Mere Christian Hermeneutics – 1

HER-MIN-OOTICS

This book attempts to recover one way of reading the bible. A way that all Christians could read it without getting into a big ruckus. Hermeneutics is a lens which you interpret the bible through. This might mean that if you read with an I toward “oppression” suddenly everything reads as if it’s against oppression, or for it (that’s a negative). It might also mean that you end up reading into the bible things like God not being a “binary” being which means he’s non binary and therefore is accepting of all transgenderism. That’s the principle (hermeneutic) you might start reading the bible with.

Note that even saying there is a right way to read the bible will ruffle many feathers. Anyway, here’s something the fellow said that I find outright worthy of interaction.

On page 5, during the introduction, VanHoozer lays out how he thinks of culture and the way that the culture ends up reading the bible. I’ll lay them out, then interact with them one at a time. He calls them the “3 laws of hermeneutical motion”

1. Every type of criticism developed in the Academy eventually gets applied by someone to biblical interpretation  
2. Every cultural trend or social development, eventually lose people to read the Bible from that particular perspective or with that special interest e.g. feminism, post colonialism, liberation, etc.  
3. There is no more telling intellectual and cultural barometer than biblical interpretation.

To the first I would only say it is incredible how these ideas make it into the wider, “lay” culture. Why? Well, because egg heads (professors and book writers) tend to be viewed as “high up in their ivory towers” – and therefore uninformed about what goes on in everyday life. But if that was so true, then why is that everything that get’s “discovered” in colleges and “ivory towers” end up in the wider culture? Something to ponder.

Unfortunately, this get’s applied to the bible. So they start reading it in whatever new lens they just got. Leading to the second point.

To the second assertion he makes – I have not heard of any prior arguments about woman holding church offices (pastors, elders, etc.) – but here are now. This is only a recent phenomenon that is brought on largely because of the wider culture’s feminism! Some egg head must have been talking about it. By the way, the argument for Phoebe being a church minister, or deacon is just bad – Romans 16. The word deacon literally just means servant. And there are several other woman involved in ministry. But none of them are pastors. And none of them sit in the council. You could rail against it in the comment section. I have yet to hear a good argument from the bible for it.

Ponder this, ponder why: the bible was born into a patriarchal society. Could this be for the purpose of The Word being protected and sired by it through the ages?It’s a big statement. The point is, Christians didn’t read the bible with feminist eyes until only recently.

Lastly, he mentions that the way a person reads a bible tells you all about the intellectual training they have received. Females in the pulpit? Probably feminist. Skater in the pulpit? will probably find a way to connect Jesus to skateboarding. Surfing? Chess? Magic the gathering? No, not Magic The Gathering. I’m pretty sure the church father’s would advise against it all together. <—Page 8—

In short, you can learn a lot about a culture (or person) by the way he reads the bible.

So – what do you think about the 3 laws of hermeneutical motion?