All about Hermeneutics: A Guide to Interpreting God’s Word Faithfully

Hermeneutics goes all the way back to the biblical period itself. Astute Bible students have long noted how the biblical authors used previous passages of the Bible within their own arguments, like when Peter referred to Isaiah 40:7–8 in 1 Peter 1:24–25. Their interpretive strategies have impacted future hermeneutics in the church.

Stanley Porter and Beth Stovell describe these early hermeneutic strategies in their introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views: “In the Old Testament, the latter writings, like the Psalms and the Prophets, reinterpret the story of Israel presented in the Torah, and the New Testament continues to reinterpret this continuing story in light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (an approach that later redemptive-historical scholars would appropriate).”

Even 2,000 years after the end of the New Testament, there isn’t consensus on how New Testament writers used the Old Testament. New Testament scholar Richard Longenecker’s book Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Times makes the case that Jesus and the New Testament writers leaned heavily upon contemporary Jewish interpretive strategies in ways they use the Old Testament in their teaching.

Because the early church fathers played such a critical role in describing and formulating New Testament theology, their interpretive strategies have had a large impact on future theologians. Despite their influence, church leaders in the patristic era weren’t uniform in their hermeneutics. Two interpretive schools dominated the era.

The Alexandrian school was centered in one of the most learned cities in the Roman Empire, Alexandria, Egypt. The school, heavily influenced by Platonic philosophy, taught the allegorical method of interpretation. Built upon a worldview that saw the physical world as a shadow of the spiritual, Alexandrian interpreters saw the Bible pointing non-literally to deeper spiritual (or allegorical) truths. 

The Antioch school represented an opposite perspective. The school focused its approach on a literal reading of the text. The spiritual reading of the text, they believed, must come from the literal reading. According to the book Biblical Hermeneutics by Bruce Corley, Steve Lemke, and Grant Lovejoy, the Antioch school was influenced by both Greek and Jewish thinkers. But instead of Plato, Antioch was largely influenced by Aristotle.

Augustine set the stage for much of Medieval hermeneutics with his landmark book On Christian Teaching (or On Christian Doctrine) published in the late 4th and early 5th centuries A.D. In the book, he described a number of interpretive rules that are still bedrocks of biblical hermeneutics in the 21st century. For example, he wrote that Bible students should:

• Interpret obscure texts in light of clear ones
• Apply secular knowledge to biblical interpretation when possible
• Determine the literal and figurative senses of the passage

In Basic Bible Interpretation: A Practical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth, Ray Zuck describes hermeneutics as a key element to the Reformation. He writes: “The Reformation was a time of social and ecclesiastical upheaval but, as [Bernard] Ramm points out [in his book Protestant Biblical Hermeneutics], it was basically a hermeneutical reformation, a reformation in reference to the approach to the Bible.”

In Biblical Hermeneutics, Corley, Lemke, and Lovejoy describe the hermeneutics of Protestant Reformation leaders as inductive and faith-oriented. They emphasized the “illuminating power of the Holy Spirit” in the interpretive process. Four principles—that all challenged contemporary Roman Catholic hermeneutics—dominated their contributions. Those principles, as described in Biblical Hermeneutics, were:

• The focus of Scripture was on Christ, not the church nor man.
• The ultimate purpose of the Bible was salvation, not knowledge.
• The basis for Christian doctrine and practice was the Bible.
• The authority for interpreting the Bible was in the individual.

The innovations of the post-Reformation era centered on attempts to apply the reasoning and methods fueling academic advancement in other fields to the study of the Bible. Movements like rationalism, Protestant scholasticism, Calvinism (as well as responses to Calvinism) dominated 16th and 17th century Protestant hermeneutics. 

In his early 18th century book De Sacrae Scripturae Interpretandae Methodo Tractatus, Jean-Alphonse Turretin illustrated some of these rationalistic approaches to interpretation in the following five points related to biblical exegesis and interpretation:

• We should interpret Scripture like any other book.
• Interpreters should give attention to words and expressions in the Bible.
• The goal of biblical exegesis is to understand the purpose of the author in the context.
• The interpreter should use reason to understand the Bible.
• Biblical interpreters should understand the text’s original authors in their own contextual terms.

Modern hermeneutics (roughly 1800 to today), particularly among Protestants, has often seen a split between conservative (or even fundamentalist) hermeneutics and more liberal biblical approaches. 

The celebrated “Princeton School,” emanating from Princeton Theological Seminary and later Westminster Theological Seminary, centered on a return to Calvinism and the reformational roots of Protestantism. 

Corley, Lemke, and Lovejoy describe the Princeton school this way: “Princeton’s methods of scriptural interpretation relied heavily on the principles of Scottish common sense philosophy. Their defense of scriptural authority was based upon the notion that empirical induction is the primary source of truth and that all reasonable people intuit moral absolutes. They defined theology as a science, mining the Scriptures for facts much like a scientist gathers data from nature.”

Fundamentalism, which arose in the early 20th century, emphasized a literal and dispensational approach to interpreting Scripture. Dispensational theology divided human history into seven periods (or dispensations). The relationship between God and man varied in each of these periods. These differing periods impacted how to interpret associated Scriptures.

Classic liberal theology arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as an attempt to harmonize the Bible with new scientific information. Liberal theologians saw the Bible as a human book, whose supernatural elements could be explained in scientific terms.  

Although not all of the texts within the books of the Pentateuch are law (in fact, the Pentateuch is primarily narrative), all the instances of law in the Bible are within the Pentateuch. The law includes the biblical texts that make up the moral, civil, and ritual instructions for the people of Israel. Understanding which type of law you’re studying is a critical part of proper interpretation—particularly as you try to apply the law to contemporary society. 

In his book Interpreting the Pentateuch: An Exegetical Handbook, Peter Vogt tells readers to determine the nature of the legal requirement within the law. In other words, what is the law requiring or forbidding? Sometimes this is straightforward, but often it takes a detailed reading of the verse.

Then, Vogt says, Bible students should clarify what the law’s purpose was in Israel (the good of the community, maintain a sense of equity, protection, etc.). Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to apply the law’s purpose to your contemporary situation.

Narrative elements of the Bible are spread throughout the Old and New Testaments, including parts of the Pentateuch and the vast majority of the historical books of the Old Testament, along with the Gospels and the book of Acts in the New Testament. 

Writing for Insight for Living Canada, Steve Johnson explains, “Biblical narratives are interpreted history with a specific divine purpose. They are not allegories nor are they primarily intended to teach moral lessons or doctrine although they may illustrate doctrine taught propositionally elsewhere. Narratives may teach either explicitly, by clearly stating something, or implicitly, by clearly implying something without actually saying it.”

Interpreting narratives throughout the Bible hinges on understanding three elements. First, narratives have settings, which means they have a time and place. Understanding the settings means doing the historical background research on where and when the narrative takes place. Two distinct settings are important during the interpretation process—the setting of when the story takes place and the setting of when it’s written. Both impact the author’s meaning. 

Second, narratives have characters—both primary and secondary. In his book Interpreting the Historical Books: An Exegetical Handbook, Robert Chisholm notes that it’s important to understand how the narrator evaluates the characters (so we know whether the character’s actions are intended as a model or a warning for us). Because the narrator of biblical texts tends to leave evaluation to the reader, this makes the interpretive task more difficult. 

Finally, it’s important to understand the plot—the sequence of events— within the narrative. Chisholm describes a number of different plot structures in the narratives of the Old Testament’s historical books, including tragedy, comedy, admiration story, reward story, etc. Understanding the structure helps you understand the part the narrative plays in the biblical book and overall story of Scripture.

When most Christians think of biblical poetry, they immediately focus on the Psalms, but there are a variety of songs and poems throughout the Bible. Still the vast majority of biblical poetry can be found in the Psalms. 

As you seek to interpret biblical poetry, start by identifying the type. In Logos, you can see the different types of poetry with each Psalm categorized according to its type. 

Writers used specific types of poetry in order to better communicate the poem’s message. 

Biblical poets almost always used a structure of parallelism to communicate their message. Generally, that means that in biblical poetry a line has correspondence with the next one. The challenge is usually trying to discern what that correspondence is. Sometimes, as with synonymous parallels, the second line simply repeats the first line a little differently.

Other times, as with antithetic parallelism, the second line is the opposite. Still others use a form of advancing parallelism, where the second line advances the message of the first. Understanding which of these methods is being used is critical to both interpretation and application of the text.

Most of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job are considered wisdom literature. Of all the genres of Scripture, wisdom literature has some of the most unique interpretive rules. Thus, it also includes some of the most misinterpreted Scripture in the biblical canon. 

Take for example biblical proverbs. In his book How to Read Proverbs, Tremper Longman III explains, “A proverb expresses an insight, observation, or advice that has been popularly accepted as a general truth. Indeed, a proverb can be so universally accepted as true that simply citing it is enough to end a conversation. But notice this: a proverb is only accepted as true if applied at the right time.”

While Proverbs are generally true, they aren’t designed to be absolute. Proverbs 22:6, which says, “Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it” (CSB), is generally true, but that doesn’t mean that when a child departs from the faith it is because his or her parents didn’t faithfully disciple the child as a youth. 

It’s also critical to understand the form of the wisdom literature. Sub-genres within wisdom literature include proverbs, extended didactic sayings, allegories, etc. Each has its own interpretive rules. 

Also, watch out for clear hyperbole in the text. Often wisdom literature writers use exaggeration to make a point. Osborne notes Proverbs 23:9–10 as an example of this in The Hermeneutical Spiral. While the saying reminds us that God will repay our sacrifices, it isn’t necessarily saying we will get rich in doing so. Osborne wrote, “Wisdom sayings are written in order to be remembered, and so they tend to be pithy statements that prefer rhetorical skill to accuracy.”

The letters of the New Testament contain some of the most important theological content in the 2,000+-year history of the church. Using proper hermeneutics when studying these letters is critical. In The Hermeneutical Spiral, Osborne calls letters “the most basic of the genre categories.” Yet, he notes, there are many unique “hermeneutical peculiarities” to them. 

Though some of Paul’s letters were personal in nature (Philemon, for example), most were meant to be read corporately—and often several times in several different locations. G. R. Osborne, in his article on “Hermeneutics” in the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, writes: “Paul’s letters were more than personal reminiscences; they represented his presence in the community and were meant to be read again and again in the worship service. On the basis of Paul’s apostolic authority behind the letters, they possessed almost a creedal authority from the start.”

Maybe the most critical interpretive point to keep in mind as you study New Testament letters is that while letters were passed around to different churches, they had specific audiences and were addressing particular situations. The letter writer often provides clues to the situation within the text. Pay attention to these clues. While the letter has meaning beyond the original situation, the interpreter needs to start with the original meaning.

Often, as is the case with Paul’s letters to the churches in Corinth, the biblical letters are part of a string of correspondence. We don’t have access to any of the other pieces of this string of correspondence. Take this into consideration as you interpret these letters.