Parameters of Meaning – Rule 6: Beware of basing an interpretation on the shifting sands of a supposed “genre”; especially “apocalyptic.” Make sure the interpretive decision is well grounded. Rule 5 is here. Over the last generation or so there has been a great stir in scholarly circles about “genre.” Genres are literary types or kinds. They can be broken down from larger kinds like, for instance, “narrative” into smaller branches. There are a lot of these smaller genre-types. …
Category: Hermeneutics
This post will be my final say in my debate with Steve Hays. It’s becoming personal and I never intended that to happen. This responds somewhat “scatter-gun” to the posts below. I have decided to hone in on the most salient topics from my point of view. http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/hermeneutic-of-suspicion.html http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/signs-of-times.html http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-did-first-hearers-hear.html http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/back-to-future.html http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/types-shadows.html Steve’s latest offering: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/rocinante-to-rescue.html lowers the bar considerably and is a pugnacious and emotion-driven effort paying still less regard to my words even when printing them. If you …
I’m going to do one more post after this one, with perhaps a summary of the main points later on. I have enjoyed and benefitted from this interchange. I hope Steve Hays can say the same, although his online manner is not encouraging. Readers only of his blog will come away thinking Henebury just doesn’t get it (e.g. “As usual, Henebury can’t follow the argument.”). I wonder how many other of Hays’ interlocutors would say the same thing? Indeed, I …
I’m going to have to be more selective with Steve Hays’s posts. It is important to me not to misrepresent him, even while I may spot tendencies which I believe he should be more forthcoming about. The pace that Hays goes at it is almost impossible to keep up. This addresses parts of Salva veritate plus. Before kicking off in earnest here’s another example of taking the “plain-sense” for granted. It comes from the title of chapter 5 of …
Everyday communication assumes that the one speaking and the one listening can understand each other. Blog writers post for others to read their thoughts. Newspapers and books are published on this assumption. Even “postmodern” deconstructionists complain if their stated views are misconstrued. Every debate and every teaching situation from the beginning of time requires that words communicate intent and that intent can be known. Misunderstandings occur when, for example, someone has not said what they meant to say, or has …
This post responds to two by Steve Hays (link, link) 1. Revelation and Communication Steve Hays wants to return to the issue of meaning. He says I have not addressed it. He is mistaken. In the “More Responses” post I wrote: My main concern in the “40 Reasons” was God’s intention. Second to that is the inspired author. As both are benign communicators, the assumption is that they wanted their first hearers to grasp their intentions. If that were not …
In his post imaginatively titled, “The future’s not what it used to be” Steve Hays interacted somewhat with several other statements in my 40 Reasons: He quotes Reason 22: 22. It forces one to adopt a “promise – fulfillment” scheme between the Testaments, ignoring the fact that the OT possesses no such promise scheme, but rather a more relational “covenant – blessing” scheme. Then says, I believe he picked this up from Sailhamer’s recent book (The Meaning of the Pentateuch). …
This post responds to Steve Hays’, The New Exodus. Steve starts us off by quoting my Reason 37 from the “40 Reasons” I said: “With all due respect I think Steve is letting a presumed theological motif pass rudely over what the texts are really saying. As I pointed out in Reason 37: 37. In reality what happens is that the theological presuppositions of the interpreter which are read into the NT text and then back into the OT. There …
I am a good three posts behind Steve Hays, but I hope to stay in sight, even if I lag behind. As I have said many times, I am not interested in defending dispensationalism as a system. Yet I have to confess that when a brother has the gall to challenge my conclusions my flesh immediately consoles my wicked heart with the reassurance that they can’t possibly have a good argument. On my better days, I hope I listen and …
This is a continuation of the one on Recapitulation and Typology in Isaiah and Jeremiah. This time we deal with Isaiah and Ezekiel. One of the things to look out for in this exchange is that Hays is not your run-of-the-mill covenant theologian (he doesn’t think OT Israel is a type, although I can’t see why he makes the exception Actually, he clarified that point in a post I missed, so I am happy to be corrected. I confess I …
