Hermeneutics is defined as the theory or methodology in which one uses to interpret a piece of literature. In this case the piece of literature is scripture. The fundamental reason for controversy within the Christian church is the hermeneutics in which each side operates. It would be oversimplifying things to say that the distinction lies in whether we spiritualize or take as literal different passages of scripture; nevertheless, it is one of the main distinctions that must be made. Other important aspects that contribute to our differing hermeneutical structures are our culture and environment, our theological intelligence, our relationship with God, and all other predispositions we may have that inevitably factor into our interpretation of scripture. It is important to note that as humanity is apart from God a perfect interpretation of scripture is impossible. However, that does not mean Christians should just stop trying. God has revealed a portion of Himself to us in scripture. It is therefore our duty to gain a proper understanding of God’s divine revelation. Or as James put it “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, NIV). The devil most certainly knows his scripture and uses it against followers of Christ like he used it against our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Mat. 4:1-11) Which makes the pursuit for a proper interpretation of scripture all the more important. At the close of this chapter I will provide a few tips on how this can be done, by no means is it a complete list but just a start for someone searching for answers to some of the controversies we will be covering in this book.
Before we get too far into the discussion about how to interpret the Bible I would like to speak briefly about how the cannon was created and formed into its current formulation (Genesis –Revelations). It is believed that Jesus Christ lived from about 7 AD to 33 AD though years vary between historians. The first New Testament book, 1 Thessalonians was believed to have been written about 49 AD, some time after the life of Christ. Between 54-63AD Galatians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, and Philemon were all written. Mark and James were written between 64-69AD. In the 70’s and 80’s Colossians, Matthew, Luke, Acts, Hebrews and 1 Peter were written. In the 90’s Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, Gospel of John, 1, 2, and 3 John, Revelation, Jude, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy were written by their respective authors. Sometime after 100 2 Peter was written. The point here is that the writing of the New Testament took place well after the life of Christ over a span of more than fifty years. However, at this point they are all letters that different church’s have from the disciples. These letters were never brought together until around 200 AD. By 200 AD the gospels, Acts, the Pauline epistles, and John were generally accepted into the cannon by the churches. It wasn’t until the Council of Carthage in 397 that a cannon of sacred scriptures was officially recognized[1] however, many potential books, like the Gospel of Thomas and other Gnostic gospels were thrown out under the discretion of the church fathers. It can be somewhat unsettling to think that the Bible was essentially established by a vote of the church fathers, nevertheless that is what happened. By 500 AD, the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are generally accepted in their Greek and Latin form. Twenty to seventy years passed between the life of Christ and the books of the Bible were written, and almost four hundred years passed until they were accepted as divinely inspired, from my perspective it is hard enough to remember what I had for dinner yesterday let alone what happened twenty plus years ago. There also seems to be a lot of human discretion in the decision making as far as which letters to include in the Cannon. How can this book possibly be completely accurate? Not only that it was written in Greek adding translation problems to the mix. The inerrancy of scripture remains a foundation for Christian thought, especially for fundamentalists.
Christians would have to respond with divine sovereignty throughout the whole process. God lead the church fathers to select the letters that they did to include in scripture, God’s hand was on the writers of scripture and inspired them to write what they did. There is no mistakes in scripture as God would not allow it to happen each verse serves some purpose in God’s plan for His church. How these verses are interpreted remains of some contention. To this issue we now return.
The fundamentalists hold to a strict literal interpretation of most if not all of scripture. Rising up in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century as a reaction to liberal theological movements they sought to correct what they saw as fundamental problems rising out of the liberal theological movement with regard to the inerrancy of scripture. They believe that scripture should not be spiritualized or taken to be anything other than the literal truth that God has given us. For example, they believe the creation of the world was literally in a seven day period. They often believe the book of Revelation and the return of Jesus Christ for the most part to be literal and forthcoming. The inerrancy of scripture is of the highest priority for those in this group.
The liberal theology movement that fundamentalists rose up against, push for a more spiritualized understanding of scripture. When liberal theologians look at scripture they look for the basic message being conveyed by a passage and what the passage would have meant to those reading it when it was written. When they look at passages like the creation story, for example, they look at it within its historical context and how the creation story acted as a unifier for a group of people—as Homer’s myths unified the Greek people—it gave them a common heritage and a sense of belonging. The truth it conveyed to the people coming out of exile in Egypt
Liberal theology is often closely associated with caring for the poor and needy. Many believe that God’s mission is to care for the poor, destitute, orphaned and widowed people of the world. In the Old Testament, this was shown through the year of jubilee and the leaving of the outside of the fields for the poor to come and harvest. In the New Testament, it is seen in the words and actions of Jesus. In word, with instances like the Sermon on the Mount where He says “blessed are the meek”, in the parable of the sheep in the goats where people are judged by what they did to the least of these. Also, in his encounter with the rich young man where He states “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God
Within and between these groups there is much contention over which scriptures should be taken literally and which must be spiritualized. Which begs the question what to what degree should scripture be taken literally and to what extent can human reason be used in interpreting the scriptures?
Obviously, there will be wide contention between different denominations in trying to address this issue. On the one hand no prophecy or scripture came about by the prophet or writers own interpretation (2 Peter 1:20) the cannon is in fact God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16) written not by the wisdom of the world but by the grace of God (2 Corinthians 1:12-14). At the same time Jesus speaks to us in parables because though seeing we do not see, for the eyes of our hearts are not naturally attuned to God. After all, what are we to do with scriptures like Matthew 18:8-9,
“If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (NIV)
Does God really expect Christians to be completely dismembered for His namesake, or is this statement a hyperbole or overstatement simply stating that Christians should do whatever it takes to avoid sin?
Another example of this is Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (NIV). Does this mean that God will give us whatever we want, like a genie in a bottle? That most certainly is not my experience of Christianity and I would not want it to be that way. God in all of His wisdom will certainly do a much better job of deciding what I need than I will, and I trust Him to do that. Another example, going back to the rich young man encounter with Jesus, does God really expect us to give up everything we have to the poor in order to follow him?
We are met here with a dilemma with regard to the inerrancy of scripture if we want to hold to a completely literal reading of scripture. We must admit some level of reasoning and rationale is necessary in order to properly interpret scripture. A way out to the problem would be, as the liberal theologian, to recognize the inerrancy of Gods meaning in scripture rather than our depraved interpretation of scripture. How then do we find Gods meaning in scripture? The easy answer here is we do not ever fully understand the God and the revelations He gives to us. There are however, some things we are capable of understanding at least in part, but never perfectly.
In order to glean what we can from scripture we must consider the cultural context in which it was written, the overall meaning the author is trying to address, and the language it was written in. To assist us in this, things like encyclopedias, Bible commentaries, dictionaries, atlas, concordances and different versions of scripture can be helpful to understanding the meaning of a passage.
Two thousand years have passed since Jesus walked among us, a lot has changed since then. The Roman Empire has fallen, Israel
For example, in 1 Corinthians 11 it speaks of the roles of men and women and how woman was created for man which hints at the notion of a patriarchal society. Some have used verses like this to say that women should hold no leadership roles in the church, state, family or other entity over men. However, a better interpretation would include an understanding of the Corinthians culture. Culturally, it was a male dominated society. The Church was dividing and needed stability (1 Cor. 1). As the church can never be completely separated from the culture in which it is placed, Paul and Timothy use certain cultural norms to try to reach the people (become all things to all people in order that they might save some). They do not want gender roles to be a stumbling block for the people of the churches they are addressing. Let us not forget Deborah or Mary Magdalene and their roles in promoting the faith either. These women were champions of the faith. Keeping all of this in mind, what does it mean for today? That God calls whom he calls to certain positions within the church. Gender roles are no longer a dividing issue anymore and therefore Godly women are being called to serve the Lord their God in different ways then they had in the past. These portions of scripture are representative of the culture of the day, like the Old Testament laws were put in place for their respective cultures needs. The blood of Jesus Christ frees us from the law and past sins. The same Jesus maintains complete control over the Church in which he is the head over, guiding it as he sees fit. It is no mistake that women have held high positions in the Church, in fact it was predetermined from the beginning that these women would serve in these roles. Another example is in 1 Corinthians 11: 14 it says for a man to have long hair it is a disgrace to him. If we take this literally, the Nazarenes, like Sampson, are disgraceful. What are we to make of verses like this that seem so opposed to not only other parts of scripture? Must all men have short hair and all women have long hair in order to have grace? Certainly it would seem as if the Corinthian author misspoke or at the very least did not mean it in the fashion we are interpreting him. All of these laws are representative of the culture and addressed to specific issues that were occurring the churches.
Secondly, we cannot take verses out of context. We must honor the meanings of the author. It is possible to prove anything using the Bible as a book of truth if we take things out of context. The scriptures should dictate our beliefs not our beliefs dictate the meaning of scriptures. The context in which a verse is written does matter, even if one is conveying a truth with the verse taken out of context. For example, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb” (Psalms 139:13, NIV). Many times we hear this verse used by pro-life advocates in the abortion issue as justification for their belief that an embryo is a human being worthy of life and therefore it is murder to remove that embryo. If we take a look at it within the context it was written it takes on a different meaning If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Is this passages primary purpose to convey that life begins at conception or is it merely stating that God’s handiwork is to be praised and we cannot flee from his presence? While abortion may be murder, and a truth may be conveyed in stating life begins at conception it provides grounds for saying that any verse can be used out of context if it expresses a truth about things. What I would then like to know is who is it that is deciding what is the truth? Inevitably, it is the person using it out of context. Taking verses out of context sets a bad precedent that leads to relativism in scripture. If you take a verse out of context to use it to prove a truth, you are just as likely to take a verse out of context to prove a falsehood.
Questions to ask when attempting to interpret scripture
Who was the book written for?
When was it written and under what conditions?
Why did the author write this book/ letter?
What is the main point the author is addressing?
How would the intended audience have interpreted the scripture?
The scriptures were originally written in either Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew languages. Meaning that scripture was translated into English. However, words and syntax do not always translate nicely from one language to another. Often sentences are structured differently or rhymes in one language do not rhyme in another. Which leaves translators are thereby met with a dilemma. Do they interpret the words of scripture literally as they appear or do they try to incorporate some of the semantics of the text into the translation or do they intermix between the two. As we can see three distinct classes of bibles immerge, the literal translations of scripture like the King James Version, the paraphrase versions like the Message and the middle road approach like the New International Version or the English Standard Version. All of which emphasize different aspects of the original manuscripts. People usually have their favorites with regard to which translation they like better but the best approach to understanding a passage of scripture is to look at the same passage from a version in each of the three classes of scripture.
No matter how hard we might try without divine accommodation via the Holy Spirit proper interpretations of the bible are impossible. One of my all time favorite Christian philosophers once said, “With God’s help we can understand the Bible all right. Every commentary detracts, and he who sits with ten open commentaries and reads the Scriptures–well he is probably writing the eleventh. He is certainly not dealing with the Scriptures” (Kill the Commentators). There is a lot of truth to statements like this, with so many commentaries and theories about the bible out there the bible can quickly become relativistic and meaningless. Only with God’s assistance might one begin to understand the revelations God has given us. However, we must be willing to do the work, invest the time and energy necessary for understanding such an important book. Proper scriptural interpretation is a divine gift, but a gift that does require a great deal of work.
[1]Books included in the Cannon were: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kingdoms, 2 books of Chronicles, Job, the Davidic Psalter, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Ezra, 2 books of Maccabees, 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 letter of his to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Jude, and one book of the Apocalypse of John.
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