Apostolic hermeneutic.

Well, the Olympic Games are over…back to the blog. Actually, I re-entered the blog-sphere earlier this week, and this thread will be an addendum of sorts to an ongoing dialogue between Steve Hayes and myself at Triablogue (specifically, to date, in three threads: FIRST; SECOND; and THIRD).

In the first thread, Steve opens with:

"In a typical exchange between a Catholic and a Protestant, a Catholic will say that we need a Magisterium to rescue us from the vicissitudes of private judgment—to which a Protestant will counter that a Catholic must apply his own private judgment to the interpretation of Magisterial statements."

In my first response, I directed Steve to my two recent threads on private judgment (neither of which he engages), and the debate was on. Rather than duplicate any sizable content from those three threads, I shall direct interested readers to go to the original threads for themselves.

During the ongoing dialogue, it became readily apparent that Steve embraces nuda sciptura, rather than sola scriptura. Steve maintains that one does not need any tradition when approaching the Scriptures, but rather, one only needs a "sound" hermeneutic—but what is a "sound" hermeneutic? Steve embraces the "the grammatico-historical method" and maintains that the clarity of true doctrine/s will emerge if one is armed with this hermeneutic. I then posed a question: was this the hermeneutic of Jesus and His apostles? His answer: the hermeneutic of Jesus and the His apostles is irrelevant. I kid you not…

Steve’s approach has been criticised by an Evangelcial scholar, who wrote:

Any contemporary investigation of apostolic hermeneutics that does not treat the NT in the context of its hermeneutical environment will at best tell only part of the story, and at worst misrepresent the issue. There is no question that this continues to raise certain doctrinal issues concerning the role of the Apostles in defining "proper hermeneutics," but these concerns cannot drive the discussion. The New Testament authors give us ample opportunity to observe their hermeneutical behavior, and it is upon these facts—the facts of Scripture understood in their historical context—that doctrine must ultimately be based, particularly if what one is after is the articulation of a doctrine of Scripture.

I would like to draw an analogy with grammatical–historical exegesis. Grammatical–historical exegesis insists that the interpretation of texts must begin with the words in front of us understood in the context in which these words were written. Even with the caveats that pure objectivity is an illusion and that the author’s intention is essentially unrecoverable (or better, recoverable only on the basis of the words in front of us, which places the modern interpreter in a hermeneutical circle), it is nevertheless a fundamental notion that meaning must be "anchored" some how in something beyond the mere will of the interpreter. Any writer (including this one) who wishes to be understood will have a deep-rooted sympathy for such a hermeneutical principle.

A problem arises, however, when we observe how the Apostles handled the OT. Despite protestations to the contrary, grammatical-historical hermeneutics does not account for the New Testament’s use of the Old. However self-evident grammatical-historical hermeneutics may be to us, and whatever very important contributions it has made and continues to make to the field of biblical studies, it must be stated clearly that the Apostles did not seem overly concerned to put this principle into practice. (Peter Enns, "APOSTOLIC HERMENEUTICS AND AN EVANGELICAL DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE: MOVING BEYOND A MODERNIST IMPASSE", Westminster Theological Journal, 63.3 – Fall 2003, p. 268.)

[Note: entire essay available online HERE.]

I am looking forward to my continuing dialogue with Steve, and hope interested readers will jump into the fray either here at Articuli Fidei, and/or over at Triablogue.

Grace and peace,

David