Do the Reformed Confessions Require the Use of Pre-critical Exegesis?

[KMK]

Or put another way, "Are there Reformed points of doctrine which cannot be arrived at by historical-grammatical hermeneutics alone?"

 

[KMK]

"It is important to note here that the Westminster Confession rests on what is often called a pre-critical hermeneutic--it shares, in other words with the Reformers, and to a certain extent with the patristic and medieval exegetes, a perspective on the text and meaning of Scripture that separates it from the assumptions of modern historical-critical exegesis. It (sic) doctrine of inspiration, parallel to the teaching of contemporary English and continental Reformed thinkers and in accord with the views of the Reformers, attributed primary authorship to God and a secondary, instrumental authorship to the human writers of the text. This double attribution of authorship allowed the Westminster divines and their contemporaries to explain the variety of style, viewpoint, and even the limited perspective of the biblical writers and at the same time to assume that the ultimate meaning of the text, as given by the divine author, was never to be exhausted by the original historical context of a biblical book, or, indeed, of a pericope in the text."

Richard A. Muller in "'The Only Way of Man's Salvation': Scripture in the Westminster Confession"

 

[iainduguid]

Yes and no. As Muller says, a "pre-critical hermeneutic" is simply a set of assumptions about the authorship and nature of the Biblical text, which leads to certain conclusions (shared by the Confessions). If you want to uphold the confessions, you need to share those presuppositions. More profoundly, though, we share those presuppositions because we believe that they arise from the text of Scripture itself. In that sense, our exegesis is pre-critical.

It is not like the "modern historical-critical approach" to Scripture grew out of new facts and insights into God's Word, however. It flows from a different set of assumptions about man, God, and revelation that leads people to read the Bible differently and so come to a different (from our perspective, wrong) interpretations.

The problem with the terminology "pre-critical" is it can mean different things. If it is purely descriptive ("Everyone prior to the Modern age shared these presuppositions"), that's fine. But it can also be used pejoritavely to mean "old-fashioned and out of date". In reality, there have always been a significant group scholars up to the present time who have shared these presuppositions, so it isn't really accurate to call them "pre-critical". As a result, it's not a term people generally wear with a badge of pride: it might be better to term our hermeneutics "pro-Scriptural" or some other term that positively expresses what we value.

 

[KMK]

If you want to uphold the confessions, you need to share those presuppositions.

Do you mean every point of doctrine within the confessions, or the confessions as a whole? For example, one can confess "There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection," by use of historical-grammatical exegesis alone, correct?

 

[iainduguid]

I'm sure there are a number things in the Confessions that some historical-critical scholars could confess. For example, the names of the books of the Bible. But much of the chapter on Scripture would generally be denied, to say nothing of other chapters. However, I don't think that pre-critical exegesis is necessarily not historical-grammatical. What else could you call what Calvin is doing in his commentaries?

 

[KMK]

I mean exclusively historical-grammatical. For example, can you arrive at the idea of "sacramental union" through historical-grammatical exegesis alone?

 

[iainduguid]

You may mean something different by historical-grammatical exegesis than I do, but yes I think you can. I think Calvin believed that everything in his Institutes flowed out of his commentaries and was not a different kind of exegesis.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think its possible Muller appropriates the term "precritical exegesis" (and the concept?) from Steinmetz:

Steinmetz; Superiority of Precritical Exegesis - [PDF Document]

Steinmetz, The Superiority of Precritical Exegesis

documents.pub

 

[RamistThomist]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think its possible Muller appropriates the term "precritical exegesis" (and the concept?) from Steinmetz:

Steinmetz; Superiority of Precritical Exegesis - [PDF Document]

Steinmetz, The Superiority of Precritical Exegesis

documents.pub

That was how I understood both Steinmetz and Muller. My sense is the assumptions deal more with accepting it as God's word and not so much endorsing allegory.

 

[KMK]

Thanks for all the replies. I really need to sharpen my categories. I agree that Steinmetz and Muller seem to be on the same page.

 

[KMK]

Steinmetz says, "Biblical scholarship still hopes to recover the original intention of the author of a biblical text and still regards the pre-critical exegetical tradition as an obstacle to the proper understanding of the true meaning of that text. The most primitive meaning of the text is its only valid meaning, and the historical-critical method is the only key which can unlock it."

What should I call the 'biblical scholars' Steinmetz refers to, and could they affirm "sacramental union," for example, using the "most primitive meaning of the text" alone?

 

[Stephen L Smith]

I mean exclusively historical-grammatical.

I think this needs qualifying. A dispensational hermeneutic is historical-grammatical.

I made this comment in another recent post "I believe a biblical hermeneutic is historical-grammatical, historic redemptive.".

 

[KMK]

Richard Longenecker says, in "Who is the Prophet Talking About?"

"It is my contention that, unless we are 'restorationists' in our attitude toward hermeneutics, Christians today are committed to the apostolic faith and doctrine of the New Testament, but not necessarily to the apostolic exegetical practices as detailed for us in the New Testament. What the New Testament presents to us in setting out the exegetical practices of early Christians is how the gospel was contextualized in that day and for those particular audiences. We can appreciate something of how appropriate such methods were for the conveyance of the gospel then and of what was involved in their exegetical procedures. And we can learn from their exegetical methods how to contextualize that same gospel in our own day. But let us admit that we cannot possibly reproduce the revelatory stance of pesher interpretation, nor the atomistic manipulations of midrash, nor the circumstantial or ad hominem thrusts of a particular polemic of that day--nor should we try."

What would you call Longenecker's hermeneutic?

 

[iainduguid]

Richard Longenecker says, in "Who is the Prophet Talking About?"

"It is my contention that, unless we are 'restorationists' in our attitude toward hermeneutics, Christians today are committed to the apostolic faith and doctrine of the New Testament, but not necessarily to the apostolic exegetical practices as detailed for us in the New Testament. What the New Testament presents to us in setting out the exegetical practices of early Christians is how the gospel was contextualized in that day and for those particular audiences. We can appreciate something of how appropriate such methods were for the conveyance of the gospel then and of what was involved in their exegetical procedures. And we can learn from their exegetical methods how to contextualize that same gospel in our own day. But let us admit that we cannot possibly reproduce the revelatory stance of pesher interpretation, nor the atomistic manipulations of midrash, nor the circumstantial or ad hominem thrusts of a particular polemic of that day--nor should we try."

What would you call Longenecker's hermeneutic?

It has been called the "Jewish Hermeneutics school".

See the brief summary of different approaches here:

The New Testament Use of the Old Testament | Evidence Unseen

www.evidenceunseen.com

 

[arapahoepark]

Richard Longenecker says, in "Who is the Prophet Talking About?"

"It is my contention that, unless we are 'restorationists' in our attitude toward hermeneutics, Christians today are committed to the apostolic faith and doctrine of the New Testament, but not necessarily to the apostolic exegetical practices as detailed for us in the New Testament. What the New Testament presents to us in setting out the exegetical practices of early Christians is how the gospel was contextualized in that day and for those particular audiences. We can appreciate something of how appropriate such methods were for the conveyance of the gospel then and of what was involved in their exegetical procedures. And we can learn from their exegetical methods how to contextualize that same gospel in our own day. But let us admit that we cannot possibly reproduce the revelatory stance of pesher interpretation, nor the atomistic manipulations of midrash, nor the circumstantial or ad hominem thrusts of a particular polemic of that day--nor should we try."

What would you call Longenecker's hermeneutic?

Also presented succinctly by Lane here: https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/christotelic-hermeneutics-and-typology.103427/#post-1254451

Also reminds me of the view of Robert Thomas from Master's Seminary who said that quotes from the OT were essentially, divinely taken out of context. Though he came from an uber conservative, dispensational hermeneutical camp.

 

[KMK]

It has been called the "Jewish Hermeneutics school".

See the brief summary of different approaches here:

The New Testament Use of the Old Testament | Evidence Unseen

www.evidenceunseen.com

Thank you! That is extremely helpful.

 

[KMK]

Also presented succinctly by Lane here: https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/christotelic-hermeneutics-and-typology.103427/#post-1254451

Also reminds me of the view of Robert Thomas from Master's Seminary who said that quotes from the OT were essentially, divinely taken out of context. Though he came from an uber conservative, dispensational hermeneutical camp.

Also extremely helpful. I am including these excellent posts below so people can see them more easily.

Hi Trent,
Part of the problem, as I think you are discovering, is that the terminology is used inconsistently. People do not always mean the same thing by "Christocentric", "Christotelic" or even "two readings", which means that follow up questions are inevitably necessary. Some people associate "Christocentric" with typology on steroids (what we might call "Christotelic maximalism, where, for example, each of the judges forms a positive type of Christ) and therefore call themselves "Christotelic", when all they mean is "Christocentric lite". But at the other end of the spectrum, some who call themselves "Christotelic" don't see Christ as present in any meaningful way in the OT, and think that the apostles are engaging in a new hermeneutic (2nd Temple Jewish) that makes OT texts mean something entirely different from what their authors originally intended. And even people like myself, who would describe myself as firmly Christocentric can meaningfully talk about "two readings", the first, the one that would have occurred to the original audience and the other that includes all that we can see with the benefit of subsequent redemptive history. The key for me is whether those two readings are in principle harmonizable or deeply contradictory. So the first audience of Genesis is the wilderness generation with Moses; it's a useful question to ask how Genesis addresses their specific questions and concerns (for example, the role played by Egypt). That will often help us to understand how Genesis addresses us and our own temptations, even though for us "Egypt" doesn't have the same significance.

I think your follow up questions are getting to the heart of the issue and are much more useful than vague labels. I would want to hear people affirm a) the original authors understood some of what they were writing (for example, David in writing Psalm 110 understood that there was a greater king yet to come); b) the original authors didn't necessarily understand everything they wrote (David didn't necessarily know about crucifixion when he wrote Psalm 22); c) there is a fundamental unity between what the prophets thought they were writing (limited though their understanding was) and its fulfillment in Christ, so that when the prophets in glory saw the unfolding of their prophecy in the person of Christ, they said "Wow! That all makes perfect sense now" and not "No! That's not at all what I meant."

Trent, there are about 7 characteristics of 2TJ rabbinic hermeneutics: 1. kal-vahomer (lesser to the greater); 2. gezera-shewa (key-word exegesis); 3. deduction (specific to general); 4. several texts put together can furnish a conclusion; 5. general to specific; 6. analogy from another passage (situation, not verbal); 7. inference from context. As you can see, any kind of exegesis would share certain features of this kind of exegesis. These characteristics are not all distinctive to rabbinic. You can find examples of 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 in the NT writings, but the lack of 2 and 6 (6 is not typology, but analogy only) make NT exegesis different enough that it should not be called 2TJ hermeneutics. There is a further list of 4 categories of interpretation (literalist, midrashic, pesher, and allegorical) in rabbinic exegesis, only the first of which has any similarity to NT interpretation of OT.

 

[Charles Johnson]

I recommend checking out Dr. David Sytsma's Bibliography of Pre-critical Protestant Hermeneutics.
I've been trying to learn more about the topic recently. Polanus has a book on how to profit from the reading of Scripture, which can be considered one of the first Reformed hermeneutical texts. The first fully developed hermeneutical manuals were from 18th century Lutherans though. They're useful, but they have some points the reformed would differ from.
One example, perhaps the most complete, is Chladni.
One example of a Lutheran hermeneutical rule that doesn't really pan out is "the words at the first institution of a covenant are always literal," which they use to justify their reading of the words of institution in the Supper. However, Genesis 17, and the institution of the Abrahamic Covenant, contains clear figurative language, such as circumcision being called the covenant, which is metonymy.

 

[KMK]

It has been called the "Jewish Hermeneutics school".

See the brief summary of different approaches here:

The New Testament Use of the Old Testament | Evidence Unseen

www.evidenceunseen.com

Of the four schools of the NT use of the OT laid out by Bock (Full Human Intent, Divine Intent--Human Words, Jewish Hermeneutics, and NT Priority,) which would be considered historical-critical?

 

[iainduguid]

Of the four schools of the NT use of the OT laid out by Bock (Full Human Intent, Divine Intent--Human Words, Jewish Hermeneutics, and NT Priority,) which would be considered historical-critical?

They would tend to be most likely to identify with a strong version of the "Jeiwsh Hermeneutics"school: the disciples interpreted the OT just like their Jewish contemporaries did (and made messianic mountains out of molehills). Not everyone who holds to the Jewish Hermeneutics approach is historical critical, but almost everyone who is historical critical is likely to hold to something close to a Jewish Hermeneutics approach.