Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics - Dallas Theological ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

l1li ~-~--~o_, ,_.,, WfiUiBl!III Ii ~"'--minds for understanding and response. God is itssource, and Jesus Christ, the Savior, is its center ofreference and main subject matter. Its absolute andabiding worth as an infallible directive for faith and livingfollows from its God-givenness (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15-17). Beingas fully divine as it is human, it expresses God's wisdomin all its teaching and speaks. reliably - that is, infalliblyand inerrantly - in every informative assertion it makes.It is a set of occasional writings, each with its ownspecific character and content, which togetherconstitute an organism of universally relevant truth,namely, bad news about universal human sin and needanswered by good news about a particular first-centuryJew who is shown to be the Son of God and the world'sonly Savior. The volume which these constituent booksmake is as broad as life and bears upon every humanproblem and aspect of behavior. In setting before us thehistory of redemption-the law and the gospel, God'scommands, promises, threats, works and ways; andobject-lessons concerning faith and obedience and theiropposites, with their respective outcomes-Scriptureshows us the entire panorama of human existence asGod wills us to see it.The authority of Holy Scripture is bound up with theauthority of Jesus Christ, whose recorded words expressthe principle that the teaching of Israel's Scriptures (ourOld Testament), together with his own teaching and thewitness of the apostles (our New Testament), constitutehis appointed rule of faith and conduct for his followers.He did not criticize his Bible, though he criticizedmisinterpretations of it; on the contrary, he affirmed itsbinding authority over him and all his disciples (cf. Matt.5:17-19). To separate the authority of Christ from that ofScripture and to oppose the one to the other are thusmistakes. To oppose the authority of one apostle to thatof another or the teaching of an apostle at one time tothat of his teaching at another time are mistakes also.The Holy Spirit and the ScripturesThe Holy Spirit of God, who moved the humanauthors to produce the biblical books, now accompanies'them with his power. He led the church to discern theirinspiration in the canonizing process; he continuallyconfirms this discernment to individuals through theunique impact which he causes Scripture to make uponthem. He helps them as they study, pray, meditate andseek to learn in the church, to understand and committhemselves to those things which the Bible teaches, andto know the living triune God whom the Bible presents.The Spirit's illumination can only be expectedwhere the biblical text is diligently studied. Illuminationdoes not yield new truth, over and above what the Biblesays; rather, it enables us to see what Scripture wasshowing us all along. Illumination binds our consciencesto Scripture as God's Word and brings joy and worshipas we find the Word yielding up to us its meaning. Bycontrast, intellectual and emotional impulses todisregard or quarrel with the teaching of Scripture comenot from the Spirit of God but from some other source.Demonstrable misunderstandings and misinterpretationsof Scripture may not be ascribed to the Spirit's leading.The Idea of HermeneuticsBiblical hermeneutics has traditionally beenunderstood as the study of right principles forunderstanding the biblical text. "Understanding" maystop short at a theoretical and notional level, or it mayadvance via the assent and commitment of faith tobecome experiential through personal acquaintancewith the God to whom the theories and notions refer.Theoretical understanding of Scripture requires of us nomore than is called for to comprehend any ancientliterature, that is, sufficient knowledge of the languageand background and sufficient empathy with thedifferent cultural context. But there is no experientialunderstanding of Scripture - no personal knowledge ofthe God to whom it points - without the Spirit'sillumination. Biblical hermeneutics studies the way inwhich both levels of understanding are attained.' .The Scope of Biblical InterpretationThe interpreter's task in broadest definition is tounderstand both what Scripture meant historically andwhat it means for us today, that is, how it bears on ourlives. This task involves three constant activities.First comes exegesis, this extracting from the textof what God by the human writer was expressing to thelatter's envisaged readers.Second comes integration, the correlating of whateach exegetical venture has yielded with whatever otherbiblical teaching bears on the matter in hand and withthe rest of biblical teaching as such. Only within thisframe of reference can the full meaning of the exegeted. teaching be determined.Third comes application of the exegeted teaching,viewed explicitly as God's teaching, for the correctingand directing of thought and action. Application isbased on the knowledge that God's character and will,man's nature and need, the saving ministry of JesusChrist, the experiential aspects of godliness includingthe common life of the church and the many-sidedrelationship between God and his world including hisplan for its history are realities which do not change withthe passing years. It is with these matters that bothtestaments constantly deal.Interpretation and application of Scripture takeplace most naturally in preaching, and all preachingshould be based on this threefold procedure. Otherwise,biblical teaching will be misunderstood and misapplied,and confusion and ignorance regarding God and hisways will result.The original document is located in the Dallas Theological Seminary Archives.
Formal Rules of Biblical InterpretationThe faithful use of reason in biblical interpretation isministerial, not magisterial; the believing interpreter willuse his mind not to impose or manufacture meaning butto grasp the meaning that is already there in the materialitself. The work of scholars who, though not themselvesChristians, have been able to understand biblical ideasaccurately will be a valuable resource in the theoreticalpart of the interpreter's task.a. Interpretation should adhere to the literalsense, that is, the single literary meaning whicheach passage carries. The initial quest is always forwhat God's penman meant by what he wrote. Thediscipline of interpretation excludes all attempts togo behind the text, just as it excludes all reading intopassages of meanings which cannot be read out ofthem and all pursuit of ideas sparked off in us by thetext which do not arise as part of the author's own -expressed flow of thought. Symbols and figures ofspeech must be recognized for what they are, andarbitrary allegorizing (as distinct from the drawingout of typology which was demonstrably in thewriter's mind) must be avoided.b. The literal sense of each passage shouldbe sought by the grammatical-historical method,that is, by asking what is the linguistically naturalway to understand the text in its historical setting.Textual; historical, literary and theological study,aided by linguistic skills - philological, semantic,logical - is the way forward here. Passages shouldbe exegeted in the context of the book of which theyare part, and the quest for the writer's own meaning,as distinct from that of his known or supposedsources, must be constantly pursued. The legitimateuse of the various critical disciplines is not to callinto question the integrity or truth of the writer'smeaning but simply to help us determine it. .c. Interpretation should adhere to theprinciple of harmony in the biblical material.Scripture exhibits a wide diversity of concepts andviewpoints within a common faith and an advancingdisclosure of divine truth within the biblical period.These differences should not be minimized, but theunity which underlies the diversity should not be lostsight of at any point. We should look to Scripture tointerpret Scripture and deny as a matter of methodthat particular texts, all of which have the one HolySpirit as their source, can be genuinely discrepantwith each other. Even when we cannot at presentdemonstrate their harmony in a convincing way, weshould proceed on the basis that they are in factharmonious and that fuller knowledge will show this.d. Interpretation should be canonical, that is,the teaching of the Bible as a whole should alwaysbe viewed as providing the framework within whichour understanding of each particular passage mustfinally be reached and into which it must finally befitted.Valuable as an aid in determining the literalmeaning of biblical passages is the discipline of genrecriticism, which seeks to identify in terms of style, formand content, the various literary categories to which thebiblical books and particular. passages within. thembelong. The literary genre in which each writer createshis text belongs in part at least to his own culture and willbe clarified through knowledge of that culture. Sincemistakes about genre lead to large-scalemisunderstandings of biblical material, it is importantthat this particular discipline not be neglected.The Centrality of Jesus Christ in the Biblical MessageJesus Christ and the saving grace of God in him arethe central themes of the Bible. Both Old and NewTestaments bear witness to Christ, and the NewTestament interpretation of the Old Testament points tohim consistently. Types and prophecies in the .oldTestament anticipated his coming, his atoning death, hisresurrection, his reign and his return. The office andministry of priests, prophets and kings, the divinelyinstituted ritual and sacrificial offerings, and the patternsof redemptive action in Old Testament history, all hadtypical significance as foreshadowings of Jesus. OldTestament believers looked forward to his coming andlived and were saved by faith which had Christ and hiskingdom in view, just as Christians today are saved byfaith in Christ, the Savior, who died for our sins and whonow lives and reigns and will one day return. That thechurch and kingdom of Jesus Christ are central to theplan of God which Scripture reveals is not open toquestion, though opinions divide as to the precise way inwhich church and kingdom relate to each other. Any wayof interpreting Scripture which misses its consistentChrist-centeredness must be judged erroneous.Biblical and Extra-biblical KnowledgeSince all facts cohere, the truth about them must becoherent also; and since God, the author of all Scripture,is also the Lord of all facts, there can in principle be nocontradiction between a right understanding of whatScripture says and a right account of any reality or eventin the created order. Any appearance of contradictionhere. would argue misunderstanding or inadequateknowledge, either of what Scripture really affirms or ofwhat the extra-biblical facts really are. Thus it would be asummons to reassessment and further scholarlyinquiry.Biblical <strong>Statement</strong>s and Natural ScienceWhat the Bible says about the facts of nature is astrue and trustworthy as anything else it says. However, itspeaks of natural phenomena as they are spoken of inordinary language, not in the explanatory technicalterms of modern science; it accounts for natural eventsin terms of the action of God, not in terms of causal links .within the created order; and it oflen describes natural.. - ........--The original document is located in the Dallas Theological Seminary Archives...,
Page 1 and 2: THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL H
Page 3 and 4: We deny that the message of Scriptu
Page 5: 1J(n)1f~W(n)Wl(DC0(n)W(1 ~C0~@(JUw~

Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics - Dallas Theological ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?