Intelligent people drink pop

Semantics has always been an important part of the discipline of hermeneutics. In short, what did words mean as used by their authors/speakers in their original context? Our tendency is to see words as empty vessels which we feel free to fill up with our own meaning. Many anachronistic interpretations make this exact mistake. We see a biblical author use words like "love" or "hate" or "servant" and our inclination is to understand those words through a contemporary lens.

Good interpretation must acknowledge the fluidity of language. Word meanings are always changing. And word meanings are always deeply contextual - both literary and cultural. This slipperiness of language is well illustrated by the maps in the link below. Americans can't even agree what to call certain things or how to pronounce certain words and we all supposedly speak the same language. Our difficulties are compounded then when we are reading an ancient text originally written in a language and a culture very different than our own. This is one reason why the study of original languages (or at least the listening to those who have studied the original languages) is such an important part to Bible study.

22 Maps That Show The Deepest Linguistic Conflicts In America - Business Insider

How to take a stand on difficult issues (part 2)

A couple of weeks ago I began this series of posts about how to take a stand on difficult issues related to scripture and interpretation. You can see my first post here. This is my second guiding principle.

Have I done my exegetical homework?

The belief in the perspicuity of scripture has long been treasured in Protestantism. You could make a case that this doctrine is one of the key convictions that eventually gave birth to the Protestant Reformation. It is the belief in the fundamental clarity of scripture. The Bible is able to be clearly understood by all people (although Luther and especially Calvin would hasten to add that the Holy Spirit must be involved in the process of reading in order to overcome the reader’s sinful nature). The belief in perspicuity moved the locus of authority in interpretation away from sacred tradition and the Church to the individual interpreter. Now Protestants, and especially evangelical Protestants, simply assume that the individual reading scripture on her own is perfectly capable and even expected to understand, meditate upon, and apply that scripture to her life usually within the parameters of a “daily quiet time.”

This isn’t the place to debate the nuances of perspicuity. I accept a certain level of perspicuity as being in line with the original intent of scripture. I believe that scripture is not just for the elites but is for all people in all times and places. However, even champions of the doctrine like Luther clearly believed that not every individual reading of the text was equally correct. There was an essential role for an informed teaching ministry within the community of believers to correct and to train in the proper meaning of scripture.

The reason that I am mentioning this point now is because I have noticed that when it comes to dealing with difficult issues in the text the doctrine of perspicuity is sometimes abused. For instance, take the issue of women’s roles in ministry. This is clearly a difficult issue that the church has been struggling with for years. Exegetically there are a small number of texts in the New Testament that seem to prohibit certain roles for women within the assembly of believers (specifically 1 Cor. 14 and 1 Timothy 2). If we are to ever arrive at a principled position on the role of women in ministry today, these texts have to be studied and “figured out.” There are all sorts of exegetical questions that we have to answer:

1. There are historical-cultural questions to be answered. Was there anything in the specific cultures of ancient Corinth and Ephesus that necessitated Paul’s restrictions on women in those churches? Further, was Paul articulating a general principle to be applied in every one of his churches (and therefore should also be applied in the same way in all of our churches) or was this simply a specific contextualization of a general principle (even the two major texts in question don’t agree on every detail)?
2. There are important contextual questions to be answered. How do these restrictions fit within the context of the letters of 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy? What was going on in these churches that would cause Paul to talk in this way? How do these restrictions fit within the broader context of the New Testament? For instance, what are we to make of Paul “tolerating” the teaching ministry of Priscilla and other prophetesses in Acts? What was Jesus’ own understanding of women disciples? How do these texts relate to the general principle of equality outlined by Paul in Galatians 3?
3. There are important grammatical and semantic questions to be answered. What did Paul mean by “authority” or “head” or even “submissiveness?”
4. There are important questions of application as well. Why apply 1 Cor. 14 literally in all churches today but not 1 Cor. 11 which talks about head covering for women? Why permit women to lead worship through song or prayer if they are “not permitted to speak?” At what point are women allowed to teach in the church? Where did we get the idea that it was ok for them to teach boys until the sixth grade but not after that point (as some churches practice)? Is it ok for women to “teach” but not “preach” (even though the word for “preach” is nowhere used by Paul but “teach” is in 1 Tim. 2)? We have to own up to the fact that our application of these texts is laughably inconsistent.  

I bring up these questions not because I’m arguing for a certain position on the issue. I bring them up to illustrate a point. Difficult issues are difficult for a reason. There are a lot of exegetical knots to untie. But when these difficulties are brought up some will respond with arguments about the perspicuity of scripture. “I don’t need a class on studying the Bible to teach me how to read what scripture has clearly said.” In other words, the perspicuity of scripture means that I don’t really have to study it or listen to the perspective of someone who has been trained in how to properly study it. It’s a pre-critical literalism (which somewhat ironically is tied more to the interpreter’s tradition than his actual reading of the text). “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” But that doesn’t really settle it. There is something missing in that cliché. It should rightly be “The Bible says it. I understand it. I believe it. That settles it…for now.” You aren’t reading scripture well if you aren’t taking the time to actually struggle with it, study it, and understand it. And you aren’t reading scripture well if, after reading the text once or twice, you assume that you have it mastered well enough that you never have to really study it again. Faithful Bible reading requires diligent study.

If we are to take a stand on a difficult issue like women’s roles in ministry (or dozens of other similar issues), we must commit ourselves to understanding the word by doing the difficult work of exegesis.

Augustine and obscure passages

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”

from The Literal Meaning of Genesis
 
Alister McGrath (The Passionate Intellect) points out that by "literal" Augustine really meant "literary." Interpretations should be faithful to the literary intent of a passage. (For instance, a passage intended to be taken figuratively should be taken figuratively.)  Augustine applied this principle first of all to the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 leaving open the possibility of various potential intepretations of the text other than a literal six day creation. (Notice that Augustine also says that these different interpretations are not necessarily outside of what we might call orthodoxy.) Augustine's words however have a much broader application than just the beginning chapters of Genesis. It is helpful to always remember that our interpretations of a great number of difficult passages should be held onto lightly.

Messy Hermeneutics

Interpretation is not an exact science. Understanding--be it of God, works of art, ourselves, or others--is both messier and more provisional than explanations that work with causal laws. Why should this be so? Three reasons: 1) because what we're trying to understand is often singular and unique, 2) because meaning is a matter of seeing the parts in relation to larger wholes of which finite human interpreters have only partial glimpses, and 3) because interpreters often have vested interests for seeing things in one way rather than another and lack the requisite virtues to see things as they really are coram Deo (before God).

Kevin Vanhoozer, Everyday Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 36

The Exaggerated Importance of Extra-Biblical Texts

It is remarkable how frequently there is the tacit assumption that we can be more confident about how we interpret secondary first-century sources than we are of how we interpret the New Testament writers themselves. But it seems to me that there is a prima facie case for thinking that our interpretations of extra-biblical literature are more tenuous than our interpretations of the New Testament. In general, this literature has been less studied than the Bible and does not come with a contextual awareness matching what most scholars bring to the Bible. Moreover, the Scripture comes with the added hope that there is conherency because of divine inspiration and that the Holy Spirit will illumine Scripture through humble efforts to know God's mind for the sake of the glory of Christ.

John Piper, The Future of Justification (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), 34-35.

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)

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

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

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

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)

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.

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.

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

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.