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Biblical Hermeneutics
Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles and methods used to interpret texts of the Bible. The term derives from the Greek hermeneuein (to interpret) and encompasses both the theoretical foundations of interpretation and the practical application of those principles to specific passages. While a narrow definition limits hermeneutics to formal exegetical methodology, broader uses extend it to encompass questions of meaning, authority, and the relationship between text and reader. The scope of what counts as a legitimate interpretive method is itself contested; see biblical-hermeneutics-literal-vs-figurative-viewpoint-debate and biblical-hermeneutics-reader-response-viewpoint.
Current State of Knowledge and Debate
Biblical interpretation has been practiced since antiquity, but the discipline of hermeneutics as a formal field developed substantially in the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment periods, as historical-critical methods were applied to Scripture alongside other ancient texts. Today the field draws on linguistics, philosophy, history, literary theory, and theology.
Several major interpretive frameworks coexist, often in tension. Historical-critical methods seek to reconstruct the original authorial intent and historical context of a text. Literary and canonical approaches read texts as unified wholes rather than assemblages of sources. Reader-response and contextual theologies foreground the role of the interpreter's own social location and experience. Theological hermeneutics, associated particularly with traditions of confessional Christianity, treats Scripture as divinely inspired and interprets it within the framework of creedal or doctrinal commitments.
Questions that remain actively debated include: the weight to be given authorial intent versus textual meaning versus reader meaning; the relationship between the two Testaments; how figurative, allegorical, and typological readings relate to literal or plain-sense readings; and whether Scripture can be treated as historically and scientifically accurate where it touches on those domains. The Accommodation Doctrine - the view that God condescended to the limits of human knowledge when revealing Scripture - is frequently invoked in debates over Accommodation, Scripture, and Science and Biblical Inerrancy, and is treated differently across traditions.
Consensus Status
No broad scholarly consensus exists on the correct method of biblical interpretation; the field is constitutively pluralist. There is, however, wide agreement - independently arrived at across non-affiliated secular and theological faculties - that the historical-critical method is a foundational tool for academic study of the Bible, even among scholars who dispute its sufficiency or its implications for doctrine. See biblical-hermeneutics-historical-critical-consensus.
Viewpoints
Grammatical-historical interpretation holds that the plain, literal sense of the text, understood in its original linguistic and historical context, is the controlling meaning. This approach is associated with Protestant conservative and Reformed traditions and is often linked to commitments to inerrancy. biblical-hermeneutics-grammatical-historical-viewpoint
Allegorical and typological interpretation treats Scripture as containing multiple layers of meaning - literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical - and has roots in patristic and medieval Catholic exegesis. Contemporary Catholic and Eastern Orthodox hermeneutics retain significant space for this approach. biblical-hermeneutics-allegorical-viewpoint
Historical-critical interpretation applies to biblical texts the same philological, source-critical, form-critical, and redaction-critical tools used on other ancient documents. Proponents argue this yields the most historically grounded readings; critics argue it brackets theological meaning or smuggles in antisupernaturalist assumptions. biblical-hermeneutics-historical-critical-viewpoint
Canonical interpretation reads individual texts in light of the whole canon, treating the final form of Scripture as the primary object of interpretation rather than hypothetically reconstructed earlier sources or traditions. Associated with Brevard Childs. biblical-hermeneutics-canonical-viewpoint
Reader-response and contextual hermeneutics foreground the role of the interpreter - their culture, gender, class, or historical moment - in the production of meaning. Liberation theology is one example of this broad category. biblical-hermeneutics-reader-response-viewpoint
Inerrantist hermeneutics treats the Bible as without error in all its affirmations, including historical and scientific ones, and interprets apparent conflicts with modern knowledge as problems of interpretation or evidence rather than of the text. This position is distinct from infallibilist positions that limit inerrancy to matters of faith and practice. biblical-hermeneutics-inerrancy-viewpoint
Controversies
The accommodation doctrine controversy concerns whether the view that God accommodated scriptural revelation to pre-scientific human understanding is a coherent defense of inspiration or an implicit concession that Scripture contains error; it has divided conservative and progressive evangelical scholars since at least the nineteenth century. biblical-hermeneutics-accommodation-controversy
The historical-critical method controversy concerns whether critical scholarship, by bracketing divine inspiration methodologically, necessarily produces distorted readings of texts whose meaning is inseparable from their theological claims. biblical-hermeneutics-historical-critical-controversy
The inerrancy debate controversy concerns the scope, definition, and doctrinal necessity of biblical inerrancy, crystallized in disputes following the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and continuing in evangelical institutions. biblical-inerrancy-controversy
Related Pages
Footnotes
1. Grant, Robert M., and David Tracy. A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. 2. Thiselton, Anthony C. New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. 3. Childs, Brevard S. Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979. 4. Muller, Richard A. The Study of Theology: From Biblical Interpretation to Contemporary Formulation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991. 5. “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.” International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, 1978. Reproduced in Inerrancy, edited by Norman Geisler. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980. 6. McKim, Donald K., ed. A Guide to Contemporary Hermeneutics: Major Trends in Biblical Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 7. Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.