How hard can it be to read and understand personal correspondence?

Even when ordinary laypersons are able to gain an adequate and sufficient understanding of what is being said in the Bible, there is the other dimension of the reception and application of these matters to one’s own life and heart.

Does this not have an effect on the issue of the clarity of Scripture?

The Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit

• The Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit

• One of the key texts that must be considered here is the pivotal statement of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:14: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

• Meaning of the text illustrated by a professor giving an eloquent exposition of Romans 1-5:

• “Who said anything about believing it? I am just arguing that this is what Paul said. I’m sick and tired of hearing the younger neoorthodox scholars say, ‘This is what this or that text means to me.’ I was trained under the old liberal theology; we learned what Paul said. We just don’t happen to believe what Paul said!” (Kaiser/Silva, pp. 167-8)

The Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit

• The Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit

• I then began to perceive what Paul was driving at in 1 Corinthians 2:14. This professor did not “welcome” (as dechetai could be translated) the things that he knew well enough to teach, practically without a flaw, for almost two hours.

• It thus is clear that the ministry and work of the HS, in illuminating the hearts and minds of those who hear spiritual truths, is not to be treated lightly in this whole area of biblical interpretation, especially in the area of the application of those things that are taught in the Bible.

• Some have felt that there might be two separate types of logic in the world: one for the believer and the other for the unbeliever.

The Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit

• The Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit

• But Paul makes it clear in Romans 1-2 that those who are unconverted understand the essential truth about God well enough to condemn themselves, since they have not acted on what they did know about God.

• And 1 Cor. 2:14 adds the thought that, without the indwelling ministry and illuminating work of the HS such persons will neither welcome nor embrace the realities found in the biblical text.

• Thus, one of the unique roles of the HS is to convict, convince, and arouse sluggish hearts by applying the truths perceived in the text of Scripture to the lives of individuals. As a further aid to placing oneself in a position where the ministry of the HS can work more effectively, Scripture calls upon the reader to ponder and meditate carefully on what is being said in the biblical text.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The art and practice of meditating on the Scriptures plays an important role in one’s devotional use of the Bible.

• Meditation is presented in Scripture as an act of worship, one that involves communion with God.

• Instead of its being an avenue of escape, wherein the individual is swallowed up, absorbed, or mingled with the divine in some sort of unspecified mystical process, as it so frequently is taught in many Eastern religions or some of the modem Western cults, meditation in Scripture can be carefully defined as to its objects, its methods of practice, and its results.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• We can get a good idea of the meaning of meditation by examining the contexts where the concept and words of meditation are found.

• Especially prominent is Psalm 77, with references to meditation in three of its verses.

• The psalm falls into two parts: verses 1-9 express Asaph’s sorrow and distress; verses 10-20 report how he rose above these problems.

• In the time of his distress, and through sleepless nights, he mused or meditated on the Lord (v. 3).

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• In his disquietude, the psalmist recalled happier days in the past (v. 5), and in the long night hours his heart mused (or meditated, v. 6) on what he had learned of God from his Word during the good times of life.

• Would God cast him off forever? he wondered. But then in verse 10 he suddenly recalled God’s former deeds.

• At that point he decided that he would “meditate on all [God’s] works and consider [or ponder, meditate on) all [God’s] mighty deeds” (v. 12).

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• Thus, the psalmist’s deep despondency gave way to God’s deliverance when he focused on meditating on the works of God.

• This is exactly the desired outcome of all devotional reading of the text of Scripture.

• Meditation is a function of the heart, that is, of the whole person.

• Such meditation is stressed in Psalm 19:14; 49:3; Proverbs 15:28; and Isaiah 33:18.

• The goal of meditation, according to Psalm 49:3, is understanding, not, as is so frequently stressed in Oriental religions and some of the cults of our day, self-abnegation.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• In order to meditate, one must not try to be emptied of oneself, so that allegedly the divine can flow through one’s being almost in a pantheistic way.

• Rather, one is to bring one’s whole person—body, soul, and mind—to focus on God, his works, and especially his Word, which tells about both his person and his work.

• Based on the sheer number of references, it would appear that the meditation encouraged by Scripture finds its basic focus on the Word of God.

• As we have noted, Joshua 1:8 commands meditation on the book of the law all through the day and the night.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Psalter itself begins with a blessing for the person who delights in the law of the Lord and who meditates on that law day and night (Ps. 1:1—2).

• Repeatedly, Psalm 119 urges its readers to “meditate on (God’s] precepts” (vv. 15, 78), his decrees (vv. 23, 48), his law (v. 97), his statutes (v. 99), and his promises (v. 148). The mind of the meditator is not to be blank and empty; it is to be filled with Scripture, the Word of God.

• Accordingly, when the law of God is in one’s heart, that person’s feet do not slip, because “the mouth of the righteous man utters [or ponders) wisdom” (Ps. 37:30—31). That is what it means to meditate on the Word of God as it is read devotionally.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The result is that the Word of God remains constantly in the heart of believers in every situation that they find themselves in: when they sit down in their houses, get up to walk, lie down in the evening, or get up in the morning (Deut. 6:6-9; Prov. 3:22-24; 6:22).

• No one method of studying the. Bible can claim exclusive rights over all other methods. In fact, Howard Vos identified some seventeen different approaches to studying the Bible in his book Effective Bible Study.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• True, some of his seventeen methods involved more than one approach; however, the point is that one may undertake one’s devotional study of the text using approaches such as the biographical method, the topical method, the doctrinal method, the inductive method, or the analytical method.

• No one method is a magical wand that removes the need for using one’s mind or for accepting the hard discipline that is needed in all these methods.

• In fact, it would be well for readers of Scripture to vary their devotional use of Scripture from time to time.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• One should never be so bound that there is no room for freedom of experimentation and enlarging the sphere of one’s investigation.

• The only caution needed is that one should always be careful to let the text first say what it wants to say before we attempt to apply that text into our contemporary situations.

• It will always be helpful if we use a pen or pencil to pull together what it is that we think we are seeing in the text.

• A notebook recording our observations will complete the tools required, especially if we are going to draw together the various pieces into some organization that gives us larger overviews of what we are looking at.

The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• The Act of Meditating on Scripture

• Finally, one of the best ways to continually mull over a text is to select one or more verses from the passage we are reflecting on and to commit it to memory.

• There in the memory it can be stored for further moments of thought and reflection to be called upon for application in the various vicissitudes of life.

The revelation of God in Scripture was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek by writers who represented a variety of cultures that differed often in dramatic ways from those of the cultures into which the Bible has been translated.

• The revelation of God in Scripture was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek by writers who represented a variety of cultures that differed often in dramatic ways from those of the cultures into which the Bible has been translated.

• These differences may not always be appreciated for what they are until we begin to translate the Bible into another language.

• In his book Customs, Culture, and Christianity, Eugene A. Nida relates how so-called literal translations of the Bible can produce misleading connotations in another culture.

For example, the Kpelle of Liberia view the placing of palm branches in Jesus’ path during the triumphal entry into Jerusalem as an insult, for their culture requires that all leaves be cleared from the path of any dignitary.

• For example, the Kpelle of Liberia view the placing of palm branches in Jesus’ path during the triumphal entry into Jerusalem as an insult, for their culture requires that all leaves be cleared from the path of any dignitary.

• Likewise, the Zanaki of Tanganyika regard Jesus’ knocking at the door (Rev. 3:20) as strange, since in their culture men stand at the door and call out if they wish admittance; only thieves knock to see if anyone is home before they rob the house.

What is true in the area of Bible translation is also true in the area of interpretation as well.

• What is true in the area of Bible translation is also true in the area of interpretation as well.

• The interpreter must bridge the gulf of explaining the cultural elements that are present in the text of Scripture, acknowledge his or her own cultural baggage as an interpreter, and then transcend both in order to communicate the original message of Scripture into the culture of the contemporary audience.

• All of this demands some understanding of what culture is all about.

The Definition of Culture

• The Definition of Culture

• Culture is not all that easy to define; in its broadest sense, it usually means the patterned way people do things together.

• Thus it implies some degree of homogeneity over a certain span of time.

• As Eugene Nida defined it, “Culture is all learned behavior which is socially acquired, that is, the material and nonmaterial traits which are passed on from one generation to another.”

• Thus culture designates the unique ways a given group of people view and do things in a particular period of time, including their values, manners, morals, expressions, and accomplishments.

The Definition of Culture

• The Definition of Culture

• While there are certain basic needs common to most groups of people, it is surprising how cultures vary and differ from each other—notably in the area of foods.

• God’s revelation of his Word came in terms of the culture of its writers and first audiences.

• Therefore, if we are to use that word effectively today, we must be able to enter into a cross-cultural communication of the Bible with the people to whom we wish to unfold that message of the gospel.

The Definition of Culture

• The Definition of Culture

• The Bible writers used the cultural material that was available to them, whether merely in the incidental employment of terms that had had a history of previous associations or in the direct use of a term that was meaningful in that culture.

• Thus the problem would arise, for that term was not the way people in later cultures would have put the matter.

• Indeed, the Old Testament refers to the sea monster of Leviathan and even to seven-headed dragons!

• If our culture no longer finds these figures meaningful or part of our ordinary discourse, then the problem is ours as interpreters and not that of the Bible.

The Definition of Culture

• The Definition of Culture

• The very fact that the Bible was written in a particular time to a particular people by a particular writer for a particular situation was not meant to remove the Bible from its general usefulness for future generations but to make it all the more down-to-earth in its general appeal.

• Unfortunately, some who have missed this point have turned this argument on its head and have felt as if the Bible’s particularity removed the text from them.

The Definition of Culture

• The Definition of Culture

• Instead, what would have really removed the Bible from us would have been its having been written in some type of metalanguage and located in some otherworldly planet with which we had no contact, feeling, or appreciation.

• So not every aspect of the Bible’s cultural dimensions should be regarded merely as more work for us.

• It also should give us a certain sense of affinity and identification, just because we too are mortal and share just as detailed and specific needs as these that puzzle us.

The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• The Word of God comes to us in the specific cultural and historical language of the pre-Christian and first Christian century.

• If we are to appreciate the meaning as it was originally intended by its originally intended by its original writers, we must come to understand what they meant by all the cultural allusions.

• This does not end the process, for there is still the need to link those understandings up with the target culture into which we wish to announce these words, not to mention our need to be aware of our own cultural baggage as interpreters.

• But let us concentrate here on the problem of the cultural allusions in the text.

The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• First, we must be able to recognize the cultural aspects of the Bible.

• These usually are the passages that tend to give us problems when we go to apply them directly to our day.

• The values, associations, and meanings that they may have had in another era will not transfer easily into those of our own day.

• They also tend to be illustrations of ways in which the truth taught in the text was being applied in another day.

The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• We read Phil. 4:2, “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord,” and usually do not stumble over its particularity; we should act accordingly with regard to other cultural elements.

• Most people, who have never met Euodia and Syntyche, will teach that this passage is an illustration of some principle such as that in Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

• No one assumes that somehow he or she is responsible to do exactly what Paul addressed to both of these women.

• Why, then, are we so slow to catch on when it comes to handling other matters that in many ways are just as cultural?

The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• Perhaps a list of some possible candidates for the label cultural in the Bible might help us to focus on the problem somewhat more accurately. Consider these direct or implied biblical injunctions:

• —You also should wash one another’s feet. (John 13:14)
• —Greet one another with a holy kiss. (2 Cor. 13:12)
• —(Should) a woman pray to God with her head uncovered? (1 Cor. 11:13)
• —Women should remain silent in the churches. (1 Cor. 4:34)

The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• Everyone must submit. . to the governing authorities. (Rom. 13:1)
• If a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him. (1 Cor. 11:14)
• Put your sword back in its place. (Matt. 26:52)
• Lend [your] money without usury. (Ps. 15:5)
• I wish all men were [single] as I am. (1 Cor. 7:7)
• [Do not] lie with a woman during her period. (Ezek. 18:6)

The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• The Bible and Cultural Relativity

• Most of these examples are well known and may serve as illustrations of the type of issues we confront in interpreting the cultural elements in the Bible.

• At the center of this search is the problem of distinguishing that which is universal and of enduring authority from that which is cultural and therefore more related to illustrations of the principle being set forth for those times.

• We need a set of guidelines that will help us not only in determining when we are dealing with a cultural matter but also in understanding their use in our day and in other cultures besides our own.

• These will be develop later on in this section.

The Bible and Contextualization

• The Bible and Contextualization

• Intimately connected with the topic of cultural exegesis is a new term that has come into increasing prominence in recent theological discussions: contextualization.

• The term appears to have been used first in a document prepared in 1972 by the directors of the Theological Education Fund with reference to offering theological education in the third world.

• Bruce Nicholls later defined it as “the translation of the unchanging content of the gospel of the kingdom into verbal form meaningful to the peoples in their separate cultures and within their particular existential situations.”

• James Oliver Buswell III suggested that we break down the term into three categories: “contextualization of the witness, contextualization of the church and its leadership, and contextualization of the Word.”

• In this chapter, we focus mainly on the third in Buswell’s list of categories.

The Bible and Contextualization

• The Bible and Contextualization

• The theme of contextualization has had many applications in recent years, some that have been good and others that have left the Scriptures lacking in authority to help contemporary cultures.

• On the more negative side, some have used the idea to support a particular social or political agenda that reflects their own desires (e.g., in some cases the liberation theology of Latin America, some feminist theologies, some Black theologies, and some Asian theologies).

The Bible and Contextualization

• The Bible and Contextualization

• When the concerns of the contemporary interpreter supersede those of the text in such a way that the text is used merely as a springboard for issuing what moderns wish to say, the term contextualizaton has been diverted from something useful to being merely the servant of its handlers.

• The text still must remain prior to and master of whatever context it is being applied to.

• Nevertheless, much can be learned from contextualization, even by those of us who are of a conservative bent.

The Bible and Contextualization

• The Bible and Contextualization

• Our practice of contextualization will affect more than the way we deliver our sermons to different cultures or the way we counsel in those situations; it will have a mighty impact on the way we do theology and the way we present Scripture for ourselves and our hearers.

• Our perspective cannot be avoided, but it must honestly be acknowledged if we are to be fair to the text, to ourselves, and to others.

• In all cases, the text as it was intended by the author must sit in judgment on our perspectives and our conclusions that we have drawn from the text.

Ethnohermeneutics

• Ethnohermeneutics

• In 1987 Larry W. Caldwell proposed a field he entitled ethnohermeneutics, which would take seriously the cross-disciplines of hermeneutics and anthropology.

• In Caldwell’s view, the typical model for interpreting a text could be labeled the two-step method:

• First one drew from the text what the text meant according to the best grammatico-historical techniques available (Caldwell preferred to call this method the historical-critical method).
• The second step was then to apply it and say what that text means today.

Ethnohermeneutics

• Ethnohermeneutics

• But Caldwell found this two-step model to be thoroughly Western in that it failed to deal with the cross-cultural perspective. In many ways, he was more than justified in making this criticism. No longer would it be possible to discuss the process of interpretation without taking up the cross-cultural implications of what was being read.

• What was really needed was not a model with two horizons but one with three that would include the cross-cultural perspective. It would look like this:

• First horizon: The culture of the Bible
• Second horizon: The culture of the interpreter
• Third horizon: The culture of the receptor

Ethnohermeneutics

• Ethnohermeneutics

• In each one of these horizons, a circle of cultural baggage and understandings had to be accounted for, lest any one of the cultures be made normative for the others.

• Thus far we can agree on the need for such a new program and readily endorse it.

• However, a new element arose when some in the new ethnohermeneutical school asserted that the apostle Paul’s understanding of the OT was completely revolutionized after his conversion, so that his interpretations of what had been said in the OT were no longer determined by what the text had meant to its original writer, but only by what the present context demanded.

• What was proposed, then, was that we can do the same type of revising of the text ourselves today in bridging from biblical to modern cultures with the message of the Bible.

Ethnohermeneutics

• Ethnohermeneutics

• What was proposed, then, was that we can do the same type of revising of the text ourselves today in bridging from biblical to modern cultures with the message of the Bible.

• But that tends to elevate one horizon over the others, especially our modern culture, and to make it more normative than the revelation that came from God.

• This use of a rabbinic methodology of determining meaning of a text, as a means of legitimating contemporary loosening of the ancient values and meanings of the text, is not an unusual deviation from the current thinking of our times.

Ethnohermeneutics

• Ethnohermeneutics

• For an e.g. of the “rabbinic hermeneutics” model, see Charles R. Taber (Kaiser/Silva, p. 179.

• We cannot escape Taber’s question: Can we reject the rabbinic hermeneutics of the first century as inappropriate for ourselves and yet accept it as being an adequate description of what Paul or the other writers of the NT were doing?

• Paul doubtless was trained in such rabbinic techniques, for he had the best education available in his day from Gamaliel.

• But to argue from that agreed-upon fact to the conclusion reached by Charles Taber is another matter.

Ethnohermeneutics

• Ethnohermeneutics

• Can we imagine Paul saying, “The OT does not say what I am drawing from these OT texts, but please allow me to show how on my midrashic principles I can prove that what these texts taught is precisely what happened in Jesus the Messiah”?

• Would that be an adequate basis for winning people from the Jewish community over to Jesus? Such a claim would call for stretching one’s imagination too far.

• Put another way, few persons in the church today will object to some rather innocent allegorizing and other types of subjective handling of the biblical text for devotional purposes.

• Should the same methods be used to foster new or what we would regard as heretical doctrines on us (as the Jews surely regarded Paul’s teaching), the demand for a return to what is written in the text would come faster than anyone could say “sensus literalis.”

Ethnohermeneutics

• Ethnohermeneutics

• It hardly fits the facts to imagine that the apostles used such techniques in trying their best to argue that what had happened in Christ was neither new nor unanticipated!

• It simply does not fit the evidence of either the OT context or the NT fulfillments to say that the former texts merely reminded the apostles that the later NT connections might be true.

• Would that be enough to stake one’s life on and for the apostles to die for?

Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Rabbinic exegesis is not the only wedge that has been used to try to open up a way to summon the three horizons and introduce ethnohermeneutics.

• Earlier approaches spoke of “condescension,” “accommodation” or “acculturation.”

• For example, the early church father Chrysostom used the notion of God’s “condescension” (Greek, synkatabasis) to speak of the fact that the writers of Scripture used one inexactitude or another in order to speak in such a way as to be understood by their hearers.

Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• In his view, condescension was not a roundabout way of declaring that a bit of innocent error had crept into the scriptural text, nor was it a way of excusing the human writers of Scripture, in the sense of “To err is human.”

• But such a conclusion is incorrect on. both accounts.

• It is one thing to approximate a matter while still pointing just as really and accurately to it; it is another to use that which would be misleading and deceptive, or just plain wrong, in representing the same matter.

Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• The prophets and apostles took the former course and not the latter.

• And if it be protested that the writers of Scripture were surely just as human as all of us are, we agree.

• But the objection about the humanity of the writers has missed the claim of the Bible.

Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• The idioms, vocabularies, styles, and the like were uniquely their own, yet the product was precisely what God wanted as he stayed with each writer in such a way that there was a living assimilation of the truth—not a mechanical dictation of the words, such as a whispering in the writer’s ear or an involuntary movement of their hands as they automatically wrote.

• In 1 Cor. 2:13 Paul claimed that he was “taught” these truths “in words.”

• That is, what he wrote had become thoroughly a part of him.

• The total product was exactly what God wanted, for he stayed with the writers all the way up to their verbalizing of the truths that they had assimilated under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit.

Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Furthermore, there is a type of condescension that does not necessarily involve error—namely, our Lord’s condescension.

• In this regard a parity can be set up between “he who did no sin” as the incarnate Word and the protection that was afforded those who wrote the written Word (1 Cor. 2:6-16, esp. v. 13).

• What has been said about condescension is equally true about accommodation and acculturation.

Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• Condescension/Accommodation/Acculturation

• The cultural aspects of the message were not meant to make it more difficult for us to interpret, or to deceive us, but to make the truth all the more accessible and part of each person in each succeeding era of history.

• The particularity of the text, in that it introduced culturally relevant materials, was intended to aid us in applying the text to our own day as we saw vivid illustrations as to how the principles in the text were applied in that day and culture, rather than acting as an obstacle to our contemporary appreciation for what was being said.

Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• It is clear from Hebrews 1:1 that God has spoken in his Word to our fathers by the prophets “at many times and in various ways.” While acknowledging the diversity of method, however, we affirm the profitability (2 Tim. 3:16-17) of all Scripture—cultural parts included!

• Therefore, when it comes to handling the cultural and historical aspects of Scripture, the guidelines below should be helpful.

• Before starting this list, however, notice how we are presented with three options in every one of these situations that involve a cultural or historical side to the revelation being considered.

Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• 1. We may retain both the theology taught (i.e., the principle affirmed in the text or contextually implied) along with the cultural-historical expression of that principle.

• Thus, the principle of some type of divinely authorized lines of responsibility in the husband-wife, parent-child, sovereign-citizen relationships seems to be affirmed in Scripture.

• If this understanding is correct, even to a limited degree, then here would be some examples of cases where the theological principle was also combined with the particular custom expressing that principle.

Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• How far the principle would continue to be included in a given culture would be subject to some variation within various systems of interpretation.

• But the concept that both the principle and some, or all, aspects of its historical-cultural manifestations are often retained is definitely taught.

Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• 2. We may retain the theology of a passage (i.e., the principle) but replace the behavioral expression with some more recent, but equally meaningful, expression.

• That there are biblical precedents for such replacements can be seen from the way that the so-called civil and ceremonial law of Moses functions as illustrations of the abiding moral law of God.

• For e.g., in I Cor. 5 the principle of the sanctity of marriage and human sexuality remained, even though the sanction of stoning to death had been changed for the mother and son guilty of incest to excommunication from the body of believers.

Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Behind the moral law of God (as found, for example, in the Ten Commandments and the law of holiness in Leviticus 18-20) stood God’s holy character.

• That is what made the theological principle unyielding; the sanctions, or penalties, however, were subject to modification.

• Thus behind both the OT and the NT rule against incest stood the holy character of God and the sanctity of marriage; the principle stood even though the cultural application varied.

Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• 3. Some may even replace both the principle (e.g., the so-called principle of economic subordination) and the practice.

• For e.g., the practice of wearing veils and using certain hairstyles may be replaced with what is believed to be a more egalitarian concept.

• It replaces what some regard as older hierarchical or even patriarchal concepts of family relations.

• This is not to say that the mere decision to do so is thereby legitimized, for modernity and eddies of contemporary thought are never in themselves adequate justification for the truthfulness or authority of the positions adopted.

Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• Practical Guidelines for Cultural Interpretation

• There may be some cases where what some have regarded as a crucial point of theology is nothing more than additional expressions of the culture and the times in which it was written, but all of this must be demonstrated from the text and not just declared to be so on the basis of one’s own word.

• The text will normally supply its own clues as to which of these three options are to be used.

• To give further help in handling cultural issues, we turn now to the following five guidelines.

1. Observe the reason why a command, custom or historical example is given in the text.

• 1. Observe the reason why a command, custom or historical example is given in the text.

• If the reason for a questioned practice or command has its basis in the unchanging nature of God, then that practice or command will have permanent relevance for all in all times.

• For e.g., Gen. 9:6 commands that all who shed a person’s blood, by deliberately lying in wait for them with premeditation, must suffer capital punishment.

• The reason given is fixed in the nature and character of God: “because God made man in his own image.”

• Consequently, as long as men and women are still in the image of God, they continue to have worth, value, and esteem in the eyes of God.

1. Observe the reason why a command, custom or historical example is given in the text.

• 1. Observe the reason why a command, custom or historical example is given in the text.

• But what about the sanction of capital punishment? Is that punishment necessarily mandated even for our day just because we agree on the abiding nature of the reason given for the prohibition against taking another person’s life?

• The force of this moral and theological reason cannot be appreciated until we notice how closely the penalty is linked with the abiding theology of the text of Gen 9:6. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man [presumably as later specified, by the hands of the state] shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man.”

1. Observe the reason why a command, custom or historical example is given in the text.

• 1. Observe the reason why a command, custom or historical example is given in the text.

• So valuable is that murdered person’s life that mortals (in this case, the state, to protect society against vigilantes) owes back to God the life of the murderer.

• This is how the reason for a command or custom helps us to know if both the cultural form and the content are still in vogue.

2. In some cases, modify the cultural forms but retain the content.

• 2. In some cases, modify the cultural forms but retain the content.

• For e.g., the principle of humility remains as a permanent injunction for all times, even though the specific application of washing one another’s feet has changed (presumably because of our location in history, shoe styles, and our type of roads).

• John 13:12-16 is clear about what Jesus did and about his command, but his main point is just as well preserved in Mark 10:42-45—“[The] rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

2. In some cases, modify the cultural forms but retain the content.

• 2. In some cases, modify the cultural forms but retain the content.

• Similarly, James urged believers to observe the principle of nonpartiality (James 2:1-4), yet the form that it took may not always persist in all cultures.

• In James’s case, it consisted of having the poor sit on chairs in the church services while the rich stood or sat on the floor.

• While the principle remains, the form of its application will take a multiplicity of forms.

3. Refuse practices that were integral parts of the surrounding pagan culture.

• 3. Refuse practices that were integral parts of the surrounding pagan culture.

• Some practices are just basically and inherently wrong because they spring from the pagan religions and culture and, in many instances, carry with them that which the Bible opposes on moral, ethical, and theological grounds.

• In some cases, the retention or adoption of some of these practices could be a bridge that could lead the practitioner back into the paganism from which he or she came or, in other cases, introduce them into that form of paganism.

• The Bible’s strong condemnation of bestiality, homosexual behavior, transvestism, and deliberate flaunting of one’s nudity are often connected with what these practices meant in paganism.

3. Refuse practices that were integral parts of the surrounding pagan culture.

• 3. Refuse practices that were integral parts of the surrounding pagan culture.

• Each one of these Canaanite practices offended one aspect or another of God’s moral nature and his attributes.

• In these cases there could be no doubting the fact that the form was so inextricably bound up with the content and meaning of the pagan religion and its practices that the believer could have no part of any of it.

4. Retain practices that are grounded in the nature of God.

• 4. Retain practices that are grounded in the nature of God.

• Some forms that might at first glance appear to be mere cultural expressions are nonnegotiable commands based on the nature of God.

• Accordingly, the issues of divorce and remarriage, obedience to parents, and the legitimate respect owed to government are some examples of injunctions grounded either in the nature of God or in the ordinances of creation that have universal and enduring appeal.

• So it is that “what God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matt. 19:6); that is how it has been and remains since God gave his original directive at creation.

4. Retain practices that are grounded in the nature of God.

• 4. Retain practices that are grounded in the nature of God.

• Interestingly enough, the moral responsibility for deciding whether to pay one’s taxes to a government that one believes is in opposition to accepted moral law (or some other equally principled objection) is lifted from the shoulders of believers. The reason one is relieved of this moral responsibility is because Romans 13:7 places taxes in the same category as paying for services rendered by people who work for us in the service professions.

• We do not aid and abet the possible unsavory way of life of some plumbers, electricians, and carpenters who may work in our home from time to time when we pay them the full amount that they request on their bill.

4. Retain practices that are grounded in the nature of God.

• 4. Retain practices that are grounded in the nature of God.

• Likewise, when we pay our taxes, we render to Caesar what is due; we have no basis for deducting that percentage that goes to a war that we cannot support or to abortion clinics that we cannot morally justify.

• Over against this illustration of taxes, however, stand those commands that are grounded in the moral nature of God or his creation ordinances.

5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• 5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• There is indeed biblical precedent for saying that circumstances may alter the application of the laws of God that do not rest on his nature (i.e., on the moral law of God), but that are true because he spoke them in a particular context.

• Law based not on the nature of God but on his particular sayings on a special occasion is called positive law.

• An example of such a change in the application of a command can be seen in the command given to Aaron and his sons.

• Originally they alone were to eat the bread of presence set out before the Lord in the tabernacle (Lev. 24:8—9).

5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• 5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• But when an emergency arose in the case of David and his men who were without any food, Ahimelech offered this sacred and forbidden food to David and his army (1 Sam. 21:1-6).

• But there is more to this illustration of how positive law can have its application changed when the circumstances demanded it.

• Jesus himself used the very same illustration to justify his performing deeds of mercy on the Sabbath, which some people saw instead as violating its sacredness (Matt. 12:1-5; Mark 2:23-25; Luke 6:1-4).

5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• 5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• What appeared, at first blush, to allow no exceptions (such as doing what some considered to be working on the Sabbath day), actually had a condition of “all other things being equal” attached to it.

• This is not to say that we have now confused the moral law (which we said was to be found in part in the Ten Commandments) with positive law, for the commandment about the Sabbath is the only one in the Ten Commandments that is mixed with both moral and positive aspects.

5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• 5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• It is moral in that it says that God is owner of all time and therefore has a right to receive back a portion of our time in worship of himself; but it is positive, or ceremonial, in that it spells out the seventh day as that time.

• There is absolute loyalty in Scripture to the principles founded on the nature of God, but there is a good deal of flexibility in applying positive commands, such as sanitary laws and dietary laws (see Mark 7:19 and Acts 10:15, where all foods are declared clean).

5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• 5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• Likewise, the same flexibility holds true in cases of ceremonial regulations such as the instance of 1 Kings 8:64, where Solomon used the middle of the temple court to sacrifice the numerous animals during the dedication ceremony, instead of the prescribed brazen altar, which was too small for the occasion (cf. 2 Chron. 4:1; 1 Kings 9:26).

• Nevertheless, the principle of worship remained even though the means varied.

• One must watch carefully for positive commands, noting their attachment to particular historical occasions but also observing the principles they inculcate.

5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• 5. Notice when the circumstances alter the application of a law or principle.

• It will do little good to observe in a formal way such alleged normative commands as “Get into the boat,” “Loose the colt,” or “Launch out into the deep.”

• The context will help us to see that they had specific reference to specific people, even if the principles observed remain for all who followed in their train.

• This area of the cultural and historical application of the biblical message is not easily resolved in every case.

• When deadlocks remain, then we must remember the need for humility. We likewise can profit from keeping in mind the three horizons of Bible interpretation.

The area of the cultural and historical application of the biblical message is not easily resolved in every case.

• The area of the cultural and historical application of the biblical message is not easily resolved in every case.

• When deadlocks remain, then we must remember the need for humility. We likewise can profit from keeping in mind the three horizons of Bible interpretation.

Robert C. Sproul (on humility on matters of uncertainty in matters of interpretation)

• Robert C. Sproul (on humility on matters of uncertainty in matters of interpretation)

• “Here the biblical principle of humility can be helpful. The issue is simple--would it be better to treat a possible custom as a principle and be guilty of being over in our design to obey God; or would it be better to treat a possible principle as a custom and be guilty of being unscrupulous in demoting a transcendent requirement of God to the level of a mere human convention? I hope the answer is obvious.”

The Case for the Three Horizons

• The Case for the Three Horizons

• We return the beginning; there are indeed three definite horizons: that of the Bible, the interpreter, and the receptor.

• It should also be clear that each of these three horizons has a context as well.

• The Bible was written within the confines of certain cultures and times.

• No interpreter has the right to make that text say whatever he or she wants it to say.

• The text must be allowed to say what it wants to say, but with due respect for the particular setting and culture in which it was based.

The Case for the Three Horizons

• The Case for the Three Horizons

• While some have pointed to the NT’s use of the OT as legitimizing certain types of intuitive approaches, it can hardly be claimed that the NT writers were not interested in the natural sense of the older Scriptures, especially when it came to forming doctrine based on those same texts, or when it came to using them for apologetic purposes to show that Christianity was not some new fantasy just dreamed up by someone.

• Interpreters also must be aware of the way that their culture forces certain questions while leaving them blind to other, perhaps equally provocative, questions.

The Case for the Three Horizons

• The Case for the Three Horizons

• Furthermore, when interpreters arrive at a text, they have already formed a kind of hermeneutical spiral that has a forceful way of imposing categories or ways of looking at certain questions and the like.

• Interpreters must constantly go through periods of self-examination to see just how free they really are and to consider how much each of these points previously adopted has indeed affected the exegesis.

• Finally, readers, listeners, and the contemporary audience to whom the ancient Word is being proclaimed must likewise confess that they too each have a circle of culture and personal commitments.

The Case for the Three Horizons

• The Case for the Three Horizons

• No one is an island, and no one arrived on the scene innocent and with a blank tablet.

• To the degree that prejudices have been built up, to that degree we must expect that our depravity will manifest itself.

The field of biblical interpretation has undergone dramatic changes during the 20th c., largely because of the work of such scholars as Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, but also because of developments in other fields, including literary criticism, philosophy, and even science.

• The field of biblical interpretation has undergone dramatic changes during the 20th c., largely because of the work of such scholars as Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, but also because of developments in other fields, including literary criticism, philosophy, and even science.

• To a large extent, these changes signaled a reaction to the historical-critical method that flourished in the 19th c.

• This method focused on the historical meaning of the Bible so intensely that it often seemed to exclude its present relevance.

The rise of the so-called New Criticism (in American literary studies) shifted attention to the view that literary texts have significance in themselves, that is, independently of the author’s original intention.

• The rise of the so-called New Criticism (in American literary studies) shifted attention to the view that literary texts have significance in themselves, that is, independently of the author’s original intention.

• Especially when applied to the Bible, this approach minimizes the historicity of the narratives. In addition, a growing emphasis on the role of the reader has injected a strong element of subjectivity into the work of interpretation.

Although it may be true that we should not identify the meaning of a text totally and exclusively with what the author consciously intended to communicate, it is a serious error to dispense with the concept of authorial intention or even to relegate it to secondary importance.

• Although it may be true that we should not identify the meaning of a text totally and exclusively with what the author consciously intended to communicate, it is a serious error to dispense with the concept of authorial intention or even to relegate it to secondary importance.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• It is no exaggeration to say that the contemporary interest in hermeneutics signals a new epoch in the scientific study of the Bible.

• Observers commonly see the beginning of that epoch in the work of Karl Barth (1886-1968), one of the most influential theologians of modern times.

• Barth had been trained by highly respected scholars in the classical liberal tradition. Nevertheless, as he left the academic world and took up a pastorate, he found that his training was of little value for the life of the church.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Then in 1914 came the tragedy of World War I, which affected theological developments quite directly in Europe.

• Liberalism, believing that the proclamation of a “social gospel” would bring God’s kingdom of peace to the earth, had relied heavily on an optimistic view of human nature. Those hopes were crushed by the war.

• Barth was of course personally affected by these events; but there was an additional element.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• He saw his revered teachers adopt political positions that, he felt, contradicted the very principles they had taught.

• The only course left open to him was to break with his theological past, and this he did in a rather unusual way.

• Soon after the war, Barth published a commentary on Paul’s epistle to the Romans that sent shock waves through academia.

• As someone said, it was as though a bomb had been dropped ip the garden where the theologians were playing.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Even today his book seems somewhat strange.

• It bears little resemblance to a typical exegetical commentary; instead of focusing on the historical meaning of the text, Barth seemed to ignore that meaning because of his preoccupation with the relevance of the text for today’s reader.

• Predictably, the commentary made no advance on Romans scholarship.

• His bold approach, however, set in motion a dramatic change in the way theologians view biblical interpretation.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Enter Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), whose relationship with Barth was rather friendly at the beginning.

• Primarily a NT scholar with special interest in the history-of-religions school, Bultmann shared with Barth a deep concern about the relevance of Christianity.

• For a variety of reasons, however, they soon parted company; one important factor was Bultmann’s adoption of existentialism, particularly as set forth by the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Among Bultmann’s articles, few are more interesting than one entitled, “Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?” The answer to his own question was no. To be sure, Bultmann was not suggesdng that readers of the Bible may decide ahead of time the specific meaning of a text; he always believed that objectivity (properly understood) is the aim of the exegete.

• His point, however, was that all of us bring a worldview to the text and that suppressing that worldview is out of the question.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Boldly, Bultmann went on to argue as follows:

• The historical method includes the presupposition that history is a unity in the sense of a closed continuum of effects in which individual events are connected by the succession of cause and effect. . . . This closedness means that the continuum of historical happenings cannot be rent by the interference of supernatural, transcendent powers and that therefore there is no “miracle” in this sense of the word.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Bultmann was quite right to argue that it is impossible to interpret the Bible (or any other text, for that matter) without presuppositions. The kind of neutral objectivity that earlier scholars had aimed for does not exist.

• It is another issue, however, whether Bultmann’s own presuppositions were in line with the presuppositions of the biblical writers.

• A genuine Christian commitment, one could argue, must be compatible with the faith of those through whom the Christian revelation came.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• The inevitable question is thus raised, just what sense does it make to hold on to our Christian identity if our most basic assumptions (the question of God’s so-called interference in this world) conflict with those of the Christian Scriptures?

• Note, however, that Bultmann’s theological aims, like Barth’s, were greatly affected by a concern for relevance. If we moderns cannot believe in

• miracles, he argued, then we must reclothe the primitive Christian message in terms that are understandable to us.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• This principle led Bultmann to develop a hermeneutical method known as demythologization (but perhaps more accurately described as remythologization).

• He believed that the early Christians used mythical categories to give expression to their Easter faith.

• One must not think of myths as fabrications intended to deceive.

• Indeed, Bultmann’s approach did not precisely involve rejecting the myths but translating them into modern myths.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• By this Bultmann meant primarily the categories of existentialist philosophy.

• Some of Bultmann’s disciples, though dissatisfied by various elements in their teacher’s ideas, sought to build on those ideas during the 1950s and 1960s.

• For example, a movement that came to be known as “the new quest for the historical Jesus” attempted to bring the Jesus of history and later Christian faith closer together than Bultmann had allowed.

• More significant for our purposes was the development of the “New Hermeneutic.”

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• This movement had very little to do with the traditional concerns of hermeneutics, except in the rather general sense that it focused on the concept of understanding.

• Indeed, the scholars representative of the New Hermeneutic seldom discussed the methods by which we determine the historical meaning of the biblical text.

• They were rather interested in developing a theology that built on certain Continental views about language and thought, mainly the teachings of the existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Because these ideas have broad implications, however, the movement has made a significant impact on subsequent discussions about biblical interpretation.

• Even as these developments were taking place in biblical and theological scholarship, a parallel set of ideas was coming to expression in the field of literary criticism.

• As early as the 1930s, an important group of literary scholars were arguing that the traditional approach to criticism was unsatisfactory—in particular, that the usual concern with the author was misguided.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• What a poet may have intended in writing a poem, for example, may be of some historical interest, but that has little relevance to our understanding of that poem.

• Known as the New Criticism, this approach treated the text as an artifact independent of its author and thus reopened the fundamental question of textual meaning.

• The interrelationship among the disciplines of literary criticism, philosophy, and theology has deeply affected the debate during the past several decades.

• Perhaps the most prominent figure has been the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose name is usually (though not always fairly) associated with a relativistic approach to interpretation.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Perhaps the most prominent figure has been the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose name is usually (though not always fairly) associated with a relativistic approach to interpretation.

• Indeed, Gadamer went so far as to give the impression that truth in interpretation is a matter of personal taste.

• It is important to keep in mind, however, the context of his argument.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• What Gadamer was most concerned to refute was the claim that the scientific method alone is able to arrive at the truth.

• At the root of this method is doubt—specifically, doubt about anything that has not been repeated and verified.

• Accordingly, tradition is “prejudice” and must be eliminated.

• But the humanities, and history in particular, are not subject to this kind of repetition and verification, so the inference might be drawn that the humanities cannot arrive at the truth.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Over against that viewpoint—which was almost a commonplace a few decades ago and even today continues to be assumed in some quarters—Gadamer argued that “prejudice” cannot be eliminated.

• Indeed, prejudice is essential for consciousness and understanding. His intent was to rehabilitate tradition (particularly the classics), which provides the presuppositions that can be tested as they are applied to the texts.

• In the development of his conception, however, Gadamer also placed much emphasis on the view that the past is not fixed, that prior events and texts change inasmuch as they are continually being understood.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• If so, it is not possible to identify the meaning of the text simply with the author’s intention.

• Gadamer’s thought had a deep impact not only on philosophical discussion but also on the study of literature and therefore on theological and biblical scholarship.

• Particularly well known in this connection is the work of Paul Ricoeur.

• Among his numerous ideas, we should take note of his emphasis on the distinction between the relations of speaking-hearing and writing-reading.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• In spoken discourse, the meaning of the discourse overlaps the intention of the speaker. But with written discourse, the text’s career escapes the finite horizon lived by its author. What the text means now matters more than what the author meant when he wrote it While Ricoeur himself is not a biblical scholar, he is deeply interested in religious thought, and thus many theologians and biblical students have been affected by his work.

• J. S. Croatto is an especially interesting example, since his writings, which arose in the context of Latin American liberation theology, have become popular in the English-speaking world.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• According to Croatto, the Bible must not be viewed as a fixed deposit that has already said everything— it is not so much that the Bible “said” but that it “says.”

• In committing their message to writing, the biblical authors themselves disappeared, but their absence means semantic richness.

• The “closure” of authorial meaning results in the “opening” of new meaning.

• Croatto even tells us that the reader’s responsibility is not exegesis—bringing out a pure meaning the way one might take an object out of a treasure chest—but properly eisegesis, that is, we must “enter” the text with new questions so as to produce new meaning.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• One can hardly overemphasize the radical character of these developments.

• To a practitioner of the historical method it is simply shocking to hear that eisegesis may be a permissible—let alone the preferable—way to approach the text.

• For 19 centuries the study of the Bible had been moving away from just such an approach (especially in the form of allegorical interpretation), so that with the maturing of the historical method a great victory for responsible exegesis had been won.

• But now we are told that historical interpretation is passé.

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Although no one is arguing that we should return to the uncontrolled allegorizing of some ancient and medieval interpreters, the search for a meaning other than that intended by the original author does seem, at first blush, as though one is giving up centuries of hermeneutical progress.

• The situation is even more complicated; during the past several decades we have witnessed the arrival of a variety of more specialized, even esoteric, approaches, such as structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, and so on (see the section, “The Role of the Reader”).

Key Developments in the Twentieth Century

• Key Developments in the Twentieth Century