Bible Interpretation: No Fixed Rules

Luther:

I acknowledge no fixed rules for the interpretation of the Word of God, since the Word of God, which teaches freedom in all other matters, must not be bound.

—The Freedom of the Christian (Luther's Works, vol. 31; ed. Harold J. Grimm; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 341.

Edwards as Interpreter in an Enlightenment Context

The following quotation accurately describes my own experience and understanding both of Edwards and the current state of affairs in modern biblical studies. Having recently completed a master's degree in biblical exegesis, it is one of the reasons I'm so drawn to Edwards.

Edwards tried to interpret the Bible theologically. He handled it not as a collection of antiquarian artifacts, but as the living Word of One who calls himself "I Am." Thus he studied it both as scholars study sets of primary sources (to understand the lives of those for whom they were first put to writing) and—in a manner more important to his daily pastoral ministry—as priestly theologians study the oracles of God (to understand his will for those who still have ears to hear). This sets him apart from many other Western biblical scholars, whether Christian or non-Christian. For higher criticism has ruled the roost in modern biblical studies, shaping the ways that even pastors think of preaching Sunday sermons. 

—Douglas A. Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word: A Model of Faith and Thought (InterVarsity, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 96.

Just Listen to the Syrian Monk and Get Over Yourself

"It seems rather a waste of time to spend, say, five years working out a position, only to find that it has already been done by a Syrian monk in the fifth century."

—Peter Berger, as recorded in Kevin Vanhoozer's lecture, "Methods, Norms, and Sources: How to Do Theology" (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL, September 16, 2015).

Entering into the True Story

"Instead of asking how the text 'applies' to us in our day and age as if the important thing is to discover how the text relates to our world, it is better to think in terms of inserting oneself into the world of the biblical text, which is the true story of our world" (Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding, 133).

Usage in Context Determines Meaning

D. A. Carson:

The wealth of possible backgrounds to the term logos in John’s Prologue suggests that the determining factor is not this or that background but the church’s experience of Jesus Christ. This is not to say the background is irrelevant. It is to say, rather, that when Christians looked around for suitable categories to express what they had come to know of Jesus Christ, many that they applied to him necessarily enjoyed a plethora of antecedent associations. The terms had to be semantically related to what the Christians wanted to say, or they could not have communicated with their own age. 

Nevertheless, many of the terms they chose, including this one, had semantic ranges so broad that they could shape the term by their own usage to make it convey, in the context of their own work, what they knew to be true of Jesus Christ (cf. Boice, p. 163). In that sense, as helpful as the background study may be, it cannot by itself determine exactly what John means by logos. For that information, while thinking through the background uses, we must above all listen to the Evangelist himself.

—The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, MI: 1991), 116.

The Context of All Biblical Interpretation

Frame:

Each particular verse of Scripture has many contexts: the verses on either side, the book it is part of, the section of Scripture in which it is found, other passages dealing with the same topic, other books by the same author, other books (even extrabiblical books) of the same genre, other writings that come from the same setting. In the end, however, the most important context of any verse is the Bible as a whole.

—John Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2013), 55.

The Relation of Matter and Method in Theology

“The subject matter of theology should determine the methodological manner in which we approach it” (Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding, 46).

Slaves of Signs

"He is a slave to a sign who uses or worships a significant thing without knowing what it signifies" (St. Augustine, On Interpretation, 3.9).

Biblical Interpretation on the Inside

Vanhoozer:

According to Hans-Georg Gadamer, interpretation is like entering into the “play” of the text, which “always involves something like performing the drama, for the player who takes the play seriously interprets it from within, by belonging to and playing a part in it."

—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 4.

An Telling African Proverb

"Until lions have their historians, the hunter will always be the hero of the story."

—As recalled by Michael W. Goheen, Introducing Christian Mission Today: Scripture, History and Issues (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014), 28.

NIDNTTE

Here's a good brief post on a good revised theological dictionary: NIDNTTE.

The Canonical Context of the Psalms

In a paper titled "Towards a Canonical Reading of the Psalms," Gordon Wenham asks and answers the question, "what is the canonical context in which we read each psalm?"

His answer, at least as a starting place, seems to me to be a very good answer. Here's what he says:

I tend to think three canonical contexts are more important than others. 

First, there is the canonical context of the whole Psalter. . . . [It] is imperative to read one psalm in the context of the whole collection and in particular in relation to its near neighbors.  

Second, there is reading the psalms in the context of the Jewish canon, the Hebrew Bible.  The psalms themselves invite this by their frequent reference to historical figures and episodes from the past. . . .  

Third, of course, the psalms need to be read in the context of the Christian canon of Old and New Testaments. The Psalms are the book of the Old Testament most quoted in the New Testament: it appears that the early Christians inhabited the thought world of the psalms, so that any biblical theology that would be Christian must read the psalms in this context. 

—Gordon Wenham, "Towards a Canonical Reading of the Psalms," in Canon and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 347–348.

The Ground of the Being of Meaning

Kevin Vanhoozer:

The author's will acts as a control on interpretation. Thanks to an author's willing this rather than that, we can say that there is a definite meaning in texts prior to reading and interpretation. As God's will structures the universe, so the author's will structures the universe of discourse. The author is thus the ground of the "being" of meaning. 

—Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 47.

The Great Original

"God is the Author of authors" (Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? 47).

Interpreting James

How shall we interpret the book of James? Among other things that could be said (say, for example, about the genre of James), here is an important word from one of my former professors:

Perhaps no greater mistake can be made in interpreting James than to read his letter in the light of Paul. James, we must remember, is writing . . . before Paul had written any of his letters and probably has no direct knowledge of Paul's teaching. James must be read against the background of the OT, Judaism, and the teaching of Jesus—not the apostle Paul. 

—Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 83.

Picking Up Inner-canonical Hermeneutical Distinctives

Carson:

The kind of biblical theology that is profoundly grounded in tracing out the Bible's plot-line is intrinsically more likely to pick up . . . inner-canonical hermeneutical distinctive[s] than either systematic theology or those kinds of biblical theology that rarely ask diachronic questions.

—D. A. Carson, "Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology," NDBT: 98.

Not So Fast

J. I. Packer:

"The conclusions supposed to have been established by last-century biblical criticism were really the presuppositions on which it was based. Therefore they cannot be held to have been proved by biblical criticism at all."

—J. I. Packer, Honouring the Written Word of God: Collected Shorter Writings on the Authority and Interpretation of Scripture (Vancoover: Regent College Publishing, 1999), 54–55.

What Is Narrative?

Vogt:

A narrative is a selective record of a series of events that uses shared conventions to convey the author's communicative intention in an engaging manner. In the case of the biblical narratives, this communicative intention is usually a theological one, and the author understands the events described as having actually taken place.

—Peter T. Vogt, Interpreting the Pentateuch: An Exegetical Handbook (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 48.

A Narrative Reading of the Longer Ending of Mark's Gospel

Here is another paper I produced at Wheaton College, this time for a class on New Testament criticism under Professor Nick Perrin. It seems like an appropriate post for holy week.

Introduction

I am not a King-James-only Christian (though I have a high regard for the King James Version). I embrace, by and large, the approach to textual criticism called “reasoned eclecticism.” And yet I shall argue that the long ending (LE) of Mark 16 is at least as likely the original ending to Mark’s Gospel as is the short ending (SE), and slightly to be favored, given the present evidence, on the grounds of external evidence and literary-critical analysis.[1] Delving into the literature on Mark’s ending, one immediately faces bewilderment, not unlike that of the disciples, not only over the complexity of the matter, but also over the varieties of opinions and, even more, over the lofty pontifications of many, all the while standing on a great deal of speculation, guesswork, and uncertainty. Possessing only fragments of the total evidence, dogmatic assertions of one view as solely plausible seem a bit much. We are dealing in probabilities. So I shall speak of probabilities, confessing the tentativeness of my own conclusions at this beginning point of entering the fray of Mark 16 debates. 

Hermeneuticotheological Methods of Liberation Theology and Evangelical Theology in the Latin American Context

Here is the first paper I wrote for my first class, under Professor Gene Green, in the graduate program I did at Wheaton College. It's by no means the best piece of writing I've done. Yet, after a fashion, I have a peculiar affection for it. Mind you, as it was the first paper I produced, there are formatting issues, not least with how I cited my sources.

Introduction and Background: Liberation and Evangelical Theologies in Latin America

Both evangelical theology (ET) and liberation theology (LT) have left their mark on Latin America in the past several decades.  The rise of each, although occurring at about the same time and because of some of the same cultural precursors, has occurred because of diverse influences and convictions.  Likewise the hermeneutical and theological methodologies deployed by each, while developing side by side and bearing some similarities, have come about because of diverse influences and convictions.  This essay attempts to think through and assess the foundational assumptions and principles of each method and offer some biblical-theological reflections.

Vatican II (1962-1965) with its watershed statements about political, economic, and social problems in the world and Gutiérrez’ A Theology of Liberation appear to be two important loci for the beginnings of LT.  Vatican II spawned a conference of Latin American Bishops held in Medellín in 1968 that resulted in “a new hermeneutic” that interprets the Scriptures “from below.”[1]  Theologian Gustavo Gutiíerrez, among others, began to guide this interpretation of Scripture “from below,” not least through his book A Theology of Liberation.[2] 

As Gutiérrez put it when LT was on the ascendancy, “The historical womb from which liberation theology has emerged is the life of the poor and, in particular, of the Christian communities that have arisen within the bosom of the present-day Latin American church.”[3]  This statement highlights the crucial place of the Latin American context, with all its sociopolitical and socioeconomic realities, and the crucial place of the poor in the Latin American church.

           

Evangelical theology has its roots in the movement of Protestantism to Latin America in the nineteenth century through Protestant missionary labors[4] and its present shape, power, and influence in the formation of the Latin American Evangelical Fraternity in 1970, led by René Padilla and Orlando Costas.[5]  Earlier in the twentieth century, the historic worldwide missionary conference of 1910 that was held in Edinburgh was attended by some evangelicals who understood that Latin America needed the gospel despite the majority position that it did not because of widespread Roman Catholicism.[6]  These evangelicals stirred up Protestant missionary longings and labors in subsequent years.    

           

In this essay, unless otherwise noted, the words hermeneutical and method are being used as they seem generally to be used in the literature: that is, rather loosely to mean something like the standpoint from which and the way in which one goes about doing theology.  The word theology is used diversely in the literature.  For example, Gutiérrez defines theology thus: “critical reflection on humankind, on basic human principles.”[7]  Compare now, for example, the definition given by Costas: “The term ‘theology’ means literally a rational discourse about God.”[8]  He then expands on this and calls it “the intelligence of faith” and “that reflection which seeks to understand the content of faith and its implications for life.”[9]  Costas uses the word according to its etymology and historical usage.  Liberation theologians tend not to use it this way.  Instead, they tend to give it an anthropological and sociological meaning.  Praxis, an important term, is defined differently by different people as well.  Costas, for example, an evangelical, defines praxis “as action based on reflection, or the actualization of theory.”[10]  Liberation theologians define praxis in a fairly narrow way, generally speaking, as liberating action for the poor, and make reflection a second stage.  Their definitions tell one about their respective methodologies. 

Some say that the hermeneutic or method of LT is simply the theory of the popular reading among base ecclesial communities of the poor in Latin America.[11]  Others, however, do not directly equate LT with popular reading of the Bible among the poor since there are professional liberation theologians with sophisticated training and methods and more pastorally oriented liberation theologians who have considerable training doing LT.  This essay deals primarily with what has been called the professional level of doing theology and not so much the pastoral or popular levels, though it interacts with these some.  However, as Boff and Boff stated in 1987, “Liberation theology is a cultural and ecclesial phenomenon by no means restricted to a few professional theologians.”[12]  And people doing LT are by definition interacting with the base ecclesial communities of the poor, or they are not engaged in LT.     
                                                                                 

This essay also focuses on the hermeneutical and theological methods of LT and ET during their more formative, foundational stages, that is, in the 1970s and 1980s.  In more recent times LT has become rather passé or, perhaps better said, has been displaced by what is called cultural criticism.[13]  Yet its influence has not totally disappeared.