Exegetical Fallacies - D. A. Carson

The subject of this chapter could easily be turned into a very long book. To talk about fallacies at the
presuppositional and historical levels is to raise complex questions about philosophy and history that are
beyond my competence and the scope of this book. Besides, those interested primarily in historical
fallacies cannot do better than to read David Hackett Fischer;' those interested in presuppositional
fallacies will have to devour substantial quantities of epistemology before they come up with satisfying
comprehensiveness.
Nevertheless, something should be said about presuppositional and historical fallacies in a book like
this, for they play a large role in biblical exegesis. The Bible contains a lot of historical data; and where
finite, fallen human beings struggle with history, there will historians' fallacies be found. Exegesis
involves sustained thought and argumentation; and where there is such sustained thought, there also will
we find presuppositional fallacies.
The Influence of the New Hermeneutic
In the modern climate, it is essential to mention the revolution in thought brought about by the rise of "the
new hermeneutic."2 Until a few decades ago, hermeneutics was largely understood to be the art or
science of interpretation-as far as theology was concerned, of biblical interpretation. The interpreter is
the subject, the text is the object, and the aim in this view is for the subject to develop techniques and
"feel" to enable him or her to interpret the object aright. There is much that is laudable in this enterprise;
but it does not focus adequately on the barriers to understanding that the interpreter himself brings to the
task. At this point the new hermeneutic brings some conceptual light to bear.
The new hermeneutic breaks down the strong subject/object disjunction characteristic of older
hermeneutical theory. The interpreter who approaches a text, it is argued, already brings along a certain
amount of cultural, linguistic, and ethical baggage. Even the questions the interpreter tries to ask (or fails
to ask) of the text reflect the limitations imposed by that baggage; they will in some measure shape the
kind of "responses" that can come back from the text and the interpreter's understanding of them. But these
responses thereby shape the mental baggage the interpreter is carrying, so that in the next round the kinds
of questions addressed to the text will be slightly different, and will therefore generate a fresh series of
responses-and so on, and so on. Thus, a "hermeneutical circle" is set up.
In some expositions of the new hermeneutic, real and objective meaning in a text is a mirage, and the
pursuit of it as useful as chasing the Cheshire cat. "Polysemy" applied to entire texts is defended in the
most naive way-that is, a theory that argues a text has many meanings, none of them objectively true, and
all of them valid or invalid according to their effect on the interpreter. But such absolute relativism is not