How To Read The Bible - A New Hermeneutic
What Works For Me
When Reading the Bible
by R.E. Slater
August 16, 2020
The Many Worlds of Hermeneutics
I originally wrote this piece as a single composition as I did not wish to have any of it read alone in its parts as each part is necessary for the other part. However, it is a long piece and so, with reservations, I have divided it up for the convenience of the reader. But for those who wish to read it as a whole I have left the original intact and titled parts 1-6. Thank you. - res
PART 2 - Another Side to Bible Interpretation
Inerrancy - What Is It?
Another systematic word created much more recently in history is the word inerrancy. It came about in the 1980s at a bible convention of evangelicals (1982) wishing to defend their creedal faith and the epistemology behind their beliefs. In this setting the bible is described as being without error or fault in its original manuscripts. That every word is Spirit written by the finger of God and without error. Yet another quagmire if their ever was one:
Wikipedia - "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" - Inerrancy statement:
The Inerrancy Statement elaborates on various details in articles formed as couplets of "We affirm..." and "We deny...".
- Under the statement, inerrancy applies only to the original manuscripts which no longer exist, but which, its adherents claim, "can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy" (Article 10).
- In the statement, inerrancy does not refer to a blind literal interpretation, and that "history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth."
- It also makes clear that the signers deny "that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. [sic, if the bible says it, it is true and trustworthy, regardless of contra-negating external sources or evidences. - res].
- We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood." [sic, evolution is wrong, wrong, wrong. - res]
- Signatories to the statement came from a variety of evangelical Christian denominations, and included Robert Preus, James Montgomery Boice, Kenneth Kantzer, J. I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul and John F. MacArthur.
As a good evangelical you would say the bible is true truth and the usage of any outside sources may be used to help the bible reader to better understand the bible EXCEPT if those external sources contradict the bible. Consequently, both ancient scholarship, and more recent fundamental and evangelical scholarship of the last 200-300 years, learned to build hermeneutical borderlands around the bible.
To help, self-proclaimed inerrant apologists circle around the bible to keep its true truths from being watered down, removed, or denied. Through preaching and teaching "official versions" of fundamentalism or evangelicalism, apologists attest to the veracity and certitude of the bible's teachings (according to their version of it). Competing for shelf space in bible book stores one will find apologetic works of every kind. From reference volumes, to commentaries, to sermons, to daily devotionals. Each giving a defense for the kind of Christian faith which is wanted and deemed correct.
Jude 1.3 (NASB) - "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints." (see other cross references here)
Christian Apologetics - The Industry of Defending a Closed System
Giving an apology for one's Christian Faith is an esoteric way of saying one wishes to defend the bible in its theology of God and God's commands. Which is all well and good but it certainly doesn't mean that one is apologetically renouncing one's faith. It means just the opposite... that one is standing-up! for one's faith in high conviction!
However, the manner of apologetic delivery in witness to the Christian faith might be encouraged to always be spoken respectfully and lovingly - though this seldom has been my experience. I do remember a visiting evangelist who admirably lived up to this manner of public speaking and personal compassion. Usually, most apologists aver God and the bible in strong terms of rhetoric and oratory. The good ones are stirring to listen to. They are well spoke and they know what they're doing. They come with ecclesiastical heat and convicting witness tied to their doctrinal deportments of choice.
As such, the ways of defending one's Christian faith may be described as giving an "Apology of the Scriptures and of the Christian Faith." Here is one of many lists of writers/speakers/evangelists/etc who are known as "Defenders of the Faith" and quite admired by today's 2020 contemporary Christian communities:
List of Popular Evangelical Apologists
- Norm Geisler: normangeisler.net.
- William Lane Craig: Reasonable Faith.org
- Ravi Zacharias: RZIM.org
- John Lennox: John Lennox.org
- Greg Koukl: STR.org
- J. Warner Wallace: ColdCaseChristianity.com
- Paul Copan: PaulCopan.com
- Ed Feser: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/
- Lee Strobel: Lee Strobel.com
- Josh McDowell: Josh.org
- Discovery Institute (Dembski, Meyer, Richards, Luskin, Wells): www.Discovery.org
- C.S. Lewis: CSLewis.org
- Gary Habermas: GaryHabermas.com
- Timothy McGrew: http://historicalapologetics.org/
- Dr. Michael Brown: AskDrBRown.org
- Richard Howe: Richardghowe.com
- Tim Keller: TimothyKeller.com
- J. Budziszewski: Undergroundthomist.org
- Hank Hanegraaff: Equip.org
- Hugh Ross: Reasons.org
The problem of Literalism and Closed Arguments
But this entire industry of Apology is unfortunate in the sense of closing down legitimate questions one should be asking of God and the Bible. It also has given rise to the idea of literally reading the bible word-for-word. Reading the bible literally means if the concept is in the bible then its a true truth. All other concepts are false. It is a very wooden, black-and-white way of reading a collection of ancient documents we call the bible in the worse possible way.
Examples abound: "An eye for an eye." Or, Christianity's "Just War" theologies vs. "Living in peace and love with one's neighbor." Another, "Obeying God's Ten Commandments" coupled with the ills of religious Legalism, Hedonism, Materialism, Secularism, and any other 'ism you might think of. Or finally, what to do with Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" which seems to replace God's Ten Commandments? Reading the bible literally can, and does, present challenges to the Christian faith.
For many exegetes, the word literal is an unfortunate word to be using when interpreting Scripture. But so too is the word symbolical. Those who haven't been taught to read the bible literally have been raised in alternative Reformed traditions of reading Scripture symbolically, metaphorically, or allegorically.
Yes, I believe I said it right. The Reformed tradition is so old and so large as to allow in its early days allegorical interpretation as well as later literal interpretation which arose out of it when Gutenberg's Printing Press (see here and here) began to get the bible's pages out of the monk's hands and into the hands of the commoner.
In Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which started the Printing Revolution. Modelled on the design of existing screw presses, a single Renaissance printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying.
My German/English seminary professor, Dr. Carl Hoch, would list out 40 different ways the word literal was not literal and misleading to interpreting Scripture. God help me but I wish I could remember that list. Dear Carl was quite humorous to listen to when he got all worked up in his litany of word-tyrannies. When he did, you dropped your pen and stopped any note taking, sat back, and listened with a smile on your face as he rambled on-and-on with no foreseable off-ramp ahead. Lord, how I miss my friend and mentor! (refer to the tongue-in-cheek essay on the word "literally" placed at bottom of this post by Boston.com/Staff)
And so, like the word literal, these allegorical interpretive ways of reading the bible may misdirect, or not allow further considerations of an idea within a textual passage. Both approaches cloud the reading of Scripture and its apprehension. How so? Basically our language and contemporary cultural gets in the way of understanding ancient ways of speaking and communicating with one another back when the passages were composed over their long periods of oral collection.
Playing Fast-and-Loose with the Word Inerrancy
Yet the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy was signed by many prominent evangelicals of the time (as an aside, I believe one of my favs, Dr. Clark Pinnock, made his decision to not sign the statement and began his positive drift away from such hard-headed Christian epistemology).
If you read the Chicago statement carefully (the part which I underlined above in bullet point two), you'll find an evangelical get-out-of-jail-free allowance for not reading the bible literally. How? Should a bible passage or a book be of a certain qualifying literary type such as poetry, a metaphor, a trope, or some other descriptor, a literalist may be forgiven for having questions, doubts, or uncertainty towards those passages.
In one sense then, Relevancy22 is an apology against the literal apologising, or reading of the bible, in a non-exegetical (literal) way. "Literally (pun intended), I love biblical theology... but am not in love with systematic theology." That is to say, if I'm going to systematized the bible at all I would prefer to do it along the lines of an Open and Relational Process Theology rather than the older systematic categories based upon Reformed Theology's Calvinism which teaches ad nauseum God as austere, wrathful, judgmental, and avenging. Or use a "Constructivist Postmodern" approach to the bible. Or a Post-Capitalistic Cosmoecological approach. Even a Continental or Radical Theological approach if I must (which I have done so in past articles and found very helpful to an understanding of God and the bible).
But I approach with skepticism any use of Reformed Systematic forms of interpretive theological systems for what they are. They are closed arguments bound in a closed system forbidding any other interpretive systematics away from its church-approved Christian nomenclatures, traditional Christian creeds, doctrines, folklores and religious borderlands.
The Politics and Polemics of Inerrancy
As a progressive Christian having left conservative evangelicalism I, and many others, have been banned from our former fellowships. We speak a different language and see the world in a different way than the more popular teachings of our former grace fellowships which have embraced a form of Trumpian Christianity as a byproduct of their austere theologies. Like many other Christians, I am glad that I have left these types of conservative fellowships and have taken pains to explain how the Christian faith might grow beyond its nationalised Christianity aligned with Empire and its excluding Ethics.
However, though I do not feel the need to defend God or His Word to the world as an itinerant apologist, I do feel the immense burden to re-teach who God is and isn't to the church at large. I suppose this then makes me God's apologist to His people (or that remnant of His people who are able to listen). Those Christian faithful who are seeking new ways to express their ancient faith in a more contemporary and ethically relevant way in the 21st Century. A faith which might avoid the conflicted worlds of Empire ethics, power, racism, nationalism, and any other horrid policies of exclusionisim. Policies moving rapidly towards the dismantling of an open democracy in favor of an authoritarian form of capitalism. A form which denies open, poly-pural ecological democracies.
Open democracies are based upon multi-representational advocates. In America's case it has been its two-party system which now seem archaic in America's complex poly-plural society. Thus my advocacy for a system holding 4-8 parties which might better represent America's many different peoples each seeing a different part of the nation requiring a voice.
Open democracies are built of many things and as a Christian some of things I wish to advocate for as a Christian is for social justice (in previous eras social justice was known as Christian humanism), Black Lives Matter, Black and Feminist Liberation Theologies, the LGBTQ community, and environmental justice in all its forms. Understanding that each-and-all of these passions lead to ecological civilizations of equality rather than industrialized societies of inequality which we are presently living under which is based upon the several capitalistic forms of State, Financial, and Corporate Capitalism which enslave all (cf. The Contours of a Post-Capitalistic, Whiteheadian-based, Cosmopolitic Ecological Civilization and Society).
The Theologies of Inerrancy
Inerrant-believing Christianity includes all Christian pronouncements advocating for an errorless bible. Who selective enforce the kind of epistemological freedom one should embrace. Whose self-serving defenders help keep the church bounded and bordered from worldly ideas. Whose fellowships act as insular communities to the world around them. At the last, all this activity and ideology but promotes a self-serving land if ever there was one.
A land filled with barbed fortresses instead of open communities. A land of exclusion and judgment willing only to receive those who agree with them and be assimilated into them. A land which ostracizes those who doubt or ask too many questions. Which deems the faithless, the Nones and Dones, the wayward, as the more worldly for their thoughts and actions as compared with the self-righteous religious teachings of the conservative Christian church. This is the downside to dogmatic certitude.
These are the lands the Lord has kept myself, and others, away from. I had good teachers. Good mentors. Good disciplers. They allowed me to think in my own way about God, Scriptures, doctrine, and church history. And "Yes, I passed all their tests, exams, orals, and theses. I am intimately acquainted with my past church history."
And yet. curiously, it was from within conservative evangelicalism Progressive Christianity has raised its voice. Having chosen the theological path of progressiveness in its openness to external voices such as science and whatnot. In so doing it has freed itself from those chaining bonds which kept a "politick" face on all the old forms of Christianity. Progressive Christians are now free to determine a newer, healthier form of hermeneutical expression of God and the bible than the one they had grown up within.
You might consider Progressive Christian voices the "Martin Luther's of their day" banging their new Christian convictions upon the bastioned doors of magazines like Christianity Today, or organizations like James Dobson's Focus on the Family and Family Talk Radio; or Franklin Graham's political organizations (excepting Samaritan's Purse which is a worthy global ministry); or the doors of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Liberty University; or any other Christian universities or churches speaking evangelical conservatism's excluding voice of God and ministry.
Contemporary Christianity is in a turmoil. It is both burning up the gospel it has lived and preached for ages yet at the same time resurrecting from its own decimated ashes to preach the Jesus gospel of freedom and release unbounded from nationalism, racism, xenophobia, and such like. It is a time of revival for the true church to come away again back to the bible and to the God who loves and provides atoning redemption to those who seek.
So then, what is this new hermeneutic which is so freeing? So disturbing? So upsetting to the church? Let's go to the next section to discuss the nub of this article's central message...
* * * * * * * * * *
Literally the most misused word
by Boston.com Staff
July 19, 2011
The adverb clutters our speech to the point where
it is in danger of losing its literal meaning.
When “Parks and Recreation’’ co-creator Michael Schur began crafting Rob Lowe’s character for his NBC sitcom, he wanted him to be a man of extremes.
“It was referenced in an episode last year (2010) that he does 10,000 push-ups a day,’’ Schur says of the character Chris Traeger. “He lives every moment of his life to the fullest, so overusing the word ‘literally’ seemed like a good character fit. He’s the kind of guy who is always claiming that something was literally the greatest thing he’s ever seen or something is literally the most fun you could ever have. In real life, it’s something that drives me crazy, because [the word's] so often misused.’’
Schur isn’t the only one peeved by “literally’’ gaining popularity as both a throwaway intensifier and a replacement for “figuratively.’’ It’s a word that has been misused by everyone from fashion stylist Rachel Zoe to President Obama, and linguists predict that it will continue to be led astray from its meaning. There is a good chance the incorrect use of the word eventually will eclipse its original definition.
What the word means is “in a literal or strict sense.’’ Such as: “The novel was translated literally from the Russian.’’
“It should not be used as a synonym for actually or really,’’ writes Paul Brians in “Common Errors in English Usage.’’ “Don’t say of someone that he ‘literally blew up’ unless he swallows a stick of dynamite.’’
“My kids do this all the time,’’ writer and former Time magazine editor James Geary explained in the British newspaper the Guardian last month. “There were ‘literally’ a million people there, or I ‘literally’ died I was so scared. When people use literally in this way, they mean it metaphorically, of course. It’s a worn-out word, though, because it prevents people from thinking up a fresh metaphor for whatever it is they want to describe.’’
Schur is able to capture some of this misuse in the ridiculousness of Lowe’s “Parks and Recreation’’ character (you can watch all of his “literally’’ moments strung together on the Internet). But while Schur can make light of “literally’’ through a sitcom, linguists and academics believe the word will soon join others that are so misused as to be past restoring.
“My impression is that many people don’t have any idea of what ‘literally’ means – or used to mean,’’ says Jean Berko Gleason, a psycholinguist at Boston University. “So they say things like ‘He was literally insane with jealousy.’ If in response, you asked them if this person had been institutionalized, they’d look at you as if you were the crazy one. The new ‘literally’ is being used interchangeably with words such as ‘quite,’ ‘rather,’ and ‘actually.’ ’’
The debate over the misuse of the word can be traced to the 18th or 19th century (depending on whom you ask), and the abuse began gathering legitimacy by 1839, when Charles Dickens wrote in “Nicholas Nickleby’’ that a character “had literally feasted his eyes in silence on his culprit.’’
By 1909, Webster’s New International Dictionary noted the misuse according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. True scorn for the misuse of “literally’’ began to simmer by the 1920s, when lexicographer H.W. Fowler scolded that it was something “we ought to take great pains to repudiate; such false coin makes honest traffic in words impossible.’’
Nothing has done much to discourage incorrect usage of the word. Watch any talk show or listen to any conversation and “literally’’ will pop up as often as “like’’ or “um.’’
In the 1990s, “Mad TV’’ featured a recurring sketch of a pretentious pair who regularly employed “literally.’’ That was followed by a blog that tracked the misuse of the word, and Worcester resident Tyler Hougaboom’s Facebook page condemning it.
MADtv - Literally
All this has sent word nerds into a snit:
“It does at times render the speaker ridiculous,’’ says Martha Brockenbrough, author of “Things That Make Us [Sic].’’ “Indiscriminate use of literally as an intensifier also diminishes the originality of the speaker.’’
The growth of “literally’’ also corresponds to our culture’s increasing desire for drama. Just count the number of times you hear “literally’’ on any reality show (Hello, Rachel Zoe).
“It’s no longer enough to say that ‘I was upset.’ You have to say, ‘My head was literally ready to explode,’ because it’s more dramatic,’’ says Paul Yeager, author of “Literally, the Best Language Book Ever.’’
If misuse of “literally’’ continues at the current rate, its true meaning could meet the fate of words such as “nonplussed’’ (meaning surprised and confused, but often misused as a synonym for disconcerted), or “bemuse’’ (to bewilder or puzzle, but often misused as a synonym for amuse). These are words that have been misused for so long that their original definitions have been completely distorted.
Bryan Garner, author of “Garner’s Modern American Usage,’’ has developed a scale for the five stages of misuse. Stage one is when usage mistakes crop up, but are widely rejected. By the time a word reaches the dreaded stage five, Garner writes that the incorrect definition is “truly universal, and the only people who reject it are eccentrics.’’
Garner now puts “literally’’ at stage three [in the year 2011] which is defined as “being used by a majority of the language community.’’ However, Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com, believes “literally’’ has already slipped dangerously close to stage four, which means that it has become ubiquitous and only a few diehards reject the new meaning.
“I go on a lot of talk shows, and people complain about the usual suspects,’’ Zimmer says. “It’s ‘literally’ and ‘hopefully’ that people complain about. But there are many other words that are commonly used: ‘truly,’ ‘positively,’ ‘absolutely.’ But those words don’t stick in people’s craw the way that ‘literally’ does.
Zimmer has a simple solution: Rephrase your sentence.
He points to a recent quote by Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, who said, “This is literally a dream come true, just like it is for everyone on this team.’’
“Thomas and his teammates didn’t all ‘literally’ dream about winning the Stanley Cup and then wake up to find themselves acting out their dreams,’’ Zimmer says. “He could have used another intensifier (‘absolutely,’ ‘definitely,’ ‘unquestionably’) to make the same point.’’
Thomas’s teammate Andrew Ference said of the Bruins victory parade, “I can’t wrap my mind around how many people were there. I literally can’t wrap my head around it.’’
Zimmer says, “It’s true, he can’t literally wrap his head around the number of people who went to the parade. And thank goodness – that kind of literal head-wrapping would be very painful indeed. Other intensifiers that could work here include ‘simply,’ ‘honestly,’ and ‘frankly.’ ’’
The ubiquity of the usage does not make it correct.
End
“Many people still don’t like it,’’ Zimmer says. “Just by rephrasing, you can save yourself a lot of grief.’’
End
Continue to Part 3
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