D. A. Carson on Interpreting the Bible

Today is Pastor's day at Resolve07. Today's extract is the introduction to an article by D. A. Carson on interpreting the Bible. I have only included the introduction because the rest of the points he raises made it difficult to choose a particular strand of what he says. Please do follow the link at the bottom to see the whole thing.

'Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation; biblical hermeneutics is the art and science of interpreting the Bible. At the time of the Reformation, debates over interpretation played an enormously important role. These were debates over interpretation, not just over interpretations. In other words, the Reformers disagreed with their opponents not only over what this or that passage meant, but over the nature of interpretation, the locus of authority in interpretation, the role of the church and of the Spirit in interpretation, and much more.

During the last half-century, so many developments have taken place in the realm of hermeneutics that it would take a very long article even to sketch them in lightly. Sad to say, nowadays many scholars are more interested in the challenges of the discipline of hermeneutics itself, than in the Bible that hermeneutics should help us handle more responsibly. Ironically, there are still some people who think that there is something slightly sleazy about interpretation. Without being crass enough to say so, they secretly harbor the opinion that what others offer are interpretations, but what they offer is just what the Bible says.

Carl F. H. Henry is fond of saying that there are two kinds of presuppositionalists: those who admit it and those who don't. We might adapt his analysis to our topic: There are two kinds of practitioners of hermeneutics: those who admit it and those who don't.

The fact of the matter is that every time we find something in the Bible (whether it is there or not!), we have interpreted the Bible. There are good interpretations and there are bad interpretations, but there is no escape from interpretation.

This is not the place to lay out foundational principles, or to wrestle with the "new hermeneutic" and with "radical hermeneutics." [For more information and bibliography on these topics, and especially their relation to postmodernism and how to respond to it, see my book The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism, esp. chapters 2-3 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996).] I shall focus instead on one "simple" problem, one with which every serious Bible reader is occasionally confronted. What parts of the Bible are binding mandates for us, and what parts are not?

"Greet one another with a holy kiss": the French do it, Arab believers do it, but by and large we do not. Are we therefore unbiblical? Jesus tells his disciples that they should wash one another's feet (Jn 13:14), yet most of us have never done so. Why do we "disobey" that plain injunction, yet obey his injunction regarding the Lord's Table? If we find reasons to be flexible about the "holy kiss," how flexible may we be in other domains? May we replace the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper with yams and goat's milk if we are in a village church in Papua, New Guinea? If not, why not? And what about the broader questions circulating among theonomists regarding the continuing legal force of law set down under the Mosaic covenant? Should we as a nation, on the assumption that God graciously grants widespread revival and reformation, pass laws to execute adulterers by stoning? If not, why not? Is the injunction for women to keep silent in the church absolute (1 Cor 14:33-36)? If not, why not? Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again if he is to enter the kingdom; he tells the rich young man that he is to sell all that he has and give it to the poor. Why do we make the former demand absolute for all persons, and apparently fudge a little on the second?'

Read the entire article at:
www.gfcto.com/2006/06/must_i_learn_how_to_interpret_the_bible.php