When a given sentence has been artificially taken out of context…the features of the world that we take to be normal, and our usual expectations of our world (as far as [we may think] these are relevant to the utterance) serve as an implicit context (the default frame) determining our interpretation.

E. F. Kittay, Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure

(Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987), 55-59.

In a discussion with a couple of pastors this morning on the topic of Christ-centered preaching/teaching it occurred to me that one can bring the accomplished and applied work of Jesus Christ to bear on any passage of scripture, but do so in a way that flatly and simplistically portrays Him. It is good to remember that, for whatever reason, God brought his people Israel down a very long road before fully unveiling the glorious salvation found in Christ. When the Messiah did come, everything that he did and said was pregnant with a profound significance that wove itself through every story of the Jewish scriptures. It is for this reason that we must continually dive back into the world of the Old Testament in order to properly understand and teach others about Christ. To sum up the identity and saving work of Jesus without reference to the story of His people as presented in the OT is to miss who He really is. In a sense, whether we are studying for ourselves or teaching others, we must continually retrace the lines of redemptive history in order to properly place any given element from God’s story.

I have observed a dual pair of critical impulses in my thinking when I am bothered by someone else’s interpretation of a passage of Scripture. On the one hand, I may question whether their interpretation can be derived from the immediate Scriptural context in the way that they have suggested. But then on the other hand, I may then question whether their interpretation is consistent with the testimony of Scripture as a whole.

Now obviously, both of these are valid and legitimate questions, which always ought to be asked about any interpretation. But it is significant to note that while anyone can easily make either of these two hermeneutical errors, logically they mutually exclusive. In other words, if you are paying very careful attention to the immediate context of a passage and making the mistake of not heeding its significance within its larger canonical context, it is impossible to simultaneously make the mistake of reading that same interpretation into the passage by not paying careful enough attention to the immediate context. It is of course possible that you could come to one mistaken conclusion that is based upon the first error, and then immediately come to a second mistaken conclusion based upon the second error, but this does not seem very likely. Most of the time we tend toward a pattern of one extreme or the other, either reading too much into a text, or blinkering ourselves to the interpretive significance of the larger context.

But what I find disturbing is the fact that when I encounter a bothersome interpretation of a text, I am often suspicious of both errors. I may first say, “I don’t see how he’s getting that out of this text!” And when he shows me how it is a legitimate interpretation within the context, I may then think, “Well, he’s probably just not paying enough attention to the larger context of this passage (or chapter, or book, or Scripture as a whole, etc…)”.

While it makes sense to be alert for either of two of the most common hermeneutical errors, the fact that I suspect these two mutually exclusive errors, one on the heels of the other, suggests that another motive is at work in me. It suggests that I have the tendency to challenge and discount any interpretation that makes me uncomfortable, for whatever reason that might be. I might be able to come up with a seemingly valid critique of the person’s hermeneutical method, but the fact is, I was looking for a reason to discount their interpretation because its implications were bothersome to me.  This is not a healthy tendency, and it is good to be wary of it whenever I evaluate another’s interpretation of Scripture. The goal of exegeting Scripture should always be to better understand and come to grips with what it is really saying, not being comfortable with what we think says.

While individual interpreters can commit themselves to only one model of reality, they may employ a variety of methods to get at the meaning of a text. There is, however, one qualification: each of the methods adopted must be appropriate to the model of reality embraced by the interpreter.

- V. Phillips Long, The Art of Biblical History

This seems to me to be the most promising approach–divine revelation should be located in both historical events and the interpretive word which mediates these events to us. It also seems to be the approach that is most in keeping with the biblical witness itself. Nevertheless, for some time now the hermeneutic pendulum in biblical studies has continued to swing back and forth between the two poles of event and word…

What is needed, I would argue, is to bring the pendulum to a halt in the middle, where it does not lose touch with either historical event or interpretive word. Again to invoke an analogy from painting, the question can be put this way, “What is of essential importance in a portrait by a great master, the subject itself as a historical person or the masterful interpretation of the subject?” Surely both are important. Even to ask the question in this way is to assume a false dichotomy. Art critics may tend to focus on the artistry of the rendering, while historians may be more interested in what can be learned of the historical personage portrayed, but neither should mistake their particular interest for the full significance of the painting. If historians ignore the painterly aspect (that is, if they lack understanding and appreciation of the artistic medium), they may easily “misread” the portrait or unjustly criticize it as an inadequate representation of the subject. Or worse, if they discount the significance of the portrait simply because it is an artistic interpretation, they thereby cut themselves off from perhaps their only source of historical information about the subject. On the other hand, should art critics, in their appreciation of the artistic genius of the painter, lose sight of the painting’s referential character, they would miss something of the painting’s essential purpose and so prove themselves to be poor critics. A similar dynamic obtains in the study of biblical historiography. What is needed is the ability to do full justice to both the subject and the historian’s (the artist’s) particular interpretation. In other words, both event and interpretive word are important. This, at least, seems to be the Bible’s own view of the matter.

- V. Phillips Long, The Art of Biblical History

To the Christian Church, in the most catholic sense of the word, supernatural religion has always stood for something far more than a system of spiritual instruction or an instrument of moral suasion. The deep sense of sin, which is central in her faith, demands such a divine interposition in the course of natural development as shall work actual changes from guilt to righteousness, from sin to holiness, from life to death, in the sphere not merely of consciousness but of being. Here revelation is on principle inseparable from a background of historic facts, with which to bring man’s life into vital contact is indeed the main reason for its existence…

If what has been said be correct, it will follow that the proposal to declare the facts inessential betrays a lamentably defective appreciation of the soteriological character of Christianity. As a matter of fact, if one carefully examines the representations of those who claim that the results of criticism leave the religious substance of the Old Testament intact, one finds in each case that the truth left intact belongs to the sphere of natural religion and has no direct bearing on the question of sin and salvation. Such truths as monotheism and the ethical nature of God may still be found in the reconstructed Old Testament; what we look for in vain is the Gospel of redemption.

- Geerhardus Vos, “Christian Faith,” p. 299

The Bible is divine discourse act. The “divine” qualifies the literary forms of Scripture (the “micro-genres,” as it were) and so renders them “revelatory” (the “macro-genre“). Revealed truth may be said in many ways.

- Kevin Vanhoozer, “The Semantics of Biblical Literature: Truth and Scripture’s Diverse Literary Forms”

Truth, like Reality, is in one sense One. However, Reality is so rich and multifaceted that it, like white light, can only be conveyed (verbally) by an equally rich “spectrum”–diverse literary forms. While Truth may be “about” Reality (what is), we only recieve the full picture of Reality (what is) by contemplating “true” history, “true” parable, “true” song, “true” poetry. That Scripture has many literary forms is no impediment to the Truth; instead, it is the very possibility of Truth’s expression. The diversity of literary forms does not imply that Scripture contains competing kinds of Truth; it shows rather that Scripture is about various kinds of fact (i.e., historical, metaphysical, moral, etc.). A sentence or text is true if things are as it says they are, but as Aristotle observed, “Being may be said in many ways.”

- Kevin Vanhoozer

If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments.

- Wittgenstein

Unless students of the Bible are willing to sacrifice, as it were, their monolingual and monocultural integrity–that is, unless they are willing, by an effort of imagination, to enter a cultural and literary world different in many respects from their own–even a high view of the Bible’s veracity is no guarantee of a right view of its interpretation.

- V. Phillips Long, The Art of Biblical History

Since the Bible comprises a collection of works of diverse literary genres, the truth claim(s) of this or that biblical text (whta this or that text intends to convey, command, etc.) can be discovered only as each text is read on its own terms, with due recognition of its genre and due attention to its content and wider and narrower contexts.

- V. Phillips Long, The Art of Biblical History

The full hearing of the psalms will be greatly enhanced when the familiar tendency to abstract content from form or to empty form of its content is overcome. To know the psalms are poetic is not to forget that they are Scripture. To read and hear them as Scripture requires that one receive them also as poetry.

- Patrick Miller, Interpreting the Psalms

Unlike prose, which focuses upon the unambiguous denotations of words so as to communicate with exact clarity, poetry exploits the full lexical potential of words. The poet makes use of unusual aspects of the semantic range of a word, chooses terms with emotive connotations, and employs sounds that help to convey the message. In addition, poetry makes extensive use of imagery–word pictures that evoke sensory impressions through verbal associations. Because poems are characteristically brief, they are highly condensed and concentrated forms of utterance in which each detail is consciously selected.

- David Estes, Handbook on the Wisdom Books and Psalms

Whereas the language of prose is utilized primarily toward direct communication, poetic language is characterized by a more transcendent quality. There are aspects of human experience, and aspects of the knowledge of God, for which the mundane language of prose cannot provide adequate expression. Poetry is, among other things, an attempt to transcend the limitations of normal (prosaic) human language and to give expression to something not easily expressed in words.

- Peter Craigie, Psalms 1-50

The concept of definition and meaning of words has been of interest to me for a long time. I haven’t had a chance to think or write about it very much lately, but this morning I remembered an online article by Norman Swartz called “Definitions, Dictionaries, and Meaning“, which I read while in undergrad. It helped me organize my thoughts on the issue a great deal, but since then I’ve had a lot of new, hopefully more biblical, bedrock thinking laid down. So I’m hoping to go back over it and reevaluate it, because I think it is still very helpful in getting at some things that I think are important. If you get the chance, I highly recommend reading over it.

Now I must admit that, although I studied philosophy in college, I did not study semantics at any great depth, so there is a good chance that there are other authors who have covered this material much more thoroughly and better, and of whom I am ignorant. Please feel free to point me in their direction if you know of such.

It is because of my interest in defining terms well that I have installed the (heretofore unutilized) Glossary tool in this site. I hope to put that tool to greater use, and I hope that any readers will find it helpful as well.

Many years ago, I began a project that I called my “Comprehensive Philosophy,” in which I attempted to create categories for all my thoughts and beliefs on all important topics. I never got further than a basic structure, but goal was to have a cohesive and extensively linked body of ideas that would serve to help me analyze my own thoughts better, as well as provide a way to share them with other people.

Since then I have come to realize that such a project may be a more difficult undertaking than I thought at the time, and may not even be worth the effort. But I do still think that something akin to that is useful.

Anyway, one of the biggest sections that I built for this comprehensive philosophy was a glossary of definitions with an extensive network of links, linking important words in my writings to their glosses, and even with links from words internal to the definitions to their own definitions. It was a lot of work. My hope is to make use of some of that here on this blog and see if the advances in hypertext technology since my first attempt can help me out.

So stay tuned, and let me know what you think. And read that article!

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

- George Orwell

So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.

- John Locke

I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it supresses idle details, just as our memory does.

- Jorge Luis Borges

Words differently arranged have different meanings, and meanings differently arranged have a different effect.

- Blaise Pascal

All words are pegs to hang ideas on.

- Henry Ward Beecher