“Kevin Vanhoozer, the great hermeneutician… was going to deliver to serious, believing readers of Scripture a mere Christian hermeneutics, the hallway where the various denominations and reading cultures, more on that term in a moment, who read Scripture might find some hermeneutical unity amidst our never-ending theological cacophony.” - Mark Ward
Read Part 1.
There’s an argument among conservative Christians over whether we should translate the Bible “literally”—by which the proponent usually means “word for word, so much as is possible in translating from one language to another”—or “loosely”—by which the proponent means “concept for concept.” The technical term for the latter is “dynamic equivalence.”
I’ve noticed that our culture seems to think that conservative Christians believe that the Bible should be interpreted literally. I say “our culture seems to think” this because the expression occurs frequently in popular media, whether journalistic or social. I’ve even seen some conservative Christians describe themselves that way.
That’s unfortunate.
Nobody today or in the past has ever interpreted the Bible literally. We’re not Amelia Bedelia.
There are at least five reasons that progressive dispensational (PD) represents a departure from a normative hermeneutic (literal grammatical historical) and reading of the Bible. The first two pertain to methodology in arriving at conclusions, and the latter three have to do with theological conclusions which are not exegetically derived.
Blaising and Bock recognize that methodology is definitive in the formation of PD, and acknowledge that PD is the result of a methodological departure from the hermeneutic of classical and revised dispensational thought, as they observe that,
“While Dr. Carson’s voice still predominates in the third edition, I have updated Exegetical Fallacies in three ways…. 1. I have removed some less relevant examples and added new ones, including some new fallacies. This third edition is about 30% longer than the second edition.” - Andy Naselli
Read Part 1.
Recognizing that there is some degree of self-perceived personhood and function defined by their design (and their designers), we test the neutrality and objectivity of the LLMs by prompts specifically related to hermeneutic priorities and processes. Those prompts include questions pivotal to the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the Biblical worldview, and related to the sine qua non. Where the responses are not definitive or committal, follow up questions are asked.
Presented to the Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics, September 17, 2025.
“Let me illustrate what I mean by showing how interpreting the Bible as history without reality—where signs point only to other signs and not to realities—misunderstands historical-grammatical exegesis.” - Wyatt Graham
“Proverbs is easily one of the most widely quoted books of the Bible. Practical and poetic, it invites us to live God’s way in God’s world by pursuing the path of wisdom. But despite its popularity, Proverbs is also one of the most misunderstood and misapplied books.” - TGC
“Far from seeing his sufferings as a temporary ‘test’ designed to make him a better man, Job has consistently anticipated only one outcome: death….he is a man waiting to die so he can finally be vindicated.” - BJU Seminary
