Hermeneutics: Specific Principles

THEO 6101: Theological Research

Dr. James R. Adair

The general principles of interpretation discussed in the previous lesson may be applied to many passages and types of literature in the Bible. However, the specific principles that apply to particular types of literature often complement or even supersede the general principles. Knowing which principles (general or specific, and if specific, which ones) to apply requires a recognition of the genre of the passage to be interpreted.

Specific Principles

Narrative: Narrative literature is in many ways the most straightforward genre of material in the Bible to interpret, since the general principles of interpretation usually apply. However, readers should be aware that many different kinds of material--wisdom, poetry, figurative language, etc.--can appear within a narrative and must be dealt with accordingly. It is also important to note that biblical narrative do not offer a simple recitation of facts, but rather they offer the perspective of the author in regard to theology, ethics, politics, etc. (i.e., biblical narratives are tendentious). Modern readers who attempt to draw modern applications from the principles that they identify in the narratives should be able to identify both the author's overall perspective and their own.
- Example: Saul's disobedience (1 Sam 13:2-14): It is easy to find fault with Saul in many narratives in 1 Samuel, and interpreters frequently contrast David (good) with Saul (bad) on the basis of these narratives. It is legitimate to do so; however, readers should be aware of the strongly anti-Saul bias of the primary author/editor of 1 Samuel. Doing so may cause modern readers to ask, "Does Saul have any good qualities that speak to us today?" "Are there ways in which Saul was perhaps a better leader than David?" "Was Saul unfairly replaced on the throne by David and his descendants?" (Cf. also 1 Sam 1:20, which may have referred to Saul rather than Samuel in an earlier version of the story.)
- Example: The narrative in Acts was written in part to demonstrate that Christianity was no threat to the Roman Empire, since the "kingdom" that Christians spoke about was a heavenly rather than an earthly reign of God. Thus, the fact that the book ends with Paul's house arrest in Rome rather than his execution at the direction of the emperor Nero may be an attempt to minimize the conflict between Rome and the Church. Similarly, Acts minimizes conflicts between different groups of Christians (e.g., Acts 15:1-35).
Poetry: Poetry has several characteristics that demand special attention from modern interpreters. Poetry is found in many of the books of Poetry (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, but only occasionally in Ecclesiastes), in most of the prophets, and scattered throughout other literature. Hymn fragments found in the New Testament do not generally employ parallelism in the same way as poetry in the Hebrew Bible.
1. Parallelism: Hebrew poetry doesn't employ end-of-word rhymes the way many poems in English, Spanish, and other languages do. Instead, it uses parallelism, a kind of "thought rhyme," where the idea in the first half of a line is repeated with modification in the second half of the line. There are three types of parallelism: synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic (or formal).
  - Example: synonymous parallelism (second stich repeats the idea of the first) (Ps 24:1-3):
```
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
     the world and those who dwell therein;
for he has founded it upon the seas,
     and established it upon the rivers.
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
     And who shall stand in his holy place?
```
    The second line repeats the first for poetic effect, not emphasis, nor does the repetition imply a second occurrence of the idea. Thus, Gen 4:23 describes one murder, not two. Similarly, Zech 9:9 refers to one donkey, not two (cf. Matt 21:2-7).
  - Example: antithetic parallelism (second stich contrasts with the idea of the first) (Ps 1:6):
```
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous
     but the way of the wicked will perish.
```
    The second line forms a contrast to the first, though the ideas are compatible.
  - Example: synthetic (formal) parallelism (second stich continues the idea of the first) (Ps 14:1a):
```
The fool says in his heart,
"There is no God."
```
    Of the three types of parallelism, synonymous is by far the most prevalent. Antithetic parallelism is most common in proverbial material. Different types of parallelism may be combined in a series.
2. Literary devices: Literary devices are found throughout the Bible, but they are especially common in poetic material.
  - Example: word-pair, a pair of synonyms or near-synonyms frequently found in parallelism, often in a fixed order (hear / give ear; word / teaching; Yahweh / Elohim; Sodom / Gomorrah.
  - Example: alliteration, repetition of consonants or vowels (Ps 58:4-5 (Heb vv. 5-6)): In Hebrew, 20 of the 58 letters are either heth or mem (ch or m sound).
  - Example: paranomasia, word play or pun (Amos 8:2; Isa 5:7; Philemon 10-11): In the Hebrew of Amos 8, the words "summer fruit" and "end" are similar. The prophet Isaiah uses the fact that, in Hebrew, "justice" sounds like "bloodshed" and "righteousness" like "a cry" to make his point in Isa 5:7. In the Greek of Philemon, Paul makes a word play involving the name Onesimus, which means "useful." Paul uses a different Greek word that means useful in v. 11, which also sounds like "good in Christ."
  - Example: metaphor, figurative language (Ps 69:1-2): The psalmist is not drowning, he just uses words that evoke the image of drowning as a metaphor for the overwhelming difficulties of life.
  - Example: personification, referring to or addressing a non-human object as human (1 Cor 15:55): Paul addresses death as though it were human.
  - Example: mythological language, references to beings or events known from mythology rather than history (Ps 74:13-14): These verses contain a reference to a well-known ancient Near Eastern myth concerning the destruction of the chaos monster.
  - Example: alphabetic acrostic, each line or group of lines begins with a successive letter of the alphabet (Ps 119): In each group of eight verses, each line begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the next eight verses begin with the successive letter.
Wisdom: Wisdom material deals with general principles about how to live life successfully in the eyes of God. Part of wisdom is knowing how and when to apply a specific wisdom saying.
- Example: "don't answer a fool/answer a fool" (Prov 26:4-5): The first verse says not to answer a fool according to his folly, and the second says to answer a fool according to his folly. The wise person will know when to apply one or the other of these sayings.
- Example: Proverbs and much other wisdom material in the Old Testament represent "traditional wisdom," which suggests that we live in a moral cause-and-effect universe, where the righteous are rewarded and the wicked are punished. Job and Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, represent "subversive wisdom," a reaction to and partial rejection of traditional wisdom, at least traditional wisdom that has been pushed too far. Job's friends often quote traditional wisdom material, which Job refutes by pointing out that the wicked often prosper, while the righteous suffer.
Prophecy: Many people think of prophets as people who primarily tell the future, but in fact, the primary function of the prophets in the Old Testament (there are no New Testament examples of prophetic writing--Revelation is apocalyptic, not prophetic) is to speak to the people of their day. Nevertheless, a good deal of prophetic material does deal with the future in some way, and specific principles for interpreting prophecy help to make the prophetic books understandable. Before attempting to interpret a passage from one of the prophets, it is vital to have a good understanding of the historical situation, since the prophets were speaking to people who had a thorough understanding of the times and felt no need to elaborate upon the contemporary setting.
1. Readers must recognize the nonsystematic character of the prophetic writings.
  - Example: The book of Jeremiah is perhaps the least systematic of the prophetic books. Material is grouped thematically rather than chronologically. For example, all of the oracles against foreign nations are grouped together.
2. Parallel prophecies must be considered before a reader attempts to apply a prophecy to a specific historical or contemporary situation.
  - Example: the Davidic messiah (Isa 11:1-10; Jer 22:24-30; Hag 2:23; Matt 1:12): Isaiah envisions a Davidic messiah as ruling over Israel. Jeremiah sees a future for Judah, but he specifically rejects the descendants of Jehoiachin (Coniah) from the picture. Haggai, on the other hand, says that Zerubbabel is the chosen leader (the signet ring), and Matthew agrees with Chronicles in seeing Zerubbabel as a direct descendant of Jehoiachin.
3. The essence of the prophetic passage must be considered when reading books of prophecy.
  1. Is the passage didactic or predictive?
    - Example: "out of Egypt I called my son" (Hos 11:1): The context of this passage shows that it is clearly a description of history, and thus didactic, not predictive, despite its use in Matt 2:15 (see below).
  2. Is the passage conditional or unconditional? Most passages are conditional, regardless of whether the condition is stated explicitly. Since the prophets were more concerned with changing the behavior of the people to whom they were speaking than telling the future, it is natural to assume that the events foretold in most prophecies could change if the people's actions and attitudes changed.
    - Example: "Zion shall be plowed as a field" (Mic 3:12; cf. Jer 26:16-19): The text of Micah gives no explicit indication that this or any other prophecy in the book is conditional. Nevertheless, since the prophecy was not fulfilled in the context in which Micah was speaking (the Assyrian crisis), Jeremiah's contemporaries understood that because the people repented, under the leadership of Hezekiah and Josiah, God had spared the city. The message of the book of Jonah seems to confirm this general principle, for Jonah certainly believed that God could decide not to destroy the city of Nineveh after threatening to.
  3. Is the passage fulfilled or unfulfilled? Many modern readers try to read current events into the prophecies of the past, often without realizing that the prophecies have already been fulfilled in the distant past, usually in the prophet's time or close to it.
    - Example: "you shall call his name Immanuel" (Isa 7:3-17; 8:1-8): When one reads the entire context of the Immanuel prophecy (Isa 7:14), it is clear that the prophecy refers not to a future messiah but to a child born in Isaiah's day. The birth of the child was a sign to King Ahaz that the Syro-Ephraimitic War, in which Aram and Israel joined forces to try to put an anti-Assyrian partisan on the throne of Judah in place of Ahaz, would not last long. Before the child was old enough to know right from wrong, Aram and Israel would be destroyed. Chapter 8 even tells who the child was who fulfilled the prophecy: Isaiah's son Maher-shalal-hash-baz (cf. 8:3-4, 8). Similarly, prophecies about Israel's restoration to the land (e.g., Ezek 36:8-12; 37:24-28) were fulfilled at the end of the Babylonian exile in 538 B.C.E., not in 1948 C.E. when the modern state of Israel was formed.
4. Prophecies that are reapplied to events or people outside the original context should be seen as re-readings of the text rather than multiple fulfillment of the original prophecy. The word usually translated "fulfilled," especially in Matthew, should actually be translated "filled" (i.e., with new meaning). "Filled" is the primary meaning of the Greek verb; "fulfilled" is a secondary meaning.
  - Example: "you shall call his name Immanuel" (Matt 1:23): Matthew takes Isaiah's prophecy concerning Immanuel (Isa 7:14), which, according to the book of Isaiah itself, was fulfilled in the eighth century B.C.E., and reapplies it to the birth of Jesus. From the gospel writer's perspective, Jesus was even more "God with us" than Maher-shalal-hash-baz, so it was appropriate to re-read Isaiah in this way.
  - Example: "out of Egypt I called my son" (Matt 2:15): Here Matthew takes a non-predictive passage from Hosea and reapplies it to the circumstances surrounding the early life of Jesus. In its original context, Hos 11:1 is clearly a historical portrait of the exodus event, but Matthew re-reads it so that the scripture is "filled with new meaning."
  - Example: Melchizedek as a symbolic forerunner of Christ (Heb 7:1-3): The author of Hebrews see parallels between the enigmatic Old Testament figure Melchizedek and Jesus, and he makes the most of these parallels. Like Jesus, the author says, Melchizedek is "king of righteousness" and "king of peace." Both are also "without father, without mother, without genealogy." The author is not contending that Melchizedek had no parents, but only that since they are not mentioned in Genesis, the parallel with Jesus is greater (did the author of Hebrews agree with the genealogies for Jesus given in Matthew and Luke?).
5. Some prophetic passages have apocalyptic elements, such as extensive symbolism, which must be taken into account when interpreting the passage.
  - Example: angel, chariots, horses (Zech 6:1-8): The extensive symbolism of this passage and others in Zechariah indicate that the book incorporates many apocalyptic elements, which should obviously be treated non-literally.
6. Prophecy dealing with the eschatological kingdom treats the future in an idealized way and should not be construed literally.
  - Example: hills flowing with wine and a city of gold (Amos 9:13-15; Rev 21:18): These descriptions of the eschatological kingdom, whether on earth or in heaven, use figurative language to describe the beauty and bounty of the kingdom ruled directly by God.
7. Every prophetic message, even those dealing with eschatology, speak primarily to the people of the prophet's day.
  - Example: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Isa 9:2-7): Though this familiar passage from Isaiah refers to a future messianic king and the establishment of a righteous rule on earth, it is intended primarily for an eighth-century audience that was facing the oppressive presence of the Assyrian armies in their land. The prophecy gives hope to those who "walk in darkness."
Apocalyptic material: Two full-blown apocalypses are in the Bible, Daniel and Revelation. Other books, like Ezekiel and Zechariah, contain some material that is apocalyptic. Many non-canonical apocalypses, both Jewish and Christian, exist. Studies of this broader collection of apocalypses show that most (90% or more) have an otherworldly mediator (e.g., an angel) of the divine revelation and a human recipient, are pseudonymous (i.e., they claim that a famous figure of the past is the author, like Enoch or Ezra), and deal with both general eschatology and a personal afterlife. Many also involve an otherworldly journey (e.g., to heaven), stark dualism (e.g., God vs. Satan, the present age vs. the future age), and employ elaborate symbolism. All these factors should be taken into account when interpreting apocalyptic material. The biblical apocalypses employ elaborate symbolism that must be interpreted as contemporary readers would have understood it, not according to some modern rubric. Like prophecy, all apocalyptic material is intended for an audience contemporary with the composition of the apocalypse.
- Example: Medes, Persians, and Greeks (Dan 8:3-14): In this passage, the ram with two horns represents the Medes (the smaller horn) and the Persians (the larger horn). The male goat from the west is Greece, and the large horn on its head is Alexander the Great. The four horns that replace the large horn are Alexander's four generals, the Diadochi, among whom the kingdom was divided after Alexander's untimely death. The little horn that grows later is Antiochus Epiphanes. The historical details barely hidden beneath the symbolism clearly reveal the meaning of the symbols, and attempts to twist this passage to refer to any modern nations are unjustified.
- Example: "666" (Rev 13:18): This number has been the subject of much modern speculation, with many ludicrous interpretations. One author in the 1980s suggested that it referred to Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each name)! However, keeping in mind the rule that apocalyptic material had to be meaningful to the people of the day, the number almost certainly refers to the Roman emperor Nero, whose name spelled in Hebrew letters adds up to 666 (the Jews, like the Greeks, had no distinct symbols for numbers, so they used letters instead). Interestingly, a textual variant that appears in a few witnesses reads 616 instead of 666, and a different spelling of Nero's name yields this number.

By familiarizing yourself with both the general hermeneutical principles and those principles that are specific to different types of material, you as a reader will be better able to see the original readers' understanding of a biblical passage. When we understand the original context better, we are better able to apply the passage to the present time.

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