Lienhard, trans., Origen: Homilies on Mark, Fragments on Mark (1996), 138.

Origen

The infants of Babylon, which means “confusion,” are the confused thoughts caused by evil which have just been implanted and are growing up in the soul. The man who takes hold of them, so that he breaks their heads by the firmness and solidity of the Word, is dashing the infants of Babylon against the rock.

His interpretation of Psalms 137:8-9 from Against Celsus 7.22 in Dan McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 89.

Origen (d. 254)

Assumption 1: Scripture is divinely inspired. Therefore:
1. Its legal precepts are superior
2. It is powerful in changing lives
3. Biblical prophecy comes true
4. Like Jesus, the Bible is divine but in human form
5. The Bible contains hidden secrets

Assumption 2: Scripture should be interpreted according to its nature. Therefore:
1. Not every text has a literal meaning, but every text does have a spiritual meaning.
2. The spiritual meaning is not always plain or easily understood.
3. Scripture has a threefold meaning, a body (literal meaning), a soul (a psychical meaning relating to the will), and a spirit (spiritual meaning which speaks of Christ).
4. The problems in Scripture are there to hinder us from being too enamored of the literal meaning.

From his On First Principles in Dan McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 88.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844-1900)

What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are: metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.

In Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 483.

Neo-Orthodoxy

The neo-orthodox view is that the Bible is a fallible human book. Nevertheless, it is the instrument of God’s revelation to us, for it is a record of God’s personal revelation in Christ. Revelation, however, is personal; the Bible is not a verbally inspired revelation from God. It is merely an errant human means through which one can encounter the personal revelation who is Christ. In itself it is not the Word of God; at best, the Bible only becomes the Word of God to the individual when he encounters Christ through it.

Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 175.

Montanism

They have been deceived by two females, Priscilla and Maximilla by name, whom they hold to be prophetesses, asserting that into them the Paraclete spirit entered…They magnify these females above the Apostles and every gift of Grace, so that some of them go so far as to say that in them there is something more than Christ…They introduce novelties in the form of fasts and feasts, abstinences and diets of radishes, giving these females as their authority.

Hippolytus, in Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (London: Oxford, 1963), 77.

Luther, Martin

Here it is, plain and unvarnished. Unless I am convicted of error by the testimony of Scriptures or…by manifest reasoning I stand convicted by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God’s Word, I cannot and will not recant anything…On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

Luther at Worms in Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (London: Oxford, 1963), 201.

Liberation Hermeneutics

Much contemporary theology seems to start from the challenge of the nonbeliever. He questions our religious world and faces it with a demand for profound purification and renewal… However, the challenge in a continent like Latin America does not come primarily from the man who does not believe, but from the man who is not a man, who is not recognized as such by the existing social order: he is in the ranks of the poor, the exploited; he is the man, who scarcely knows that he is a man. His challenge is not aimed first at our religious world, but at our economic, social, political, and cultural world; therefore, it is an appeal for a revolutionary transformation of the very bases of a dehumanizing society. The question is not therefore how to speak of God in an adult world, but how to proclaim Him as a Father in a world that is not human.

“Liberation, Theology, and Proclamation,” in C. Geffre and G. Gutierrez, eds, (1974) The Mystical and Political Dimensions of the Christian Faith, 69.

Lectio Divina

Lectio divina comprises four elements: lectio (we read the text), meditation (we meditate the text), oratio (we pray the text), and contemplation (we live the text)…Reading (lectio) is a linear act, but spiritual (divina) reading is not—any of the elements may be at the fore at any one time.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 91.

Hillel's Rules

Hillel’s Rules of Interpretation (From Gary Hall, Lincoln Christian Seminary)
1. A meaning applied to a lesser case will certainly apply to a more important case. (Qal wahomer)
2. Verbal analogy from one verse to another. The same consideration can be given to same words in different verses. (Gezerah shawah)
3. Building up a family from a single text. The same phrase found in several texts allows the consideration given to it in one place to apply to all. (Binyan ab mikathub ‘ehad)
4. Building up a family from two texts. A principle derived from relating two passages together can be applied to others. (Binyan ab mishene kethubim)
5. The general and the particular. A general rule may be restricted in application by another verse, or conversely, a particular rule may be extended to a general principle. (Kelal upherat)
6. A difficulty in one text may be solved by comparing it with another that is similar. (Kayoze bo bemaqom ‘aher)
7. A meaning may be established by its context. (Dabar halarned me’inyano)

Jewish Hermeneutics

On the appeal to tradition:
R. Eliezer says: If they had not brought the circumcision knife on the eve of Sabbath it may be brought openly on the Sabbath; and in time of danger a man may cover it up in the presence of witnesses. R. Eliezer said moreover: They may cut wood [on the Sabbath] to make charcoal in order to forge an iron implement. R. Akiba laid down a general rule: Any act of work that can be done on the eve of Sabbath does not override the Sabbath, but what cannot be done on the eve of the Sabbath overrides the Sabbath.

Shabbath 19.1 in William Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 24.

Jewish Hermeneutics

When do we learn of a garden-bed, six hand breadths spare, that five kinds of seed may be sown therein, four on the sides and one in the middle? Because it is written, For as the earth bringeth forth her bud and as the barden causeth the seeds sown in it to spring forth [Is. 61:11]. It is not written Its seed, but the seeds sown in it. R. Judah said: “The earth bringeth forth her bud”; “bringeth forth”—one; “her bud”—one; making two. “Seeds sown” means (at least) two more; making four; “causeth to spring forth”—one; making five in all.

Shabbath 9.2 in William Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 25.

Jewish Hermeneutics

On the appeal to literalism:
If either of them was maimed in the hand, or lame or dumb or blind or deaf, he cannot be condemned as a stubborn and rebellious son, for it is written, The shall his faith and his mother lay hold on him – so they were not maimed in the hand; and bring him out – so they were not lame; and they shall say – so they were not dumb; this is our son – so they were not blind; he will not obey our voice – so they were not deaf.

Sanhedrin 8.4 in William Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 24.

Homosexual Hermeneutics

It feels particularly appropriate that I should be writing this article during Holy Week, because coming out of the closet has been a resurrection experience. Every time the stone of fear is rolled away, and I can step out of the shadows of invisibility and silence into the light of daring to be seen and known and heard as a lesbian, I know once again in my bones that resurrection is real…No amount of teaching, preaching, or theologizing will convince me of the reality of the resurrection unless I have walked into the valley of the shadow of death and experienced a presence that did not let me go…I studied every Pauline passage in depth, wanting to believe that Paul was being misinterpreted by these students. While I believe there was some misinterpretation, I also concluded that I could not make Paul say everything I wanted him to say…Having come to this conclusion, I lost neither my fervor for biblical study nor my love of scripture. I was, however, both forced and freed to adopt a new hermeneutic. With a feminist hermeneutic, I did not stop with the question, “What does the Bible say about women?” but moved on to ask, “What do women have to tell us about the Bible?” I came to similar conclusions with regard to homosexuality and the Bible.

Melanie Morrison, “A Love that Won’t Let Go,” Sojourners, July 1991.

History of Religions School

A late nineteenth and early twentieth century “school” (German Schule) or scholarly movement that sought to interpret Judaism and Christianity in terms of their broader religious environment and historical legacy. These scholars, who were mostly German (such as H. Gunkel, W. Bousset, R. Reitzenstein, W. Wrede, R. Bultmann, W. Heitmüller), argued that Judaism and Christianity borrowed concepts, language and practices from other religious movements. So, for example, early Christian christology was indebted to a pre-Christian gnostic “primal man” myth, and there were antecedents for Christian baptism in the mystery religions. This movement is also known as the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule.

Arthur G. Patzia and Petrotta, Anthony J, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 59

Gadamer, Hans-Georg

“To understand it does not mean primarily to reason one’s way back into the past, but to have a present involvement in what is said…Texts do not ask to be understood as a living expression of the subjectivity of their writers…What is fixed in writing has detached itself from the contingency of its origin and its author and made itself free for new relationships.” [According to Gadamer] the interpreter’s prejudgments interrogate the text and are interrogated in turn by the text. Thereby subjectivity and objectivity merge together, and interpretation becomes application as new horizons of possibility are opened. In short, both text and interpreter take part in the historical process of interpretation.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 469-470.

Form Criticism

An interpretive approach that seeks to uncover the oral tradition that is embedded in the written texts we now possess and to classify them into certain categories or “forms” (German Formgeschichte, “history of forms”). These literary forms (laments, hymns, etc.) are thought to have had a particular function in the Sitz im Leben (“setting in life”) in which they originated. For example, Psalm 24 has the form of an entrance liturgy and may have originated with a ceremony in which the ark was brought into the temple, or with a yearly festival in which the enthronement of the Lord was celebrated. The psalm, however, works equally well with any symbolic entrance into a worship setting (e.g., Handel’s use of this psalm in his oratorio, the Messiah). In NT studies, form-critical scholars such as Martin Dibelius, Rudolf Bultmann and Vincent Taylor classified Jesus’ sayings into categories such as paradigms, legends, parables, miracle stories and pronouncement stories. Form criticism is helpful in identifying the different forms of literature (see genre) and the typical elements of those forms (thus highlighting the different ways authors use those forms), but it is more speculative and less successful in establishing the life setting of the forms.

Arthur G. Patzia and Petrotta, Anthony J, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 47

Reader's Response Criticism

The relationship between interpretation and text is thus reversed: interpretive strategies are not put into execution after reading; they are the shape of reading and because they are the shape of reading, they give texts their shape, making them rather than, as is usually assumed, arising from them.

In Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 479.

Feminist Hermeneutics

In 1923 feminist economist and philosopher Charlotte Perkins Gilman published a book called His Religion and Hers in which she outlines two fundamentally different orientations to life based on the crises of male and female experience. For man, historically as hunter and warrior, the pivotal experience is death, both as killer of animals and other humans and as one threatened by violent death himself. Male religion thus becomes centered on “blood mystery” of death and how to escape it. For woman, on the other hand, the pivotal experience is birth and her basic concern is how to nurture ongoing life here on earth. In Gilman’s words: To the death-based religion, the main question is, ‘What is going to happen to me after I am dead? – A posthumous egoism. To the birth-based religion, the main question is, ‘What is to be done for the child who is born?’ – an immediate altruism. The death-based religions have led to a limitless individualism, a demand for the eternal extension of personality…The birth-based religion is necessarily and essentially altruistic, a forgetting of oneself for the good of the child, and tends to develop naturally into love and labor for the widening range of family, state and world.

Reuther, Rosemary Radford, Sexism and God-Talk, Beacon Press: 1993, 236.

Feminist Hermeneutics

The ages of masculism are drawing to a close. Their dying days are lit up by the final flare of universal violence and despair such as the world has seldom before seen. Men of good will turn in every direction seeking cures for their perishing society, but to no avail. Any and all social reforms superimposed upon our sick civilization can be no more effective than a bandage on a gaping and putrefying wound. Only the complete and total demolition of the social body will cure the fatal illness. Only the overthrow of the three thousand year beast of masculist materialism will save the race.

Davis, Elizabeth Gould, The First Sex, 1971.

Feminist Hermeneutics

A feminist reading of the Bile is a complex affair. We must deal, as women, with a very ancient text which reflects different cultures, customs, epochs, relations, languages, and grammars. Above all, we have to confront androcentric and patriarchal passages - and interpretations - that have accumulated over the centuries. A hermeneutics guided by a focus on gender social relations should, therefore, be daring and go beyond the traditional canons of exegetical science. We need a hermeneutics of suspicion which is operative in all areas: texts, interpretations, traditions, translations, and exegetical methods. Gender theories are analytical tools that allow us to deconstruct texts and reveal the structure of the relations on which they are based. We can then construct a new text that seeks to be liberating in nature, including with regard to gender relations. We believe that this is the wish of God who created men and women in God's own image and likeness.

Pereira, Nancy Cardoso, Revista de Interpretacion Biblica Latinoamericana (Journal of Latin American Biblical Interpretation) No.5, 1997

The Role of Experience in Interpretation

What we must never be encouraged to do, although all of us are guilty of it over and over, is to force Scripture to fit our experience. Our experience is too small; it’s like trying to put the ocean into a thimble. What we want is to fit into the world revealed by scripture, to swim in this vast ocean.”

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 68.

The Role of Experience in Interpretation

The emphasis on Baalism was on psychological relatedness and subjective experience…The transcendence of the deity was overcome in the ecstasy of feeling…Baalism is worship reduced to the spiritual stature of the worshiper. Its canons are that it should be interesting, relevant, and exciting…Yahwism established a form of worship which was centered in the proclamation of the word of the covenant God. The appeal was made to the will. Man’s rational intelligence was roused to attention as he was called upon to respond as a person to the will of God. In Yahwism something was said—words which called men to serve, love, obey, act responsibly, decide…The distinction between the worship of Baal and the worship of Yahweh is a distinction between approaching the will of the covenant God which could be understood and known and obeyed, and the blind life-force in nature which could only be felt, absorbed, and imitated.

Eugene Peterson, “Baalism and Yahwism Updated,” Theology for Today (July 1972), 139-141.

Something to Remember at Christmas

The Mishnah states: "The father comes before (over) the mother under all circumstances, because both he and his mother are liable to pay honor to his father. And so with respect to study of Torah: If the son acquired merit [by sitting and studying] before the master, the master takes precedence over the father under all circumstances, because both he and his father are liable to pay honor to his master." Keritot 6.9

The Role of Experience in Interpretation

Experience alone is too flimsy a base on which to rest the Christian system. The mere fact that a psychological event has taken place in one’s brain cannot establish the truthfulness of the gospel…Religious sensation by itself can only prove itself…However unique an experience may be, it is capable of a number of radically differing interpretations. It may be only an encounter with one’s own subconscious. Those who place all their emphasis on a subjective validating process…eventually reduce the content of revelation and fit it to their taste. The central thing becomes that which comes across to me, rather than what God has done and spoken. The reason some theologians favor the use of drugs to heighten religious perception is patent. Whenever the existential cart is put before the historical horse, theology becomes a synthesis of human superstitions, and putting LSD into the communion wine is fair play!

Clark Pinnock, Set Forth Your Case (Chicago: Moody, 1967), 69-70.

Bad Exegesis

Bad Exegesis

Bad Exegesis

Bad Exegesis

If anyone asserted that the Emperor is not the monarch of the entire world, he would be a heretic; for he would make a pronouncement contrary to the decision of the Church and contrary to the text of the Gospel which says: “A decree went forth from Caesar Augustus that a census should be taken of all the world,” as St. Luke has it, and so Christ, too, recognized him as emperor and master.

A 14th century Spanish lawyer quoted by Francisco de Vitoria in J. Daryl Charles, Between Pacifism and Jihad (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 57.

Emerging Church Hermeneutics

A trademark feature of the emerging movement is that we believe all theology will remain a conversation about the Truth who is God in Christ through the Spirit, and about God's story of redemption at work in the church. No systematic theology can be final. In this sense, the emerging movement is radically Reformed. It turns its chastened epistemology against itself, saying, "This is what I believe, but I could be wrong. What do you think? Let's talk.”

Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” Christianity Today, February 2007, 38.

Devotional Use of the Bible

I sometimes marvel that God chose to risk his revelation in the ambiguities of language. If he had wanted to make sure that the truth was absolutely clear, without any possibility of misunderstanding, he should have revealed his truth by means of mathematics. Mathematics is the most precise, unambiguous language that we have. But then, of course, you can’t say “I love you” in algebra.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 93.

Devotional Use of the Bible

What I mean to insist upon is that spiritual writing – Spirit-sourced writing – requires spiritual reading, a reading that honors words as holy, words as a basic means of forming an intricate web of relationships between God and the human, between all things visible and invisible.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 4

Devotional Use of the Bible

"Someone once said: 'Other books were given for our information, the Bible was given for our transformation"...Truly, the Bible as the Word of God has an inherent power, but it is not a coercive power. That is, the Bible does not work its effects mechanically. We don't change just because we read it. Our minds may be engaged in the text, but something must happen in our hearts as well."

Tremper Longman III, Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind, 12.

Derrida, Jacques

Derrida defines deconstruction as a “decentering” process in which the central locus of a structure, that which gives it meaning, coherence and presence, has been disrupted and has become a “nonlocus in which an infinite number of sign-substitutions come into play…Derrida means that there is no actual “presence” of meaning in a text, because the symbols can no longer be identified with the original meaning. In the act of writing, the author’s intention (indeed his very presence) has been “expelled” from the autonomous text, which now “plays” in whatever interpretive playground the reader brings to it.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 483.

Deconstructionism

They [deconstructionists] are not hermeneutical anarchists but seek to free the reader/interpreter from the “false” constraints of Western thinking and from the search for final meaning in a text. From their viewpoint, they are liberationists!

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 485.

Deconstructionism

Five criticisms of deconstructionism from Thiselton:
1) If textual meaning is a community product, texts can never transform readers “from outside"
2) prophetic address has lost its power and in fact achieves the opposite, for its message is constructed by the very community it purports to address
3) notions like grace or revelation are illusions, since there are no givens
4) the “message of the cross” becomes no more than the “linguistic construct of a tradition”
5) nothing can ever be counted as error in the development of doctrine, for it is all little more than a social construct.

In Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 482.

Deconstructionism

Since all language is metaphor, and since metaphor is “dead of meaning at its core,” language is characterized by “absence” (the absence of literal meaning and of hermeneutical constraints). Therefore, multiple meaning necessarily results, as the perceiver provides the content for the autonomous and empty metaphor.

Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 476.

Context

It takes the whole Bible to read any part of the Bible.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 48.

Canonical Criticism

An approach that seeks to interpret the biblical books with respect to their authoritative status and theological context within the Bible. Canonical criticism thus focuses on the final form of the biblical texts rather than their earlier stages of composition or transmission (though recognition of the stages plays an integral role in some uses of this approach). Furthermore, canonical critics argue that the object of biblical interpretation is theological reflection within a community of faith. For example, Torah and the Gospels have a special function in the canon. They are set apart as first and foundational; hence the Prophets in the OT and Paul in the NT should be read in the light of the Torah and the Gospels respectively, even though the Prophets and Paul’s letters may predate the present form of the Torah and Gospels. Canonical criticism sees the Bible as “Scripture,” as authoritative writings of the community of faith, and incorporates theological reflection as part of the reading of a text.

Arthur G. Patzia and Petrotta, Anthony J, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 23

Black Hermeneutics

It is unthinkable that the oppressors could identify with oppressed existence and thus say something relevant about God's liberation of the oppressed. In order to be Christian theology, white theology must cease being white theology and become black theology by denying whiteness as an acceptable form of human existence and affirming blackness as God's intention for humanity.

James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, Twentieth Anniversary Edition (Orbis: 2006), 9.

Barth, Karl

Paul, as a child of his age, addressed his contemporaries. It is, however, far more important that, as Prophet and Apostle of the Kingdom of God, he veritably speaks to all men of every age. The differences between then and now, there and here, no doubt require careful investigation can only be to demonstrate that these differences are, in fact, purely trivial. The historical-critical method of Biblical investigation has its rightful place: It is concerned with the preparation of the intelligence—and this can never be superfluous. But, were I driven to choose between it and the venerable doctrine of Inspiration, I should without hesitation adopt the latter, which has a broader, deeper, more important justification. The doctrine of Inspiration is concerned with the labor of apprehending, without which no technical equipment, however complete, is of any use whatever.

Karl Barth, Preface to his commentary on Romans

Augustine

Augustine’s Six Rules: (From Robert Lowery, Lincoln Christian Seminary)
1. The authority of Scripture rests on the authority of the church – authority is given to the ancient text as the church receives it.
2. The obscurities in Scripture have been put there by God, and are to be interpreted on the basis of many plain passages. Also consult traditional interpretation and the context.
3. When Scripture is ambiguous the rule of faith can be used to interpret it (what the church has customarily taught).
4. Figurative passages must not be taken literally; attention must be paid to the literary form of each text.
5. A figure need not always have only one meaning. Meaning may vary with context.
6. Any possible meaning which a text can have is legitimate, whether the author realized it or not. A truth could be apprehended at many different levels, and it was wrong to limit the biblical text to just one meaning.

Humility

And so, as we hand out Bibles and urge people to read them, it is imperative that we also say, caveat lector, let the reader beware.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 82

Humility

…exegesis does not mean mastering the text, it means submitting to it as it is given to us. Exegesis doesn’t take charge of the text and impose superior knowledge on it; it enters the world of the text and lets the text “read” us. Exegesis is an act of sustained humility: There is so much about this text that I don’t know, that I will never know. Christians keep returning to it, with all the help we can get from grammarians and archaeologists and historians and theologians, letting ourselves be formed by it.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 57

Humility

Exegesis is the discipline of attending to the text and listening to it rightly and well.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 50

Humility

We do violence to the biblical revelation when we “use” it for what we can get out of it or what we think will provide color and spice to our otherwise bland lives. That always results in a kind of “decorator spirituality”—God as enhancement. Christians are not interested in that; we are after something far bigger. When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 44

Humility

When we “receive” it [the text] we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist. When we “use” it we treat it as assistance for our own activities…”Using” is inferior to “reception” because art, if used rather than received, merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life, and does not add to it.

C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: University Press, 1961), 88.

Application

To know much and taste nothing—of what use is that?

Bonaventure

Application

Apply yourself to the whole text, and apply the whole text to yourself.

J.A. Bengel

Application

The important thing in the use of the Bible is not to understand the text but to understand the world through the text.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 12.