Hermeneutics
by Mike James
To better understand the Bible, it's important we understand the term hermeneutics. A basic definition for this term is the science and art of biblical interpretation. We can further break hermeneutics into two types: General and Special.
General hermeneutics is the study of rules that govern the interpretation of the entire biblical text. Special hermeneutics is the study of rules that govern the interpretation of specific literary forms like parables, types, and prophecy.
To assist you in performing proper hermeneutics, you will also study the canon of Scripture, which pertains to which books are truly part of the Bible. Textual criticism will also be addressed, which looks at which words were originally the text of the Bible. You will also study historical criticism, which looks at the author, dating, and historical circumstances that pertain to the biblical text. When you do all this, you are experiencing exegesis, which means using hermeneutics to come up with the proper understanding of the biblical text.
Exegesis means "from"—you want to get meaning from the text rather than from your own ideas about the text.
Now, when we begin to interpret the text, some of it can be very simple and straightforward. We can read a lot of biblical texts and easily understand what the words are trying to convey without too much effort. But you will run into issues with certain segments of Scripture.
For example, there are certain "blocks" you will experience in interpreting Scripture. A historical block is one example of this. If you don't know the history pertaining to the book of Jonah, you would not completely understand why Jonah did not want to go to Ninevah when God asked him. The Ninevites were Assyrians and the enemies of the Israelites at that time. No wonder Jonah didn't want to go there.
Another block would be a cultural block. Was Jesus just picking three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40) for the period of his death for no reason? Well, no, one reason was that Jews at that time in history did not believe someone was truly dead unless three days and three nights had passed since their initial death experience. Some of the Jews believed the "soul" would remain around the body for that period of time. Once 72 hours had elapsed, the person was really dead. Knowing these types of things can expand our understanding of Scripture.
Another type of block in studying Scripture is a linguistic block. For example, some translations of the Bible use the word "Easter" when the Greek word means "Passover." This would really make a difference in understanding which festival was being addressed. Language also has what are called idioms, which would only be familiar to the people living at that time and place in history. A modern English idiom is "It's raining cats and dogs." This means that it is raining very heavily. But not all cultures of the world are familiar with this English idiom. If we told tribesmen living in the Brazilian rainforest it was raining cats and dogs, they would not likely understand what we meant.
Another similar example of this kind of thing pertains to a verse in Matthew 11:11-19. In verses 16-17 of this scripture, the writer is quoting from an Aesop fable, most likely. If you are aware of this information, the meaning of the passage becomes much clearer.
Let me give you another linguistic example by addressing the English language from about 500 years ago. In Shakespeare's play Othello, he uses some English words that we don't use anymore. If you were to read the play in Shakespeare's original English, you would have trouble understanding everything. For example, one of the words he uses in the play is "jesses," which means "fastenings." There are many other examples like that which make the play in, some points incomprehensible to modern English readers.
Keep that in mind and think about ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew and then translating those languages into modern English. Again, we are going to have difficulties with some words because everything does not transfer easily or smoothly into the English language.
We are only scratching the surface in this brief blog about hermeneutics. In future blogs, we will look at other aspects of hermeneutics to help all of us in our Bible study.
Sources:
Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation, by Henry A Virkler, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981).
Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, by Walter C. Kaiser Jr., and Moises Silva, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007).
"We Played the Flute and You Didn't Dance," Acts 242 Study, January 10, 2020, https://acts242study.com/we-played-the-flute-and-you-didnt-dance/.