The Parameters of Meaning – Rule 10

Parameters of Meaning – Part 9 Parameters of Meaning – Rule 10: Never interpret the Bible via assumptions based on extra-biblical data (e.g. “science”, philosophy, history). These can help but they should never preempt Scripture. This “parameter” is of course just a reiteration of the principle of the Sufficiency of Scripture, although the emphasis is upon the whole of Scripture’s content, not just that pertaining to the doctrines of our salvation. The Bible is made up of all kinds of

Continue Reading

The Parameters of Meaning – Rule 9

I was wondering what I ought to write about when I stumbled upon my old unfinished series on The Parameters of Meaning.  I think these parameters are quite helpful guides for interpreters, but I clean forgot about them.  Well, I’m going to try to put things right!  Here’s “Rule 9” with a link to the previous eight: The Parameters of Meaning Rule 8.   Parameters of Meaning – Rule 9: If a literal interpretation leads you into wholesale spiritualizing or allegorizing,

Continue Reading

The Angel of the Bottomless Pit: Challenging Our Comfortable Worldview (Pt. 4)

Part Three I’ve said quite a lot about already about the angel of the bottomless pit, but I’ve not finished.  I believe certain passages of Scripture act as hermeneutical touchstones.  Decisions about what direction to take can be either determinative of where the exposition is going to go, or they highlight the assumptions brought to the text.  One thinks of the Olive Tree metaphor in Romans 11, or the exhortation given to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 43.  The first eleven verses

Continue Reading

THE ANGEL OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT: CHALLENGING OUR COMFORTABLE WORLDVIEW (PT. 3)

Part Two The Angel and the Beast We are now in a position to look at the angel of the bottomless pit.  Here is the principal (some say only) verse referring to him: And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. – Rev. 9:11 The first thing to notice is that in contrast to the fairly detailed descriptions of the demonic locusts in verses

Continue Reading

THE ANGEL OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT: CHALLENGING OUR COMFORTABLE WORLDVIEW (PT. 2)

Part One 4. The smoke from the pit darkens an already darkened sun. When I say “an already darkened sun” I do so because of Revelation 8:12: Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. Here the sun is already greatly affected when the

Continue Reading

The Angel of the Bottomless Pit: Challenging Our Comfortable Worldview (Pt. 1)

There are some Bible passages that pose peculiar challenges to interpreters.  These passages confront us with revelations of weirdness.  We are faced with accepting and exploring this weird side of Scripture, or else with smoothing it over, perhaps by not actually dealing with it, but instead just pretending it is obscure, and on that basis, moving on.  Episodes that qualify to be on the list of weird passages would include Genesis 6:1-4 and Joshua 10:11-14, but many could be added.

Continue Reading

CONTEMPORARY HERMENEUTICAL THEORY AND CONSERVATIVE INTERPRETATION (4)

Part Three Speech-Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation On a more positive note overall is the matter of whether language is merely descriptive or whether it can be said to actually do something. This gets us into the subject of language as “speech-acts.” This view has been defined as follows: Speech-act theory is a set of pragmatically based principles that were developed at the edge of philosophy and linguistics. The major assumption is that language is not so much concerned with saying

Continue Reading

Contemporary Hermeneutical Theory and Conservative Interpretation (3)

Part Two Ricoeur Alongside Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur (d. 2005) stands as the most important philosopher of hermeneutics in the last hundred years. His work is often to be found discussed in evangelical circles today, and for that reason we shall devote a little more space to his work. Ricoeur is concerned with how language is used not with how it is structured.[53] As human existence is communicated through language, the study of the use of language is, therefore, the study

Continue Reading

The Sine Qua Non of Dispensationalism? – Ryrie and Feinberg (Revised)

I made a bit of a hash of the initial post on this because I was in a rush.  Here is an extended and revised version (which is what I should have posted).  It questions the third essential of Ryrie’s proposed sine qua non. The picture of history that is constructed comes from the base of consistently applied principles of grammatico-historical (G-H) hermeneutics.[i]  The Bible is to read as one would read any other book.  The presupposition here is not

Continue Reading

CONTEMPORARY HERMENEUTICAL THEORY AND CONSERVATIVE INTERPRETATION (2)

Part One Footnotes follow on from last time. The Hermeneutical Landscape The philosopher of religion Gregory Clark admits that, “[some] sources regularly describe the variety of hermeneutical approaches practiced today as ‘dizzying’.”[22] In closing his article Clark writes: “Hermeneutics as a discipline is as wild and woolly as it has ever been, and its future shape and even its existence are impossible to predict.”[23] Reading the “movers and shakers” in evangelical hermeneutics today is a little foreboding. It might be

Continue Reading

Site Footer

Sliding Sidebar

Categories