Whatever Happened to Literal Hermeneutics? (Part 1)
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(From Theologically Driven)
For decades it was assumed, by both sides of the debate between dispensational and Reformed theology, that the primary distinction between the two models (there were really no other viable evangelical options in the early days) was hermeneutical—dispensationalists held consistently to a “literal” reading of Scripture (and most importantly the OT prophetic portions of Scripture), while the Reformed were comfortable with a nonliteral (e.g., spiritual or typological) interpretation of those same texts.
Anthony Hoekema, for instance, reflecting this understanding from a Reformed perspective, wrote in his chapter of The Meaning of the Millennium,
Premillennialists, particularly those of dispensationalist persuasion, are committed to what is commonly called the ‘literal’ interpretation of Old Testament prophecy…. Amillennialists, on the other hand, believe that though many Old Testament prophecies are indeed to be interpreted literally, many others are to be interpreted in a nonliteral way. (172)
The reasons that non-dispensationalists felt comfortable reading the Scriptures in this way are manifold, but much of the argument rested on the premise that the Bible was not a “normal” book. Unlike ordinary books, the Bible is inspired, the Bible has a unique sort of dual authorship (God and the human author), and the meaning of the Bible is in some sense mediated through the Holy Spirit, who alone knows the mind of God perfectly. For these and other reasons, the Bible cannot be boxed in by the so-called “received laws of language” that seem to govern other literature.
As time has passed (and as mediating positions have multiplied), the argument has changed. Rather than seeing two fundamental hermeneutical approaches, it is common for all of the multiplied parties debating this issue to concede that the “grammatical/historical” method is the common property of all, and then for each to demonstrate that its distinctive application of this shared method is more exegetically defensible. The new leading distinction between theological systems is thus no longer about hermeneutics, but is rather about exegesis and biblical theology. Consequently, the only piece of Ryrie’s trifold sine qua non of dispensationalism that survives, for many, is its distinction between Israel and the Church in the unfolding of biblical theology.
It is my contention in this blog series that this concession has weakened dispensationalism. Specifically, it has barred from debate the transcendental discussion of the “received laws of language” as presuppositional to the exegetical task. This topic is too complex to unfold in a few paragraphs, so if the reader is willing to receive this argument over the course of weeks, I will attempt to complete it in a short series of posts. Many thanks in advance for your patience.
Correspondence & Coherence
When evaluating the truth or error of any proposed theological statement or system, there are two primary questions that the theologian asks: the question of correspondence and the question of coherence. In using these two terms, I am using two recognized philosophical categories, but not necessarily as all users would define them.
Correspondence
In suggesting that we must test a given theological statement or system for its correspondence, I do not mean, as many do, that we ask whether or not it corresponds to “reality” as variously defined in the marketplace of ideas; instead, I mean that we ask whether or not it corresponds to God’s reality as he has defined it. In short we ask, “Does this theological statement/system agree with what God has said in the Christian Scriptures?” In developing any truly biblical system of theology, we spend the lion’s share of our time answering this question. That is because the Christian Scriptures are the Norma Normans non Normata, the governing norm of truth that may not be subjected to manipulation or modification. Bottom line: If a given theological statement/system contradicts the Bible, then that statement/system, however clever, is invalid.
Coherence
The question of correspondence is not, however, the only question that concerns the systematic theologian. He must also establish the coherence of his system: the system must agree with itself. If a theological system can survive only by patching up its violations of the received laws of logic and language with appeals to “mystery,” then it is compromised.
For example, assuming a non-equivocating definition of the term omnipotent, a valid theological system cannot countenance a God that is mysteriously both omnipotent and not-omnipotent at the same time. Or, assuming again a non-equivocating definition of the term justification, a valid theological system cannot permit justification to be simultaneously both by works and by faith alone. Any system that permits such absurdities breaks at least one and often several fundamental laws of logic (in this case, viz., the law of identity [A = A] and the law of contradiction [A ≠ not-A]).
For this reason, a systematic theologian must spend time harmonizing texts that seem to contradict (e.g., Job 42:2 with Titus 1:2 and James 1:13 for the issue of omnipotence; Galatians 2:16 with James 2:24 for the issue of justification). At times he is obliged to scuttle his theories; sometimes, however, he is able to tweak and strengthen them by exploring exegetical options and by crafting out carefully nuanced definitions that render his system coherent. Bottom line: If a given theological statement/system contradicts itself, it is invalid.
The question of record for this blog post is whether the theologian’s hermeneutical method is a matter of correspondence or a matter of coherence: are hermeneutical principles (1) something to be discovered in the Bible itself and constructed inductively from what I find there? Or are hermeneutical principles (2) something to be settled as a matter of transcendental presupposition before I can even start reading the Bible?
My answer (and what to me stands at the centerpiece of the concept of “literal” interpretation) is that the latter option is of necessity true. The laws of language are received by divine grant and are a priori axioms necessary to the coherent, intelligible reading of anything: they must be assumed before they can be demonstrated. Apart from this axiomatic premise, coherent communication would fail us and linguistic anarchy would prevail. In fact, in order for someone to disagree with this position, I would submit, he would have to assume the position in order to express his disagreement with it (which is why I have labeled it a transcendental argument).
Those who use a non-literal (typological/allegorical/spiritual) hermeneutical method do not make this assumption, or at the very least not to the same degree I do. Instead, their hermeneutical method is in part a matter of exegetical discovery. So, for instance, when a non-literalist sees in Matthew 2:15 and 18 the use of a fulfillment formula in connection with two improbable Old Testament historical narratives (Hos 11:1 and Jer 31:15, respectively), he stands quite ready to humbly allow exegesis to correct his presumptive hermeneutic. What’s more, the non-literalist can also argue that since Matthew has validated this appealing new hermeneutic under inspiration, the contemporary reader now has exegetical warrant to interpret other texts in the same way.
The literalist, on the other hand, while not unmindful that depraved minds can distort the received laws of language, is much more disposed, based on his view of the transcendental nature of those laws, to think that his interpretive errors will be resolved by exegetical adjustment than by a radical overhaul of his whole hermeneutical method. And so, rather than acceding quickly to unique hermeneutical models unknown outside the biblical corpus, he will expend enormous effort exhausting all the possible exegetical options available to him within the bounds of a “normal” hermeneutic.
And even if he fails, he is reluctant to concede the existence of a whole new hermeneutical method, much less a prescriptive one. He is reluctant because he knows that appeals to exegesis as a precedent for a unique and non-literal hermeneutical method potentially undermines not only (1) the received laws of language, but also (2) the accessibility of the Scriptures to all who are not apprised of the special method, and (3) perhaps even the integrity and authority of the Bible itself.
This, I would submit, is the heartbeat of literal interpretation.
Next time: What are these “received laws of language” of which I speak? And if we cannot trust Matthew or Luke or Paul to delineate these laws, why should we accept the doodlings of some 21st-century chump (yours truly)?
Mark Snoeberger Bio
Mark Snoeberger is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary and has served as Director of Library Services since 1997. He received his M.Div. and Th.M. from DBTS and earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA. Prior to joining the DBTS staff, he served for three years as an assistant pastor.
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This article analyzes the situation, but fails to appreciate the situation fully. If exegesis (careful analysis of Scripture) does not shape one’s hermeneutics, Scripture takes second place to man-made traditions. The rules of hermeneutics are not given in Scripture. Logic requires that we begin with literal interpretation, but Scripture demonstrates that this is not inviolate. Everyone abandons the literal for the figurative regularly, including the most ardent literalist. Christ’s disciples missed His meaning because they thought too literally when they conceived only of literal bread when Jesus spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees. Only when they shifted to a figurative way of thinking could they understand His words correctly.
If we begin with a hermeneutic that demands literal interpretation, even in the face of Biblical evidence to the contrary, we, like Christ’s disciples, will be unable to grasp the meaning intended by God. We err when we lock our interpretation into place on the basis of hermeneutics before we fully analyze all the Biblical evidence. Surely the interpretations by Christ and the authors of NT Scripture of OT passages, must be given higher rank than a hermeneutic imposed upon, not derived from Scripture.
G. N. Barkman
G.N.,
In my humble opinion, hermeneutical principles determine how one exegetes. I believe that God provided man with logic and language so that man could communicate His revelation to others He created. In fact, logic or reason are not even the best words to use in this situation. It is understanding. Without language, man would not be able to know more than the natural things of God’s revelation. Understanding requires man to agree on certain rules in language by which to determine meaning, in any sense, biblical text or otherwise.
I would kindly disagree that those who are the “most ardent literalist” do not regularly abandon the “literal”. The idea of literal is referring to the normal understanding of a given communication. In many cases, the communication should be accepted as literal or the normal use or meaning of the words, unless the context provides markers to the contrary. However, one may use (as God did thru human authors) literary devices such as metaphors to provide meaning of the text in question. When Jesus states “I am the door”, a “literalist” does not abandon the core principles of normal, literal interpretation, when he does not assume the meaning of the text is that Jesus is a physical, literal door. A text that uses a literary device such as a metaphor does provide a literal, normal meaning. It cannot mean several different things. It has one meaning, and the context provides the clues to that normal meaning.
I think part of this type of confusion comes about by the misuse of the word hermeneutics as well. I would suggest that if one follows hermeneutical principles, that is good. If they develop a “hermeneutic”, especially when biased toward a certain theology or viewpoint, that is unscriptural if not at least dangerous towards deriving meanings not moored in the revelation of God’s Word. I think you are concerned by the later. Am I right?
Ken
Precisely!
G. N. Barkman
You touched on a sore spot I have with Ryrie’s “trifold sine qua non of dispensationalism” since the 1st time I read it. Why did he list the distinction between Israel and the church as #1 and interpretational method as #2?
There are times when I don’t outright disagree with Ryrie, but I feel like he is out of balance in placing his emphases and occationally puts the theological cart before the hermeneutical horse, so to speak. That’s why I’m more comfortable with Saucy’s Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, because I think he puts a greater emphasis on hermeneutics and exegesis, which then drive this theology.
…..is whether the major differences between covenant and dispensational theology are really rooted in hermeneutics and the literary/received laws of language. It strikes me that if I understand metaphor and simile, among other tools of literary analysis, I can “get” most of Jesus’ parables in the way He meant them and in a way that makes sense. To argue that Israel is now the Church, you’ve got to make some pretty big leaps and abrogate a certain portion of the rules of logic.
I don’t mean to be mean-spirited here, but at a certain point, some hermeneutical methods seem to adopt Humpty-Dumpty’s attitude from Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word”, Humpty-Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just whatever I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
OK, it’s not that bad, but you have to do some exegetical and literary gymnastics to take Romans 11 to “the church is Israel”.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I do not have ready access to Anthony Hoekema’s The Meaning of the Millennium, so I cannot place Dr. Snoeberg’s quotation of him in context. I can say that Charles Ryrie misquoted Oswald T. Allis, an amillennialist, in Dispensationalism Today (1965) to similar effect.
For instance, Allis, a champion of covenant theology and amillennialism and a vigorous opponent of dispensationalism, says:
One of the most marked features of premillennialism in all its forms is the emphasis which it places on the literal interpretation of Scripture. It is the insistent claims of its advocates that only when interpreted literally is the Bible interpreted truly; and they denounce as “spiritualizers” or “allegorizers” those who do not interpret the Bible with the same degree of literalness as they do. None have made this charge more pointedly than the dispensationalists.
In his words, the issue between dispensationalists and nondispensationalists is “the same degree of literalness.”
Dispensationalism Today, 90 (boldface added)(quoting Allis, Prophecy and the Church (1945)). Dwight Pentecost did the same in Things to Come (1958), 1.
But what did Allis mean by prophecy “literally interpreted”?
The question of literal versus figurative interpretation is, therefore, one which has to be faced at the very outset. And it is to be observed at once that the issue cannot be stated as a simple alternative, either literal or figurative. No literalist, however thoroughgoing, takes everything in the Bible literally. Nor do those who lean to a more figurative method of interpretation insist that everything is figurative. Both principles have their proper place and their necessary limitations.
Prophecy and the Church, 17 (boldface added). This language from Allis was omitted from Ryrie’s quotation of Allis set forth above, even though it came immediately after that quotation. Allis offered a number of examples of what he meant by Biblical language being interpreted to a higher “degree of literalness” but to a lower degree of faithfulness to the true meaning of the text, i.e. what God intended. “A familiar illustration of this literalism is the use of phylacteries by the Pharisees of NT times. This was based upon the literal interpretation of Ex. xiii. 9, 16, Dt. vi. 8, xi. 18, and was denounced by Jesus as an example of formalism in worship (Matt. xii. 49f.). Cf. Matt. xvi. 6-12.).” Id. at 18 n.5.
When Jesus said, “Ye must be born again,” He was not referring to a physical but to a spiritual birth. When He said, “Destroy this temple,” He meant His body. When He said, “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life,” He was speaking of a spiritual relationship in terms of an Old Testament type. Jesus’ Jewish hearers, being literalists, either failed to understand or misunderstood His words. Whether the figurative or “spiritual” interpretation of a given passage is justified or not depends solely upon whether it gives the true meaning. If it is used to empty words of their plain and obvious meaning, to read out of them what is clearly intended by them, then allegorizing or spiritualizing is a term of reproach which is well merited. On the other hand, we should remember the saying of the apostle, that spiritual things are “spiritually discerned.” And spiritual things are more real and more precious than visible, tangible ephemeral things.”
Id. at 17-18 (boldface added). Some dispensationalists like to say that they use the literal hermeneutic and others do not, and therefore, they “win” ipso facto. There is no substitute, however, for comparing your exegesis of a passage of Scripture with another’s exegesis and seeing which better demonstrates the plain meaning, i.e. what God intended.
JSB
[Bert Perry]….
OK, it’s not that bad, but you have to do some exegetical and literary gymnastics to take Romans 11 to “the church is Israel”.
The question is what do you mean by “is.” (Any allusion to Bill Clinton is unintentional). The Orthodox Presbyterian Church recognizes that “the nation of Israel, as it existed as the people of God in the Old Testament is no more.” Question and Answer: The OPC and National Israel, www.opc.org/qa.html?question_id=466 (3/18/2012).
JSB
With all this talk about “literalness,” I thought I’d share this gem from Reformation 21. The author looks at the beast of Revelation 13, and draws lessons for modern-day America. Is this legitimate? Was this the Apostle John’s point when he wrote Rev 13? Did he have a “higher” meaning in mind? Let the reader decide:
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
[G. N. Barkman]G. N.This article analyzes the situation, but fails to appreciate the situation fully. If exegesis (careful analysis of Scripture) does not shape one’s hermeneutics, Scripture takes second place to man-made traditions. The rules of hermeneutics are not given in Scripture. Logic requires that we begin with literal interpretation, but Scripture demonstrates that this is not inviolate. Everyone abandons the literal for the figurative regularly, including the most ardent literalist. Christ’s disciples missed His meaning because they thought too literally when they conceived only of literal bread when Jesus spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees. Only when they shifted to a figurative way of thinking could they understand His words correctly.
If we begin with a hermeneutic that demands literal interpretation, even in the face of Biblical evidence to the contrary, we, like Christ’s disciples, will be unable to grasp the meaning intended by God. We err when we lock our interpretation into place on the basis of hermeneutics before we fully analyze all the Biblical evidence. Surely the interpretations by Christ and the authors of NT Scripture of OT passages, must be given higher rank than a hermeneutic imposed upon, not derived from Scripture.
You have proposed the classic straw man here. By literal, every historical/grammatical hermeneutist (is that a word?) means the plain reading of the passage. This incorporates figurative speech within the confines of a literal approach. The woodenness you propose is not actually advocated by anyone. The difference enters when the reformed crowd finds some hidden meaning for the passage that bypasses the plain meaning set forth by the author.
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
….regarding how too many regard “literal” hermeneutic is why I tend to prefer the phrase “literary” hermeneneutic, as in using what Mark Snoeberger would call the “received laws of language.” It allows for all those literary devices and the proper interpretation. There is such a thing as poetic license, metaphor, similie,etc..
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
What was the plain meaning of “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees.”
G. N. Barkman
What was the plain meaning of “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees.”
Beware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (and Sadducees).
Is hypocrisy the plain and literal meaning of leaven?
G. N. Barkman
Rolland McCune
I’m reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s old saw. “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?” Answer: “Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.” Calling a question from Scripture a straw man doesn’t make it one. Perhaps the reality that everyone interprets the Bible non-literally is too painful for some to deal with. Is “hypocrisy” the plain and literal meaning of “leaven.” Obviously not. How do we know? Because Christ interpreted His own intended meaning, and told His disciples He meant hypocrisy. How would they have known if Christ hadn’t told them? They probably never would have if they could only interpret in the most literal manner possible. In the words of article, they never would have if they were required to exhaust every exegetical possibility to maintain a literal interpretation. However, if they permitted themselves to consider possible non-literal interpretations, they may have discovered Christ’s intended meaning.
Our goal is to discover the intended meaning of the author, not maintain loyalty to a literal hermeneutic. Literal interpretation is the right and necessary place to begin. It becomes a distraction when it forces us to find a way to maintain a favored hermeneutic in spite of Biblical evidence to the contrary.
G. N. Barkman
Discussion