Hermeneutics Notes Pdf

[Francesca Cruiz]

TheAlexandrian school was centered in one of the most learned cities in the Roman Empire, Alexandria, Egypt. The school, heavily influenced by Platonic philosophy, taught the allegorical method of interpretation. Built upon a worldview that saw the physical world as a shadow of the spiritual, Alexandrian interpreters saw the Bible pointing non-literally to deeper spiritual (or allegorical) truths.

The Antioch school represented an opposite perspective. The school focused its approach on a literal reading of the text. The spiritual reading of the text, they believed, must come from the literal reading. According to the book Biblical Hermeneutics by Bruce Corley, Steve Lemke, and Grant Lovejoy, the Antioch school was influenced by both Greek and Jewish thinkers. But instead of Plato, Antioch was largely influenced by Aristotle.

Augustine set the stage for much of Medieval hermeneutics with his landmark book On Christian Teaching (or On Christian Doctrine) published in the late 4th and early 5th centuries A.D. In the book, he described a number of interpretive rules that are still bedrocks of biblical hermeneutics in the 21st century. For example, he wrote that Bible students should:

The innovations of the post-Reformation era centered on attempts to apply the reasoning and methods fueling academic advancement in other fields to the study of the Bible. Movements like rationalism, Protestant scholasticism, Calvinism (as well as responses to Calvinism) dominated 16th and 17th century Protestant hermeneutics.

In his early 18th century book De Sacrae Scripturae Interpretandae Methodo Tractatus, Jean-Alphonse Turretin illustrated some of these rationalistic approaches to interpretation in the following five points related to biblical exegesis and interpretation:

Fundamentalism, which arose in the early 20th century, emphasized a literal and dispensational approach to interpreting Scripture. Dispensational theology divided human history into seven periods (or dispensations). The relationship between God and man varied in each of these periods. These differing periods impacted how to interpret associated Scriptures.

Classic liberal theology arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as an attempt to harmonize the Bible with new scientific information. Liberal theologians saw the Bible as a human book, whose supernatural elements could be explained in scientific terms.

Sometimes studying the syntax of a verse simply means you look at a specific word and its place in the sentence. Is the noun being used as a subject or an object? How is the verb understood when it has God for the subject? How is it understood when the word has God for its object?

In his book Interpreting the Pentateuch: An Exegetical Handbook, Peter Vogt tells readers to determine the nature of the legal requirement within the law. In other words, what is the law requiring or forbidding? Sometimes this is straightforward, but often it takes a detailed reading of the verse.

Narrative elements of the Bible are spread throughout the Old and New Testaments, including parts of the Pentateuch and the vast majority of the historical books of the Old Testament, along with the Gospels and the book of Acts in the New Testament.

When most Christians think of biblical poetry, they immediately focus on the Psalms, but there are a variety of songs and poems throughout the Bible. Still the vast majority of biblical poetry can be found in the Psalms.

Biblical poets almost always used a structure of parallelism to communicate their message. Generally, that means that in biblical poetry a line has correspondence with the next one. The challenge is usually trying to discern what that correspondence is. Sometimes, as with synonymous parallels, the second line simply repeats the first line a little differently.

Other times, as with antithetic parallelism, the second line is the opposite. Still others use a form of advancing parallelism, where the second line advances the message of the first. Understanding which of these methods is being used is critical to both interpretation and application of the text.

Most of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job are considered wisdom literature. Of all the genres of Scripture, wisdom literature has some of the most unique interpretive rules. Thus, it also includes some of the most misinterpreted Scripture in the biblical canon.

Possibly the most important interpretive principle to consider when reviewing biblical prophecy is a general one that is particularly critical for this genre. Take note of the historical situation before considering contemporary application. Often the text itself alerts you to when the text was shared (usually prophetic texts were spoken before they were written). Take the time to understand what the prophet wanted to say to the people of his day. Identify a specific theme, and then apply that theme to the world of today.

Maybe the most critical interpretive point to keep in mind as you study New Testament letters is that while letters were passed around to different churches, they had specific audiences and were addressing particular situations. The letter writer often provides clues to the situation within the text. Pay attention to these clues. While the letter has meaning beyond the original situation, the interpreter needs to start with the original meaning.

Biblical scholars William Klein, Craig Blomberg, and Robert Hubbard provide a seminary-level overview of biblical hermeneutics. The course includes content on the history of biblical interpretation, guidelines for reading biblical poetry and prose, and insights for understanding and applying Scripture today.

Tobin Perry has spent over 20 years as a writer and editor for faith-based audiences. He has written for Christianity Today, Baptist Press, Saddleback Church, the North American Mission Board, and more. He has also served as a lead pastor of a small church in Southern Indiana and a church planting intern in Seattle, Washington. Tobin has a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a Master of Divinity degree from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (now Gateway Seminary). He lives in Evansville, Indiana with his wife and three children.

But if hermeneutics became a feature of our today, then it is not missing the today: it is absorbed by it; or perhaps we should rather say that what hermeneutics misses is paying attention to this absorption, to how it is absorbed in and by our today. Perhaps this hermeneutical missing resides in the fact that, today, meaning appears to be so exhausted by interpretation that interpretation becomes empty of meaning, not because it lacks meaning or because meaning would be hidden or forgotten, but because meaning is too exposed to the work of meaning. Indeed, what seems more and more evident today is that whatsoever meaning can be taken in whatsoever way. We assist everywhere in the process by which meanings are rendered empty by the excess of signification they can receive. It is not only the meaning of history and tradition, of heritage and legacy, of belonging and dependence, that can receive whatsoever signification depending on who, where, when and for which purpose they are named and appropriated: the same happens with the meaning of critique and transformation, when what is being criticized is empowered through that very critique, and continuous transformation keeps transformation untransformed.

The question is therefore that of turning attention to how existence is existing, forgetting, dis-attending, distracting itself from itself; it is a matter of turning attention to the gerundive mode of existing, to how the being-drawn of the lines of existence is indeed being forgotten while drawing but, in this oblivion, becomes more present than the present. It is an attention that brings us close to a thought of the informal, to the impossible thought of the formless without any attempt to direct itself or to achieve a form. Indeed, it comes close to a thought of the informal as what is between the unformed and the formless, a thought to a certain extent close to the plastic thoughts of painters like Fautrier and Dubuffet and their poetics of dis-attention and distraction; a thought close to the poetic thoughts of Paul Celan, this great lacunar poet, who thought poetry as

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